Mary's Take on the Capital Improvement Plan

Note: this information is current as of the May 25, 2021 School Board Work Session.

On June 24, the School Board will vote on its latest Capital Improvement Plan (CIP). The CIP describes major capital projects, such as new schools and school additions, as well as major maintenance and minor construction projects.

Normally, the CIP covers a ten-year time span and is updated and approved every two years. However, because of economic uncertainties created by the pandemic, last year the School Board approved a one-year CIP for FY2021, and this year’s CIP will only cover three years (FY2022-24). Beginning next year, we can expect a return to the normal ten-year cycle.

The Superintendent presented his proposed CIP on May 6; working off of the Superintendent’s document, the School Board will present its own CIP next week on June 3. It will hold a public hearing on June 10 in advance of its vote to approve a CIP on 6/24.

The three-year CIP currently under development proposes funding for a number of projects, including:
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• Kitchen renovations at eight schools: Campbell, Swanson, Drew, Randolph, Barrett, Carlin Springs, ASFS and Ashlawn. Five of these schools serve a student population in which more than 50% of students are eligible for free and reduced-price meals. Many of these students eat both breakfast and lunch at school, and improvements to the kitchens would also add serving lines. Cost: $25.18M. (Note: this cost includes modest expansion of the building for all schools listed except Randolph.)
• More secure entryways at seven schools: Langston, Kenmore, Long Branch, Hoffman-Boston, Tuckahoe, Jamestown, and Nottingham. This will enhance the safety of students and staff at these schools by ensuring that all visitors must check in at the main office. Cost: $1.78M.
• Replacing synthetic turf fields at four schools: Wakefield, W-L, Yorktown, and Williamsburg. The County would share in this expense since the fields are used by the community as well. APS share: $2.41M.
• Adding accessibility features, parking, and a synthetic turf field at The Heights building (HB Woodlawn and the Shriver program). This would add 11 disability parking spaces and 64 general parking spaces in an underground garage topped by a synthetic turf field. It also provides improved, protected access to the building for Shriver students and their caregivers--elements that should have been in place when the facility opened in 2019. Cost: $14.24M.
• Redevelopment of the site currently housing the Arlington Career Center, Arlington Community High School, and the Montessori Public School of Arlington: APS has a plan (different from the Career Center plan it explored a couple of years ago) to add middle and high school seats at this site. This plan would construct a new 1,700-seat Career Center building in the middle of the property on the footprint of the current parking lot and the Fenwick Building, which currently houses ACHS and which would need to be demolished. The Montessori building would be torn down so that there is a full-sized field on that part of the property. Montessori would move over to the current Career Center building, which would be repurposed and have a playing field added. It looks like this:​

Under the plan, all Montessori PreK would move to this location and it adds a Montessori middle school program serving up to 175 students (71 of whom are currently at Gunston), for a comprehensive PreK-8 Montessori experience onsite.

It also expands the existing Arlington Tech option high school program into middle school grades: up to 450 Arlington Tech middle school seats would be created.

The number of full-time students enrolled in the Career Center’s various programs would increase from 513 (September 2020) to 1,400. And the number of part-time seats for CTE students from other schools who take a class at the Career Center would increase from 183 to 300.

The Arlington Community High School students (usual annual enrollment is approximately 285 students) would be relocated to a site not yet identified. It’s worth noting that this program has been moved three times in the last 20 years.

Including all the projects on the CIP wishlist would require voters to approve a $23.01M bond referendum next November and a $133.59M bond referendum in November 2022. It would increase debt service payments to more than 10% of APS's annual operating budget by FY2025--the same year that we are projecting a $111M gap between revenues and expenditures. It’s unclear whether the County would approve a move to exceed the 10% debt service ratio cap that’s been in place for some time.

Because of this, APS has developed two CIP alternative scenarios as follows:

• What it calls Scenario #3: Dropping kitchen renovations at Drew, Randolph, Barrett, Carlin Springs, ASFS, and Ashlawn; Dropping improvements at The Heights building (including needed accessibility improvements). Requires a $6.2M bond in Nov '21 and a Nov '22 bond referendum for $122.94M OR
• What it calls Scenario #4: Dropping the kitchen improvements listed in the bullet above; Dropping funding for all Major Infrastructure Projects after Spring 2022 (HVAC, roofing, windows, electrical); Keeping improvements at The Heights. Requires a $17.51M bond in Nov '21 and a Nov '22 bond referendum for $108.99M.

Here are the questions I’d like the School Board to ask, and/or the public to ask at the June 10 CIP public hearing:

 1. If the critical shortage we’re trying to address is middle school seats (deficit of 703 seats by FY27-28), what happened to the design studies on expanding Gunston and Kenmore that were presented to the School Board in April 2020? Each would add more than 500 seats at a fraction of the cost estimated for Career Center redevelopment (Gunston = $50M, which could be Montessori MS seats; Kenmore = $20M).

2. None of the scenarios currently contemplated for the three-year CIP includes accelerated upgrades for HVAC--and in what APS is calling Scenario #4, funding for routine HVAC replacement is eliminated after Spring 2022. Given community concerns about ventilation and filtration in school buildings, is this wise?

3. Looking at the CIP through an equity lens: if we eliminate funding for all HVAC, roofing, electrical, and windows upgrades after Spring 2022, which schools will be affected?

4. What’s the line-item breakdown for the $14.24M needed for improvements at The Heights? At various times, this has been described as parking, stormwater management, accessibility improvements, and the need for a playing field. What are the specific costs related to each of these elements? In particular, what is the specific cost related to the accessibility improvements, which are essential? What would be the cost difference if APS leased parking at one of the many nearby commercial parking garages vs. constructing 64 general parking spaces underground?

5. A really critical question asked by Reid Goldstein in the May 25 work session: If we do all these things, how much funding do we have left for anything else in a ten-year timespan (like necessary renovations to our older and/or overcapacity elementary schools)? The answer right now is “We don’t know,” because we don’t have the County revenue projections for ten years out, which are essential to figuring out APS’s overall bond capacity. Those ten-year County revenue projections should be available next year, when we’re a little farther out from the pandemic.

​6. What would redevelopment of the property containing ACHS, Montessori and the Career Center really cost? The $184.7M figure is likely low. Wouldn’t we like to know before we approve this CIP?

There are several things I like about the proposed redevelopment of that property, not the least of which is providing needed relief for the 300+ students currently housed in relocatables and providing upgrades that will enhance CTE and Arlington Tech instruction. However, there are too many unknowns right now for me to feel comfortable forging ahead. It seems like it would make more sense to take one more year to vet this plan and include it in next year’s ten-year CIP. An additional year would allow us to answer the following questions:

• What will our bond capacity be for the next ten years, and what other projects would we be able to accommodate if we move ahead with the Career Center/Montessori/ACHS redevelopment?
• What are the true costs of the Career Center/Montessori/ACHS redevelopment? A Design Study should be done.
• Where will Arlington Community High School students go? This should be confirmed before we approve any plan that would move this school yet again.
• What do projected seat deficits at the middle and high school levels look like after the pandemic? Right now we’re using December 2019 projections.
• Are there a combination of other, more cost-effective measures we could take that would enhance instruction for current Career Center students and add needed seats at the secondary level, possibly at other sites? We should see alternatives. We could also benefit from further research on whether/how virtual learning could figure into secondary instruction for students who want it, full-time or part-time.

I am also a little worried about approaching voters with a record-high $166.6M in bond referendums over the next two years in light of the frustration and anger that some members of our community are feeling about schooling during the pandemic. Arlington voters have traditionally been very generous about supporting our schools with bond funding, but this past year has been exceptional in many ways. Funding all the elements of the three-year CIP except the Career Center/Montessori/ACHS redevelopment would require only $48.42M in bonds in 2021 and 2022, which might be a more reasonable ask and might give us the time we need to answer the questions raised above.