Debate heats up over schools master plan

Members of the Keep Improving Douglas Schools Committee, which spearheaded passage of the continuation bond in 2008, are questioning the effectiveness of the school district's new facilities master plan that includes a proposal to close a Valley middle school.

"There is not enough detail in the plan as I've seen it," Cheryl Blomstrom, parent and chair of the KIDS Committee, said last week. "Withholding final judgment until I see more details, I believe that right now, it's way too generic."

A town hall meeting to discuss the plan, which was developed by MGT of America for $200,000, will be 5 p.m. Thursday at Carson Valley Middle School.

"There will be discussion on what people feel good about and what they don't feel good about, and what impact that will have on final board recommendations," said MGT Senior Partner Ed Humble.

Humble said that so far, he's received mixed feedback from the community about proposals in the plan. He said MGT will be providing more details about the pros and cons of each recommendation at the meeting; however, he said the recommendations themselves haven't changed since the preliminary plan was first revealed Feb. 2.

As written, the plan calls for three phases over the next 10 years totaling about $58 million.

Phase 1 would include renovating and expanding Pinon Hills, Meneley, Gardnerville and Jacks Valley elementary schools.

Phase 2 would entail renovating Douglas High School to accommodate incoming ninth-graders, closing one middle school, and renovating the other for the Valley's seventh- and eighth-grade students. In addition, one elementary school in the Valley would be converted into a kindergarten to eighth-grade school, while the empty middle school would be used for administrative offices, professional development and a possible career and technical education center.

Phase 3 would consist of converting Whittell High School at the Lake into a kindergarten to 12th-grade school, and renovating Scarselli Elementary in the Valley.

Blomstrom said KIDS members met with MGT to share committee recommendations formulated during the 2008 bond campaign. She said in that election campaign, the KIDS Committee formed a trusting relationship with the public about project priorities.

"The first thing was safety, things that could hurt someone, like the gas lines at GES," she said. "I'm waiting to see if our recommendations were included in the master plan, but so far I don't know."

Blomstrom said moving ninth-graders to the high school may be a good idea, but that health and safety issues need to be addressed first.

"I'm not sure putting ninth-graders in the high school falls into that rubric," she said. "The KIDS Committee did a better job gathering input than what I've seen in the master plan. Our voters demand that kind of accuracy. I really hope there is more detail in the final report."

Blomstrom, who lives in north county, said closing a middle school, presumably Carson Valley Middle School, would require north-based students to travel "a heck of a long way" to Pau-Wa-Lu Middle School.

"That productivity loss for parents is kind of scary," she said.

Lawrence Howell, vice chair of the KIDS Committee and county commission candidate, said he's disappointed the district spent $200,000 on the plan.

"At the Lake, the district closed Kingsbury Middle School, and it didn't take a $200,000 consultant to tell us how to do it," Howell said Thursday. "The devil is in the details, and this thing has way too many details not ferreted out."

Like Blomstrom, Howell said he's concerned the plan doesn't take into account the KIDS Committee's recommendations.

"What does this say to the voters, the people who passed the bond?" he said. "We gave our word to not only promote bond passage, but to stay on top of enforcement."

Howell said some recommendations in the plan are so significant they require committees of their own.

"It takes more than a 46-page power-point to do all these things, like combining Whittell into a K-12 school," Howell said. "I would never approve a plan of this magnitude without breaking it down into steps and getting the stake-holders of each step involved."

In defense of MGT, Humble said he respectfully disagrees with Howell and Blomstrom's assessments.

"I believe we can point to every place that we have their recommendations," he said. "They're looking at details, and had some very specific things like fixing a boiler. That wasn't the intent of this study. This gives you a road-map of what to do first and how best to implement what the voters approved. The details for each school are going to come when the plans are made for each school. Let me back up, I don't disagree - there's just a difference in what the goals are."

Humble said MGT's research backs up their recommendation to close a middle school in the Valley.

"There was lot of concern about moving sixth-graders to the elementary schools and a lot of positive concern about moving ninth-graders to the high school," he said. "With just the seventh- and eighth-grades, the fact of the matter is that it would be doing a disservice to the public, especially in a time of difficult financial circumstances, to keep two middle schools open when you could better operate, still in a good educational environment, in one middle school. With the number of students and numbers projected for a year and 10 years out, there isn't any compelling reason to spend money on the operational costs of two middle schools."

Humble also responded to criticism that the master plan should be specific about which middle school to close, instead of calling for more studies.

"It's a fair comment for discussion, but when we wrote the contract and work-plan for the study, it was a high-level study," he said. "It's really difficult to make a decision without a deeper level assessment to see which one would have more cost-effectiveness as a middle school and more cost-effectiveness for district services."

On Thursday, School Board Chair Teri Jamin said she hopes the public turns out for the Feb. 25 meeting "to ensure consistency with the list of improvements put together in the bond measure, and also to assist in putting together the recommendations of the final plan and prioritizing their implementation."

Jamin said the board has requested more data on the pros and cons of each recommendation.

"I think the additional information will help address concerns of the consistency with the bond measure," she said.

Jamin said 200 pages of appendices, along with the plan itself, can be viewed on the district's Web site at http://dcsd.k12.nv.us.

"Really, the reason we wanted three meetings is that it's such an important issue," she said. "The first meeting was to introduce the plan, the second to gather public input, and the third meeting (March 9) to make a decision."

On Feb. 9, school board members voted unanimously to issue $15 million in general obligation bonds, which voters authorized in 2008 under the continuation bond measure.

District Chief Financial Officer Holly Luna said the $15 million in bonds will allow her department to line up funding concurrent with the board's decision on the master plan recommendations.

School board members questioned whether $15 million would be enough if they decide to bump Douglas High's $23 million renovation for ninth-graders to the top of the list.

Luna said the district can issue more bonds if necessary.

"I would be uncomfortable moving forward beyond $15 million," she said.

She also said the district has around $2-3 million in its pay-as-you-go account.

"$15 million is a reasonable expectation regardless of projects and priorities," Luna said.