PUSD trustees to review plans for redesigning Donlon site as two schools

A design scheme for the new fourth/fifth grade school that’s being planned on a portion of the Donlon Elementary School site will be brought to the Pleasanton Unified School District Board of Trustees for possible approval this week.

Conceptual renderings of the proposal will be presented during the board’s regular meeting on Tuesday night, beginning at 7 p.m. in the PUSD administration headquarters, 4556 Bernal Ave.

Since December 2018, the trustees and administrators have developed plans and a $49.5 million budget for a separate school site at Donlon — currently called “E10,” as the district’s 10th elementary campus — that will exclusively serve about 500 students in grades 4-5.

The existing Donlon school will convert to a K-3 school with a projected enrollment of about 700 students. PUSD spokesman Patrick Gannon told the Weekly that the entire site’s capacity will increase to approximately 1,200 students when the new school is completed.

The new school will face the corner of Denker Drive and Payne Road, on the backside of the existing Donlon campus, and will be separated by a large playfield.

Five buildings will be constructed including three classroom buildings with shared collaborative spaces, counseling offices and a staff lounge. Administrative offices and student services such as a library and media center, multipurpose room, music room, and covered lunch area will be housed in two other structures.

The E10 Elementary School Committee, which includes a spectrum of PUSD staff and Donlon families and neighbors, worked with Campbell-based Sugimura Finney Architects to come up with the E10 design concept last year.

Measure I1 bond revenue will fund the project, which does not include an additional $6.34 million for traffic mitigation or the kids club expansion cost in the budget at this time. If the project passes this week, it will move into design development before being submitted for review to the Division of State Architect by fall.

Groundbreaking is scheduled for summer 2021, with the school opening for the 2022-23 school year. Gannon said students may need to be temporarily relocated while construction is underway but that the district will “work to minimize impacts for our school communities.”

In other business

* A presentation and hearing will be held at Tuesday’s meeting to discuss possibly implementing an online monitoring program intended for student safety, according to PUSD.

With online learning becoming more common, administrators said they “have a need to ensure that students are safe in these spaces” and will consider “24/7 real-time computer-based and human monitoring” as a potential solution.

“Students engage in a variety of online activities that can provide indicators of thoughts or intentions to participate in behaviors that are unsafe to themselves or other students,” district staff wrote in a report. “There are now solutions available that can routinely monitor student activity in district-provided learning spaces to identify these types of online behaviors and interactions.

A committee of PUSD staff and community members will explore using two services called Gaggle and Securly for monitoring district-issued Google accounts “to identify activity patterns that could indicate that a student is considering harm to self or others.”

Flagged activity would be reviewed by a person to help “determine appropriate response based on a risk assessment,” with individual communication protocols for various risk scenarios.

Money for the pilot program has been allocated from the Sycamore tech fund. The committee will start meeting next month and is expected to give its recommendation to the Board in March.

* The Board will receive results from the district’s spring 2019 “Physical Fitness Test” (PFT) on Tuesday.

The California Department of Education requires that all public school students in grades 5, 7 and 9 take the PFT. Six areas of fitness are tested including aerobic capacity, body composition, abdominal strength and endurance, trunk extensor strength and flexibility, upper body strength and endurance, and overall flexibility.

* Among the consent agenda items pending Board action on Tuesday evening is a proposed $48,282 contract with Dale Butterworth Pools to replace two diving boards and stands at Foothill High School that “are beyond use and are unsafe,” according to PUSD.

The replacements will be paid by the general fund and are being expedited for completion before the swimming season starts. Plans are also underway to replace the remaining diving boards at Foothill and Amador Valley; bidding for that project will take place this summer.

* The trustees will also vote on a $27,945 service contract with REC Solar for recently completed work to seal coat temporary parking spaces in the Amador Valley parking lot facing Santa Rita Road.

Last summer workers built several new solar panel structures and reconfigured the parking lot as part of a Prop 39 funded project to help the district save on energy costs. The contract will be paid from the deferred maintenance fund.

* A ceremony honoring recipients of this year’s Dreammakers and Risktakers Award will happen at the start of Tuesday’s meeting. Hosted by the Innovation Tri-Valley Leadership Group, the annual awards “salutes student innovators from the Tri-Valley region whose ideas hold the promise to change the world” and “who are innovating the future as they fearlessly pursue their dreams.”