We know people have a lot of questions. Having worked towards this bond since 2015, we have a lot of answers -- probably more information than most people want. Below, we’ve tried to anticipate your most likely questions:
After years of deliberation, our 6-town school board has come together to overwhelmingly support this bond project. The proposal offers a careful, strategic investment in our school system that will update two of our largest buildings so that they may continue to offer excellent learning and growth opportunities to the next generation of our community’s children. Every child in our district over the next 25+ years will benefit from this investment. For a more detailed answer, click here.
Here’s a link to a detailed list of what’s included in the bond.
These drawings give a broad sense of the changes to the buildings and the track.
Tax rates are projected to increase by $0.14 due to the bond -- which for most households will mean an 8% increase in education property taxes.
Homeowners with income less than $47,000 per year will see no change to their property taxes through Vermont’s income-sensitized property tax program.
For more detailed information, see this sheet.
The Board has been talking about the need for a major investment in repairs and improvements at the high school for years, but only recently came to agreement on how best to do so. Although it is a challenging time to ask our community to pay for this, waiting longer delays repairs, increases costs, and prolongs the time our students go to school in a building that does not meet the needs of today’s learners. For even more details about timing considerations, see this sheet.
At the direction of the school board, in 2020 and 2021, our district’s middle and high school principals worked with our facilities director to develop a list of projects that would enable Harwood and CBMS to serve our community’s children to serve the next generation of learners as well as possible. For more detailed history about how this was put together, see this sheet.
An important part of the project planning will be to phase the work so that school stays open and students can still thrive.
At the middle school, the construction is an add-on to the current building and will be disruptive in that there will be some noise and machinery, but generally will not require any movement of classrooms, etc. Construction would occur during the 2022-23 school year; there would be no need for temporary buildings, because students wouldn’t move until after the construction is complete. Then, the 2023-24 school year would begin with all 7th and 8th graders in place at CBMS.
At the high school, the project is much more extensive and will affect every part of the building at one point or another. While much of the work will be done during summers when buildings are empty, there will inevitably be times when individual classrooms are relocated temporarily to another part of the building so that work can be completed in a particular section. The vacated middle school space at Harwood and its new gym will provide flex space that allow the district to relocate students as necessary without the use of temporary buildings.
Harwood was built in 1965 and much of the building’s innards are original -- electrical, plumbing, much of HVAC, etc. Even though the district has carefully maintained the building, many of these systems have reached (or passed) the end of their useful life and need to be replaced so that the building can serve the next generation of students.
The bond in the late 90s was mostly additions -- the middle school wing, a new front entrance, and a stairwell at the south entrance were the major projects included. There was not extensive work done to update the infrastructure of the building. Most of Harwood is original to the 1965 construction.
The only addition at Harwood would be the new gym, because the current gym is not providing enough space for today’s required classes and increased participation in sports. At CBMS, a small addition would be added that is proportional to the increased enrollment of having all 7th and 8th graders together.
Although enrollment in our district has declined in recent years, it is not very evenly distributed -- some schools have grown and others have shrunk. Some resources you might be interested in include: Recent enrollments and Enrollment projections.
Of note, however, when we compare current numbers to those of a generation ago, the way that school buildings are used has changed significantly. Per student space requirements have increased -- from the standards recommended by Vermont’s Agency of Education to federal OSHA.
The Innovation Lab would re-use the multi-purpose room in the old middle school section of Harwood and turn it into a space for hands-on learning. Our educational leaders are still fleshing out the idea but the goals are two-fold: (1) provide all students with access to hands-on opportunities in high school and (2) find ways to expose more of our students to vo-tech learning opportunities that might pique their interest for their own pursuits and future careers.
There is a big change in structures and expectations from 7th and 8th grade to high school. The 9th grade team space will be designed to make it easier for 9th grade teachers to collaborate and coordinate their teaching, and to help launch the district’s 9th graders into the new culture and workload of high school.
The high school has one full-size gym. This has presented three big challenges:
The current gravel track, which is located across Route 100 from Harwood and also includes a field hockey field, does not meet current high school competition standards. When Harwood hosts a meet, almost no schools will attend because they don’t want their athletes competing on our old, gravel track. Replacing the track would enable us to bring it up to high school standards, replace the field hockey field, expand parking, increase audience viewing area, and replace the rickety equipment storage shed. The new facility could also easily be accessed by community members.
Here are a handful of examples of the types of repairs needed:
The state has passed legislation about PCB air testing but has not finalized the actual rules and procedures. Our district will follow all regulations set by the state.
There has been some interest in beginning to look into the PCBs at Harwood before the state finalizes their rules because we want to be able to plan around whatever we might find before we start tearing into the building for the bond construction. The suggestion we are getting from the testing company, from the architect, and from our construction manager is to begin testing when the state says we should or when the bond passes and as the plans for the bond design/construction get finalized -- whichever comes first. At the suggestion of our architect and construction manager (both of whom have been involved in many school construction projects in VT), the budget includes about $200,000 for unknowns ("contingencies"). If new information/state regulations come to light, the Board can always decide to act sooner. Ultimately, by the time construction actually begins, we should have a very good sense of the PCB situation.
We have been told it would cost about twice as much to build a new school.
In May 2021, the School Board re-affirmed its earlier decision to bring all of the district’s 7th and 8th grade students together at Crossett Brook Middle School. This move will allow us to provide equitable access to great programs for all students in the district as well as save $500,000 or more every year.
In order to house the extra 100 students and accompanying staff, a small addition will be added to CBMS: a new group of four classrooms for the new 7/8 team, two additional applied academics classrooms, several small office and work spaces for student support staff, and a multi-purpose community gathering and learning space that can fit up to 170 people. The new addition should be completed during the summer of 2023, enabling us to start the 2023-24 school year with all 7th and 8th graders together at CBMS.
Whether to serve our 7th and 8th graders in two school buildings or one school building, and where to do so, has been under discussion for several years. To find out more about the history of this debate and decision, the following resources may be of interest:
It’s not clear what will happen to the plans to bring the 7th and 8th graders together if the bond fails. The Board would need to take that up as part of its future planning.
The “fixes” for Harwood total about $36 million. More than half of that is past-due repairs and some of it is improvements that have been suggested so that we don’t have problems or repairs needed in the future. Once it was clear how much work was needed at Harwood, and how disruptive that would be, it made sense to also try and make a few other renovations while the work was underway -- the “educational alignment” changes that make up about ⅓ of the bond project. It took a little while for the Board to agree on what types of projects should be included beyond the essential repairs and improvements.
Although prices have begun to come down again after a peak this spring, no one really knows if they will return to pre-COVID prices. Any bids that are part of this bond would not be locked in for a year or so, giving the market more time to settle. However, one thing we have already seen is that the longer we wait to make the repairs, the more expensive they get -- more repairs are needed and costs in general rise over time. The Board believes that the prudent approach is to put the bond before voters now.
COVID has been stressful to just about every segment of our community. By the time the bond construction would begin, COVID is anticipated to be, largely, something in the past. Approving the bond now will mean that once COVID is over, we are ready to begin.
We will definitely be trying to take advantage of these opportunities once (if) they finalize. There are also programs at the state level we are keeping our eyes on. Once a funding program passes the federal or state legislature, then the rules for how to use the money get written, and then the district can figure out we might be able to apply those funds to our particular project. Money that is saved by getting funds from other programs will be returned to taxpayers in some form.
The district’s maintenance reserve fund is typically between $1 and $2 million and is used to take care of all 7 campuses. The repair list at Harwood totals about $36 million. There is just no way to cover the cost of the needed repairs without using a bond or significantly increasing our annual budget. The way the state’s education funding formula works, it is less expensive for taxpayers to fund these repairs through a bond than it would be using a line item in the annual budget or the maintenance reserve fund.
What would it cost to “just fix Harwood” and not do anything else in the bond proposal? It would cost about $36 million in repairs and improvements to bring Harwood back to something like its original condition, but up to current building codes. But, because “just doing the repairs” would mean we couldn’t combine the 7th and 8th graders or move the central office staff, we would also miss out on those operational savings that offset 17% of the total project costs.
So, the cost of a $36 million bond to “just repair Harwood” would be about $370 per year on a $350K home -- $120 less than if we did the entire proposed project, a difference of about $10/month.
This approach would save a little bit of money for taxpayers, but it also would mean that many of Harwood’s challenges would still remain: inflexible classroom spaces that don’t work well for today’s teaching and learning; too few gyms to meet student and community needs; inequitable opportunities for the district’s 7th and 8th graders; a dilapidated track facility for one of our most inclusive sports programs; cave-like classrooms and hallways.
After the bond is completed, there are several cost reductions we can anticipate:
If the bond fails, the Board will need to consider some or all of the following:
