Lincoln Public Schools: Highlights of 9/18 Lincoln Board of Education work session

The Lincoln Board of Education met for a work session on Tuesday, Sept. 18, at Lincoln Public Schools District Office, 5905 O St.  The Board will hold its next work session on Tuesday, Oct. 7. 

The Lincoln Board of Education met for the second of six scheduled work sessions to fully analyze facility proposals, likely trimming the recommendations from the Superintendent’s Facility Advisory Committee (SFAC) to $250-290 million – an amount which would fund a potential bond issue within the existing bond levy of 16.1 cents.  The Board will likely consider passing a possible resolution in November for a bond issue in 2020.

SFAC was a group of 100 Lincoln stakeholders who met for months to analyze long-range facility and infrastructure needs to envision schools of the future and ensure that LPS wisely accommodates student growth into the next 7-10 years.  They presented their final recommendations to the superintendent and Board in August.

The work session embraced three major topics:

Infrastructure

The Superintendent’s Facility Advisory Committee recommended 10-20 percent of a future bond issue be used on existing facilities infrastructure needs – and the Board started a discussion for the appropriate amount.

Indoor Air Quality projects

SFAC also recommended completing indoor air quality projects at Park Middle School and Everett Elementary School (as well as adding geothermal heating and cooling to each school).  Park students will likely stay onsite during renovations, while LPS is still considering whether or not Everett children will stay at school during renovations.

Estimated costs for these projects are:

• Park Indoor Air Quality project at a cost of $32,463,762 – with an estimated annual utility savings: $132,180.
• Everett Indoor Air Quality project at a cost of $15,350,913 – with an estimated annual utility savings of $69,312

High schools

Current numbers show that high schools at LPS are overcapacity. Ideal enrollment is 1,850 to 1,900 students and five of the six high schools are over 2,000 – two high schools are expected to be over 2,300 during the 2019-2020 school.

Northwest and southeast Lincoln are two areas that have significant numbers of students who currently do not reside within three miles of an existing high school. Recommendations from SFAC include building additional high school capacity in these two areas. This recommendation also lines up with existing Board policy on guidelines for building new schools.

Staff presented a variety of ways to sequence the construction of two possible new high schools in Lincoln.  Different scenarios include:

• Build two 1,000-student buildings with a bond issue in 2020 at a cost of $134.7 million, then adding the capacity for them to become 2,000-student buildings in another bond issue approximately seven years later – for a total cost of $225.6 million.
• Building two full-sized 2,000-student buildings after the next bond issue at a total cost of $209.7 million

The Board also heard additional information about athletics and activities. SFAC proposed adding high school athletic complexes at both new high schools – with considerable savings for locating these complexes on high school sites due to the sharing of parking lots and other resources. The recommendations from SFAC also include adding new turf to the existing high school athletic fields.

The next work session will address elementary and middle schools, exploring K-8 facilities, and program improvements at existing middle schools.

Click here to find video of all the work sessions.

 

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