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The Pleasanton Unified School District Board of Trustees will cover an array of items from district financial matters to facilities updates during their only regular online meeting scheduled for this month, starting 7 p.m. Thursday.
One of the lead items for that evening is a report and discussion on proposed alternative options for the planned grades 4 and 5 school at the Donlon Elementary site — dubbed the “E-10” school — including a newly developed alternative proposal.
The E10 school is one of PUSD’s landmark projects, funded by the $270 million Measure I1 bond. The board began reconsidering plans for the school last spring and asked staff to take a closer look at the project, prompted by enrollment growth that hadn’t developed as expected when the school was first planned.
Last month, staff and the majority of school board members agreed the best course of action was building the E-10 school as planned and submitting plans to the Division of the State Architect for approval.
The Trustees directed staff to return in November with another report on the options so they could do a “more detailed analysis” before making a final decision.
The original alternatives would mean not building the E-10 school at all, which the district said would not solve the current problem of overflow nor meet their objectives. Administration has also explored adding classroom and facilities to existing PUSD sites to accommodate attendance area students, or adjusting the elementary school boundary.
The newest option involves “increasing capacity at Lydiksen to handle the planned enrollment increases west of the 680 freeway” as well as a “rebalance” of the five elementary schools in the district’s northern area “with slight boundary adjustments and some capacity increases (4-6 classrooms).”
Each school would have 700 to 800 students enrolled, and Mohr Elementary would remain at its current capacity.
The new alternative also proposes setting aside $35 million from future Measure I1 bond sales ” for the construction of a 10th elementary or K-8 school that would be part of a future East Pleasanton project,” with land provided by the developer.
“Combined with the developer fee funds, the district would now have both the land and funds to fully build out an 10th elementary school to handle future enrollment growth and properly plan for that process rather than be reactive,” staff said in a report.
The board is expected to give staff direction after hearing about the benefits, drawbacks and fiscal implications of the most recent option.
In other business
* Several items related to reopening PUSD sites in January will be brought to the Board on Thursday, starting with a contract for monthly COVID testing for all district essential workers.
The Alameda County Department of Public Health has recommended testing all essential workers in the district at least once per month. In order to provide on-site testing, PUSD administration has suggested entering an agreement with Curative Labs, Inc. to provide test kits and lab testing services.
Test kits and lab testing would be provided at no cost to the district or employees. Per a state-issued directive earlier this year, all testing would be billed to employees’ insurance carriers instead.
PUSD will be responsible for coordinating and administering on-site testing, including determining the days, hours and locations of testing. Tests would be given “at a central location at the district office” using staff hired to administer the testing program, with work overseen by Student Services.
Staff could also request additional testing, if needed. Estimated test results turnaround time is approximately 48 hours.
Looking at how to best prepare for students returning to school in the new year, the Trustees are also poised to approve the purchase of stand-alone room-based air purifiers with HEPA filtration that would be installed in classrooms after a bid was recently published.
The board meeting precedes the Nov. 16 proposal due date, prompting staff to request a one time delegation of authority to Superintendent David Haglund or his designee to award the bid to the lowest responsive bidder.
Purchases costs “will vary depending on the quantities of purifiers that will be purchased, but individual purifiers that meet the district’s requirements are estimated to cost between $400-750 per unit,” staff said.
Approximately 750 units total will be needed: 250 for elementary school classrooms, 400 units in secondary schools and 100 units for other campus locations. The total cost “should not exceed” $600,000, according to staff. CARES Act funding would be used to purchase the units.
With remote learning expected to continue for some students the rest of this year, PUSD is also looking at purchasing webcams, headsets, external monitors and other technology to support teachers.
“The pandemic has introduced new instructional technology needs as our teachers and students have pivoted to fully virtual classrooms,” staff said. “As we plan our school reopening, new technologies will also be needed to support hybrid classroom models.”
Some items teachers recently said would be helpful include “second devices or external monitors that will support simultaneous screen sharing of content and viewing of the full Zoom or Meet galleries of students”, “webcams that can capture panoramic views of the physical classroom/teaching walls with associated stands/tripods,” and “conference mics that support the capture of audio from multiple sources in a physical classroom environment.”
Teachers also mentioned “headsets with built-in mics that support the audio capture and playback, to be assigned individually to a student in order to avoid the use of shared devices in hybrid classrooms and to provide more focus to students at home.”
The purchases would be funded by either the CARES Act/Learning Mitigation Funds or district General Fund at a cost not to exceed $1 million.
* The board is expected to vote Thursday on establishing a high-yielding trust fund to manage the district’s long term debt associated with retirement benefits.
An actuarial study presented last month found PUSD’s current total liability for accrued other post-employment benefits (OPEB) including medical and dental plans at $22,318,146.
By establishing an OPEB Trust with a return rate of 6% — instead of the current 1% through the Alameda County treasury — the district would be able to mitigate their liability, according to staff. PUSD’s Fund 20 has around $6.7 million that could be transferred to the trust.
PUSD will also be able to pay its annual pay-as-you-go costs while reducing liabilities and earning more money from the investment.
* Compensation increases for the PUSD executive cabinet will be considered this week. The board postponed the pay raises in May, shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic and sheltering orders started, and agreed to revisit the matter during fall.
The proposal calls for “a comparable 2.75% compensation increase for the members of Pleasanton Unified School District’s Executive Cabinet for the 2019-20 fiscal year,” noting “such increase shall be incorporated as an addendum to the employee’s existing contracts.”
Before you guys go spend $600,000 on fancy air purifiers, why don’t you investigate how loud they are when they are operating. It would be a shame if they were too loud for a classroom setting and the teachers would be forced to turn them off making them an expensive brick.
“The new alternative also proposes setting aside $35 million from future Measure I1 bond sales . . . “ This is another way to hang on to $35MM and not build a school. Where is the funding for “4-6 classroom” additions coming from? Either build E10 or do not bond the $35MM, as was promised.
Before building a school, you need to calculate everything better. I recently wrote a paper on how educational budgets are formed, and the situation is sometimes dire. I used the educational resource https://uk.edubirdie.com/buy-assignment-online to describe the analytical part of my assignment as it was hard. And seeing a lot of educational projects, I understood that to make serious decisions in the distribution of educational resources, you need to consider the consequences of spending that much money.