Each Board Meeting until all the schools are addressed, Joe Flatley, Director of Facilities Modernization, is giving a report about several sites' facilities needs and priorities, and how they would be impacted by Bond Measure AA, on the ballot in November. At the last Board Meeting, he gave a report about Randall, Rose, Spangler, and Zanker elementary schools.
During the September 25 Board Meeting, Flatley discussed the Bond scope for Burnett and Pomeroy elementary schools, Rancho Milpitas Middle School, and Milpitas High School. The projects were grouped in one of four categories: safety and security, modernizations, overcrowding, and the second high school campus. A pie chart was created to show how much each category will take up in the overall budget.
Flatley said that Burnett is pretty much equally divided in need between modernizations and safety and security at 48.2 percent and 51.8 percent, respectively. The project descriptions are the same to what is included at other elementary sites, including perimeter fencing with gates to create fewer points of entry and egress to the site, new digital fire alarm systems, accessibility, paving and concrete, exit lighting, utilities, structural upgrades, restrooms, and folding lunch tables for safety and security. Modernizations include flooring, cabinets, painting, utilities, technology, roofing, and kitchen equipment.
Burnett and Pomeroy can have an immediate impact at their sites if the bond passes, as their exterior was not painted following the 2012 Measure E bond and would be included this time around.
Flatley said Pomeroy has a similar scope, with 34.2 percent in modernizations and 65.8 percent in safety and security. The same types of project descriptions were listed. One of Pomeroy's most unique and biggest challenges is it needs more paving than any other school, with a lot of big cracks in the pavement.
At Rancho Milpitas Middle School, modernizations are 57.6 percent while safety and security is 42.4 percent. Student nutrition services are one of the biggest needs at the site. It is hard to deliver lunch to all the students in a timely manner with one checkpoint, so Flatley said he has been working with student nutrition services and the Principal and Assistant Principal regarding where a second kiosk should go on the campus. They also discussed replacing the old lunch tables in the multipurpose room.
With Milpitas High School housing so many of the District's students, it is only natural that there is a longer list of project desires and needs. Among them are a second theater and a gymnasium. Overcrowding make up a big part of the projects, coming in at 74.4 percent, while modernizations is 10.1 percent, and safety and security is 15.4 percent.