McDaniel takes over OKC district
Oklahoma City Public Schools has embarked on a large-scale facilities assessment for the first time in two decades, officials said Monday night.
It was the first school board meeting for new Superintendent Sean McDaniel, whose first official workday was Monday.
“I am really looking forward to my time here, which I hope is long and productive,” McDaniel said.
The lightly attended meeting at Northeast Academy featured a presentation by ADG, the Oklahoma City firm hired by the district in May to complete a physical assessment and demographic study.
Project manager Kyle Lombardo, one of two ADG representatives to address the board, told members more than half of the 84 buildings targeted have been evaluated so far.
“We are well into the facilities assessment, having completed assessing 53 schools at this point,” Lombardo said.
In May, the board approved an agreement with the firm to complete the project. The district will pay $1,346,500 for those services and will be reimbursed with tax increment financing funds.
The end goal of the data gathering project, which is expected to take a year to complete, is to secure one and perhaps two bond authorizations. Closures are among the options that will be considered, officials have said.
The firm will combine demographic data with a school’s physical assessment and academic needs to determine what needs to be done, officials said.
Michael Mize, the firm’s director of program management and construction services, said the process of evaluating schools — many of which are underused or in disrepair — to determine their viability going forward, won’t be an easy process.
“The primary goals are to make sure that we provide a plan that optimizes facilities within the district, whether that means educationally or physically,” Mize said.
“Our goal is to try and increase operating efficiency in those facilities and also ... making sure that the academic environment is the absolute best it can be for the (students).”
District officials and school board members — who approved a new facilities management policy Monday night — have said the information gathered will be used to help better serve students.
The district is projecting 1,000 fewer students in the coming school year, which begins Aug. 1.
Other actions
The board ratified a new a new budget and renewed dozens of contracts, leases and agreements for the new fiscal year, which started Sunday.
The $598.6 million spending plan is based on projected federal, state and local revenues and includes an operating fund of $434.7 million (more than half is devoted to salaries and benefits); a capital fund of $74.1 million (bond projects); and a debt repayment and insurance fund of $89.8 million.
The district is projecting $124.4 million in state aid, an increase of about $22 million over last year. The increase is tied to teacher pay raises and based on the district’s average daily attendance, which has dropped by more than 2,000 students since FY 2016.