SCHOOL SITING—HOW FAR AWAY MAKES SENSE?
SENATOR BARBARA K. CEGAVSKE, NEVADA
Moderator
NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF STATE LEGISLATURES
2005 ANNUAL MEETING
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
AUGUST 19, 2005
Good afternoon. This is the concurrent session on school siting. I am Barbara Cegavske. I represent a portion of Clark County in the Nevada State Senate. I will be the moderator of this panel discussion.
Members of our panel include:
- John DelVecchio, Special Projects Coordinator for the Maine State Planning Office;
- David Peterson, Director of Operations with the Mesa, Arizona, Public Schools; and
- Neal Kaufman, Professor of Pediatrics and Public Health at the UCLA Schools of Medicine and Public Health.
Before our panelists begin, I would like to introduce the topic of school siting by giving you a little background information on the process used in the Clark County School District. I have been involved with the Clark County School District since my children, who are now adults, were in elementary school. I continue to watch this process of determining locations for schools with a mixture of fascination and awe.
1. Growth in Clark County School District
a) Nevada has the distinction of being the fastest growing state in the nation. Most of that growth occurs in and around Las Vegas.
b) Enrollment:
- 1986, CCSD had about 95,000 students;
- 2005, CCSD expects to enroll 295,000 students;
c) Bond issues:
- CCSD has passed 5 bond issues since 1986;
- $5.8 billion in capital improvement projects funding;
d) Construction—by the time the current bond issue is exhausted in the next few years:
- More than 200 new schools;
- More than 130 school additions;
- More than $1.3 billion to rehabilitate and renovate older schools;
- $200 million for land;
- $100 million on technology and ancillary services;
- Produced nearly a quarter million new seats for students;
- Opened a record 18 new schools in one year—something CCSD has done 3 times since 1991;
e) Construction—recent:
- Opening 12 new schools this fall;
- Opened 14 new schools last year; and
- Will open 10 new schools next year.
2. Process of school siting in Clark County School District
a) Land acquisition in a highly competitive market.
b) Factors to be considered:
- School calendars (year-round schools versus nine-month traditional schedules);
- School size (CCSD’s are among the largest in the nation due to cost factors);
- Growth trends (new growth on the perimeter versus increasing numbers of students in established neighborhoods);
- Topography and soil conditions, utilities, walking routes, and proximity to gaming establishments; and
- Density guidelines.
- 1 elementary school site (12.5 acres) every square mile.
- 1 middle school site (20 acres) every two square miles.
- 1 high school site (40 acres) every four to six square miles.
c) Land acquisition
- First choice—Bureau of Land Management sites (federal government controls a significant portion of land in western states).
- Favorable—acquired at relatively no cost;
- Unfavorable—a single protest from an area resident can stop a project until the protest is resolved in the courts; and
- Land is not always available where schools are needed.
- Second choice—developers, master planned communities, local governments.
- Favorable—generally provide land where it is needed;
- Unfavorable—cost is usually quite a bit more than BLM land (six years ago the average price of an acre of land purchased by CCSD was $50,000, today an acre costs between $700,000 and $900,000); and
- CCSD aggressively seeks to purchase land where growth projections predict schools will be needed.
3. Rehabilitation and renovation of existing schools
a) Legislation
- 1999: required CCSD to develop a policy to renovate or reconstruct older buildings and report periodically to the Legislature (Assembly Bill 368).
- 2001: authorized an amount not to exceed $90 million of capital funds for reconstruction (Assembly Bill 540).
- 2003: authorized an amount not to exceed $230 million for reconstruction (Assembly Bill 396).
b) Implementation
- Mandated compliance with Americans with Disabilities Act.
- Encouraged to use natural lighting, solar, and other renewable energies, and innovative building designs.
Out of necessity, the Clark County School District has elevated school siting to a science.
Now, I will turn this discussion over to our panelists.
John DelVecchio will discuss progress toward siting schools in designated growth areas in accordance with Maine’s growth management legislation.
While Maine has been experiencing a declining school enrollment, Arizona has been facing growth of a magnitude similar to that of Nevada. David Peterson with the Mesa Public Schools will provide a perspective on school siting decisions in a state that also has enacted a significant amount of growth management legislation.
You can see that Mesa considers many of the same factors that Clark County considers. Pollution and noise are just a couple of the factors that must be considered when creating a healthy environment for schools.
Dr. Neal Kaufman with the UCLA Schools of Medicine and Public Health has been working with California schools and communities to develop healthy community designs. He will share with us some of his work.
Most of us think principally about construction costs when we are faced with building new schools. Clearly, design of the facility and the integration of a school into its surrounding community is equally as important.
The U.S. Department of Education projects that, by 2013, there will be over 56 million school-age children in this country. There will also be considerable movement—30 states are projected to experience increases while 20 states will see decreases in enrollment.*
Many communities are facing aging infrastructure. The process of siting a new school or renovating an older facility is a complicated one. I hope this session has given you some ideas. I am sure that our panelists would be happy to follow up with any of you if you get in touch with them. I want to thank you all for coming.
*Source: National Center for Education Statistics, United States Department of Education, Projections of Education Statistics to 2013, http://nces.ed.gov/programs/projections/ch_1.asp#2.
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