The State College Area School District Board of Directors on Monday voted 8-0 to move forward with a new district-wide facilities master plan (DWFMP), a process that is most notably expected to result in a replacement for the 52-year-old Park Forest Middle School.
Board members also voted 7-1 to appoint Crabtree, Rohrbaugh and Associates as architectural consultant for the master plan at a cost of $461,434. Laurel Zydney voted no and Gretchen Brandt was absent.
The DWFMP also will include three parts:
• An evaluation of the physical condition and capacity of district buildings, enrollment projections and educational programs, primarily at the middle school level.
• An assessment of sustainability, transportation operations and security needs.
• An evaluation of the physical condition of athletics facilities and playgrounds, revisiting a previous playground study and assessing athletic program needs.
The second phase will focus on Park Forest Middle School, which was constructed in 1971, last renovated in 1995 and in recent years eyed as the next major project for the district. That will include development of educational specifications, including public presentations, as well as a schematic design, engineering and site survey before formal plan development.
Work on the DWFMP will begin immediately, with a summary of the process, action steps and a timeline expected at the school board’s Oct. 2 meeting. A preliminary timeline presented during a discussion at the board’s Aug. 21 meeting suggested stakeholder input meetings and site evaluations for Park Forest Middle School could begin as early as January.
That timeline also projected construction on a Park Forest Middle replacement could begin in late 2025 and be completed in the spring of 2028.
One reason for pursuing the DWFMP before constructing the new school is to meet Pennsylvania Department of Education requirements for construction of school facilities (PlanCon), which could potentially result in state reimbursement for project costs, although PlanCon is not currently providing funding.
Zydney said she recognizes the need to address Park Forest, but wants to ensure the DWFMP looks at all of the district’s needs.
“My concerns with this plan is that it is time to look at those, to take a big picture, but I don’t want it to be so limited it is just looking at ‘we have got to fix Park Forest Middle,’” Zydney said. “It may be that we need a third middle school. It may be that we need to change grade configurations. I don’t know… I want to be sure that as this plan gets underway, that is looked at in a broader way than just let’s get it done.”
She also said a committee with a cross-section of stakeholders should be involved. Though not detailed in the project memo, Finance and Operations Officer Randy Brown and Superintendent Curtis Johnson said such a committee will be involved.
“I know of no district-wide facilities plan that does not involve all the stakeholders of the community, especially when you’re talking about multiple buildings, multiple fields in the areas of a district,” Johnson said. “Crabtree has done this before and has the expertise in doing that and I’m more than sure that theyre going to have that process all nailed out in involving our community.”
During previous discussions, Zydney expressed reservations about hiring Crabtree, Rohrbaugh and Associates on recommendation from district administration without soliciting other bids. Administrators recommended the firm because of its work over the past decade on the State High, Delta, Corl Street Elementary, Spring Creek Elementary and Radio Park Elementary buildings. Brown previously said Crabtree’s demonstrated success and familiarity with the district would allow the process to “move forward as quickly as possible.”
On Monday, Zydney voiced concerns that the firm had not submitted a formal proposal that delineated what it would provide beyond the breakdown of fees and notes for the steps of the DWFMP included in Monday’s board agenda.
“As a board, it is our job to look out for the community and ensure that we have a process that is transparent and fiscally prudent,” Zydney said. “How we can award a half-million dollar contract without having the proper assurance that this is the proper amount for something like this… I just don’t know how we can in any good fiscal responsibility or transparency do that.”
Board member Dan Duffy said he agreed that “a little more substance to support this cost of half a million dollars makes sense.
Brown said the proposed cost is about half of a previous master plan that did not include a schematic building design or extensive evaluations of athletic facilities and playgrounds. He added that he and Mike Fisher, director of physical plant, agreed it is a “low cost for the expectation of work.”
Board member Peter Buck said he is confident in the information provided by Crabtree.
“Do we know every piece of the process that they will engage in? No. But in our previous meeting we did have a chart of what we thought that would be,” Buck said. “The details of that will have to be worked out by the firm in consultation going forward. I look at this and think, ‘OK these are the things that they say they’re going to do.’ We have every reason to believe based on past experience that they will fulfill those obligations. We know who the team is and have lots of experience with them. From my point of view I think that [the fee proposal] works for me for as a scope of work.”
