Meeting set to help shape plan
School renovation talks to include students and staff
LANSDALE >> As talks continue on the planned renovations of North Penn High School, the next major milestone is approaching quickly.
School district staff gave an update recently on various pieces of the high school project, including a meeting slated for July 17 where the school renovation plans could start to take shape.
“The intent is to invite staff, students, community members, administration, board members, township officials, and break up into different groups and put together different ideas of how the layout should happen in the building,” said Director of Facilities and Operations Tom Schneider.
“The meeting is scheduled for four hours, and it’s to engage all constituents in the schematic design process. Subsequent to this meeting, then the schematic design will move forward,” he said.
Staff, the school board, and the district’s architect The Schrader Group have discussed major renovations of the high school for the past decade, most recently in a pair of presentations outlining the high school’s recent equipment failures in February, followed in March by details of costs for two options: adding a new ninth grade wing of the school and include middle school renovations at an estimated price tag of roughly $400 million, or a smaller project to update the high school without a new wing for roughly $236 million.
In late March the facilities and operations committee heard from high school students about green features the renovations could include, in April they discussed timelines for construction, and in May the board issued an RFP for a consultant to oversee a voter referendum needed to approve an estimated $94 million in borrowing for the new addition.
During the facilities and operations committee meeting on June 26, Schneider gave an update on several recent steps, including a mid-June programming meeting with teachers and staff, and
the mid-July design meeting being planned . That meeting will be invite-only, with roughly 70 people on the list so far, and will be publicized afterward on the district’s NPTV channel, and Schneider gave the committee a preview.
“There will be large plans put on tables, and basically, Schrader Group will be handing out blocks of paper to say ‘OK, here’s about the size of the gymnasium and the athletic center,’ ‘Here’s the commons area,’ let’s put them on the piece of paper and see how they can fit on the site’,” he said.
“It’ll be a fun activity, and I’m sure a lot of different ideas will come out of it,” Schneider said.
Committee chair Cathy Wesley asked if that meeting would also include input from anyone from Knapp Elementary, where the district oversaw a similar multiyear renovation and addition that finished in 2022. Schneider said the July meeting won’t be that specific yet: “It won’t be that granular. We’re still at 30,000 feet.”
“This is taking the program concept and then putting into large blocks of space: ‘The ninth grade addition is this big, where do you think it should be placed on the site?’ Not so much, saying where should social studies be inside it,” he said.
Schneider added that the input will likely be discussed at the next several facilities and operations committee meetings, scheduled for July 31 and August 28. Wesley said she plans to hold those meetings for public and board discussion, instead of the board’s typical practice of cancelling summer committee meetings.
Since the last facilities and operations meeting in late May, Schneider told the committee, staff have posted an RFP for a construction management firm meant to oversee the high school renovations. Seven interested firms contacted the district after that was posted in early June, he said, and a pre-proposal meeting and tour was held on June 21 at the high school with firms planning to bid, with formal proposals due on July 13. Interviews with responding firms would then be held in late July, and staff plan to make a recommendation to the committee and school board for possible approval in August.
A separate RFP for a consultant to oversee the referendum process has also been publicized, Schneider told the committee, with submissions due by the end of June, interviews in midJuly, and board action expected on July 20. Board member Juliane Ramic asked for an update on repairs to the high school natatorium roof, and Schneider said work was slated to begin on June 26 but was delayed due to rain, and will likely run three to four weeks.
“It will be completed — if it starts at the end of this week, by the end of July or the first week of August,” he said, and Wesley replied that she looked forward to touring the new roof in person: “It’s a fun place to visit.”
Resident Jason Lanier questioned how the staff and architect developed the cost estimates for the two projects with and without the ninth grade center, and which the public would be voting on in a referendum, prompting superintendent Todd Bauer to elaborate.
“What does the referendum entail? It is simply the additional square footage as a result of adding ninth graders to the high school campus. That is it. It is that cost,” he said.
“It is not transportation (department) moving. It is not acquiring the property for transportation. It is not the renovation of the existing structures. It’s the additional square footage and spaces for ninth grade,” Bauer said.
As for the cost estimates, the $240 million and $400 million figures were developed by the architect based on rough calculations of the square footage needed, and specifics are being refined through the ongoing talks including the mid-July input meeting, and will continue to be discussed publicly, with chances for residents to comment, through the summer and fall.
“By the time this were to come to a vote, and if the board passes a resolution to go to a referendum, you’ll know exactly what everything is,” he said.
“That’s the whole point, between now and November, is for us to design, and for the Schrader Group to give us a fly-through, and 3D modeling, and the community can see what they are voting for and against,” Bauer said.
North Penn’s school board next meets at 6 p.m. on July 11 and the facilities and operations committee next meets at 7 p.m. on July 31; for more information visit www.NPenn.org.