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The Pleasanton school board is set Thursday to consider appointing community members, parents and school representatives to an advisory committee that will review district properties that no longer might be needed for school purposes.
According to a district staff report, the Board of Trustees will be voting to appoint nine individuals to the 7-11 District Advisory Committee during the upcoming regular board meeting.
The committee will look at district properties like the existing district office located at 4665 Bernal Ave., and the Neal Property located off Vineyard Avenue between Thiessen Street and Manoir Lane, to see whether the district can still make use of the space or if it should sell.
“In Pleasanton Unified School District, similar to all districts in California, a major asset category is real property, which includes land and school facilities,” the district staff report read. “It is the district’s fiduciary responsibility to maximize these assets, ensuring they are utilized efficiently and effectively so as to achieve long-term financial stability and continue to provide exceptional learning opportunities for all students.”
But before the district can do that, it needs to form the advisory committee at Thursday’s meeting so that the community has some input over the decision making process.
The committee, per education code, is required to be made up of no less than seven and no more than 11 citizens who cover an extensive demographic makeup of the district.
Some of the representative requirements include: ethnic and socioeconomic composition of the district; landowners or renters; parents, teachers and administrators; and residents who have expertise in environmental impact, legal contracts, building codes and land use planning.
“The education code generally charges the committee with reviewing projected enrollment and other information provided by the district, determining the limits of tolerance of use of surplus space and real property, and presenting a recommendation to the school board regarding use or disposition of such property,” according to the staff report.
Some of the applicants who staff are recommending for the committee include: Councilmember Kathy Narum, who is labeled as a land planning expert in the report; Joshua Butterfield, director of secondary education for the district; and several other teachers, administrators and longtime residents and parents.
The board’s open-session meeting is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. Thursday (Nov. 10). Read the full agenda here.
In other business
* With Hart Middle School’s new portable science building project under construction, the board will be discussing a lease amendment to start painting the project.
Construction of a new science building at Hart was originally a goal listed in the 2016 Measure I1 bond as an objective within the 21st Century Classroom scope. Funding for this project was outlined in the approved Facilities Master Plan with a total budget of $11.4 million.
The $450,458.42 funds for the painting project will, however, come out of the Routine Restricted Maintenance instead of Measure I1 funds, according to the staff report.
Now that construction is underway, a color scheme was selected for the building by Hart Principal Caroline Fields, staff and the school board’s facilities committee.
“Many of the existing buildings have exposed Concrete Masonry Unit (CMU) wall construction and they were sealed many years ago and not painted,” the staff report read. “It was agreed to power wash and reseal the CMU instead of painting over the existing colored CMU walls. By repainting and resealing the buildings, the school will have weather coatings that will last many more years.”
The painting work is scheduled around school hours and is slated for completion in mid-December this year.
* The board will also be set to approve two notices of completion for the fire alarm upgrade and Foothill High School drop off zone improvement projects as part of its consent calendar during Thursday’s meeting.
One of the other projects listed in the 2016 Measure I1 bond was to upgrade the fire alarm systems at all schools for consistency and student safety. The board will be looking at a change order and notice completion for upgrades at Donlon Elementary School, Walnut Grove Elementary School and Harvest Park Middle School.
“These projects will bring these school sites up to the current building code standards for fire alarms,” according to the staff report.
The change order includes a slight change to the initial budget with $92,713 more coming out of Measure I1 funds. However, the total funds still fall within budget despite the change order.
The reason for the order was because of some issues that were addressed with existing devices and technology at Harvest Park.
According to the staff report: 54 additional devices were needed in the portables due to the existing detection devices being incompatible with the existing system; 24 devices needed to be installed and cabled due to the as-built drawings not reflecting the proper conditions; and two additional amplifiers and circuits were required due to the cable routing and added devices.
The second notice of completion was for a project at Foothill to improve the landscape along the drop-off zone adjacent to the senior parking area.
The district had entered into an agreement with Gates and Associates, a landscape architecture firm, to design the project as part of an ongoing improvement of Foothill.
According to the notice of completion document, the work of improvement consisted of clearing the existing landscape, adjusting existing utility boxes, and then installing synthetic turf, an irrigation system, mulch, trees, plants and benches.
The staff report stated that as of Nov. 4, Westside Landscape and Concrete, Inc., a concrete contractor, completed the landscape work and the 90-day maintenance period for the project.
