Lexington School District 1 board reviews draft 10-year facilities plan; no decisions made

The Lexington School District 1 board on Feb. 27 heard a detailed, informational presentation on a draft 10-year long-range facilities plan developed by consultant McMillan Pazden Smith and cost-estimating partner Thompson Turner. The presentation reviewed facility condition assessments, enrollment projections and scenario options for multiple attendance clusters; no formal decisions or votes were taken.

Michelle Smith, a principal and architect with McMillan Pazden Smith, said the consultant team toured district facilities and compiled condition data across building systems. “Sarah and team have walked 4,000,000 square feet of your assets,” she said, and described a five-point component scoring system in which 5 means new and 1 indicates a life-safety or critical need. The team showed ‘deficiency donuts’ that aggregate the number and severity of deficiencies at each campus and said most findings fell into the midrange (score 3) while some components were rated 2 or 1.

The presentation tied the condition findings to demographer-provided enrollment projections and a utilization calculation that accounts for classrooms, portables and schedule flexibility. For each attendance cluster the consultants outlined scenarios (additions, repurposing, or new construction) and the tradeoffs for cost, site constraints and timing. In the Gilbert cluster, for example, consultants said a straightforward set of additions would require about 38 classrooms across four campuses but was limited by site constraints and sewer capacity; they recommended a financially informed scenario that would build a new middle school and repurpose several existing campuses as the more likely near-term solution. Presenters reported 811 deficiency instances at Gilbert High and an average facility score of about 2.7 for that campus.

Board members pressed for more granular data, earlier access to the full deficiency reports and updated enrollment runs. One board member asked whether the Gilbert-area preference for a new high school (driven in part by athletics and parking needs) had been weighed against the consultant’s middle-school recommendation; another urged the team to model redrawn attendance lines and to provide two community-facing options rather than a single proposal. Dr. Price, the district official participating in the session, highlighted staffing and program implications of any reconfiguration, noting that opening a new campus requires principal and certificated staffing aligned to state formulas.

Maggie Dittmar of Thompson Turner described the estimating approach and said renovation pricing is substantially developed while additions and new-school estimates will be produced using prototypes and escalation factors. She said the team expects to deliver draft costs and a master schedule in time for the next workshop and the March board presentation.

Consultants asked the board for guidance on three priorities to shape the next draft: whether Gilbert should pursue a new middle or a new high school; whether the Pleasant Hill site should be used for a primary/upper reconfiguration or a new elementary; and whether the district should prioritize a new elementary for the New Providence/Meadow Glen area. The presenters reiterated that the materials shown were scenarios and not final decisions and committed to sharing the full maintenance/deficiency reports ahead of the March 10 workshop. The board closed the workshop with a motion to adjourn; the motion carried and no substantive votes on projects were taken.

Next steps: consultants will provide the deficiency/donut reports and updated enrollment runs, refine cost pro formas and prepare materials for the March board meeting and upcoming community engagement sessions.