Talk on Patton continues - Chadds Ford Live

There were no voting items for the U-CF School Board directors on Monday, but there was still a lot of talk about CF Patton Middle School. Some residents still don’t like the costs involved with the possibility of replacing the school as was recommended by the superintendent during a Jan. 6 special meeting.

Director of Finance Joe Deady reviewed the estimated costs and timelines of the three options under consideration: maintaining, renovating, or replacing the school. He said maintaining the school would cost $67.3 million over 20 years.

He said the cafeteria, library, and auditorium have been updated over the years, but the work involved with the maintain option includes renovating the 75 percent of the building that has not been renovated, updating the MEP — mechanical, electrical, and plumbing — systems, as well as bathrooms and classrooms.

Renovation over a 7-year period would cost almost $113.2 million, he said, and some of the work would be similar to what would be done under the maintain option — updating the MEP systems, bathrooms, and classrooms — but also add a new instructional wing to the building and also demolish part of the existing structure.

“That would solve some issues more than the maintain option,” Deady said.

Constructing a new middle school with associated site improvements, and demolishing the current building is expected to cost close to $120 million. The timeframe for replacement is about five years, which includes about two years of design work.

Those costs, Deady said, are “based on bidding the work (setting the costs) in the 2026-2027 school year.” That’s the year when the district can refinance current debt. That restructuring, he said later, would usually lead to “some level of savings,” and allow for a new middle school to be added to the budget while keeping future debt service at a manageable level.

His presentation also included a panel that said restructuring the debt could add $4.4 million in interest during a 16-year period, but waiting another three years to get a loan for replacing the school would increase construction costs by $11.1 million.

Deady said that the total debt service — for both the replacement of Patton and funding the district’s long-range facilities plan — would increase by $3.8 million, adding another $426,000 to the budget during nine years. That, he said, would result in an average property tax increase of $42 per year for nine years, based on current real estate tax information.

“That’s also the time when we could bid out to replace because there would be about two years of design work,” he added.

Deady emphasized that the costs cited represent just the cost of doing the work and do not include any potential operating savings, ongoing maintenance work, or operational costs of the building.

“Replacing the middle school completely should lead to the biggest operational savings and the most immediate operational savings. But, realistically, all of the options would eventually lead to some level of operational savings because we’re going to do a complete overhaul of the MEP system.”

He added that the replacement option should have the lowest routine maintenance costs in the near term, though there would still be some routine maintenance costs involved.

In response to a question from Director Jody Allen, Deady said that the $42 figure is based on the average assessed value for each of the two counties in the district, about $265,000 in Chester County and $450,000 in Delaware County.

Following Deady’s presentation, five people spoke about the middle school project with one being in favor and four against.

Aliz Uejima, a student representative on the board, gave what she called a student’s perspective on CF Patton.

“There are many chronic concerns. The school is constantly referred to as a prison by the student body who is well aware of the lack of natural light,” she said. “I know that the lack of light has been a large part of the conversation but hearing about the deficit and experiencing it are too different things.”

Uejima said classes at Patton are arranged to have certain groups, classes, and teams, together, “however, due to the significant lack of classes with light, this arrangement leaves certain students particularly disadvantaged.”

She added that when she was in seventh grade, only one of her seven classes was in a room with windows. Some of her classmates had no rooms with natural light. In some cases, the only time students at Patton had access to sunlight was during their lunch period. Hallways are also dark, she added, with only one having natural light. The high school she said, is full of light.

The lack of natural has been an ongoing part of the conversation regarding Patton, but not everyone gives the lack of light a major priority.

Betsy Collier, a clinical psychologist from Chadds Ford Township who has been a psychologist in the district, told the board that tax increases over the years of been unfair to the taxpayers, saying some of her neighbors who are in their 70s and 80s fear more increases will put them out of their homes.

She added that making a new building a priority is making the exterior more important than the interior which is unfair to students. For her, it’s a matter of a building versus academic achievement.

Lighting is nice she said, but the focus needs to be on education, not spending millions of dollars on a building.

She said test scores from Patton students used to be among the highest in the state, but the scores have dropped.

“I think you have strayed from your path as far as the focus of education,” Collier said.

Anthony Borelli, also from Chadds Ford, said he has three children, all of whom went through the district and attended Patton.

“Did they have words to say about Patton that it was an older school? Yes, they did, but none of them had any issues in learning [regarding] the building,” Borelli said.

He said it’s nice to have a new facility that brings light into the building “but what we need to consider is the pros versus the cost, and I just don’t think that the pros we achieve here merit the cost.”

Madelaine Werner, on the board of Painters Crossing Condominiums Homeowners Association, also questions the cost involved in building a new school and, like Collier, said some of her neighbors are concerned about another tax increase.

“I’m concerned about people who are on a fixed income because there are many of them,” she said, adding that many already need help with food and shopping.

“They’re very concerned. When they hear things like this, they’re like ‘How are we going to afford to stay here, to live, with school taxes going up again,’” she said. Werner acknowledged it’s not just the school taxes, but increasing county taxes as well as the general increase in the cost of living.

She went on to say that U-CF used to be number one in the state but is now number 13. “That is going to affect our property values somewhere down the line."

Bill Grosskopf, also from Chadds Ford, also echoed concern over the cost of the proposed new school building.

“One of the things we observe is that taxes keep going up and school performance keeps going down. Both of those things are contributing to our property values decreasing and people moving out of the district. We’d like to see that reversed, in some way,” he said.

Grosskopf also challenged the accuracy of the statement that increased light will help improve academic results. He said that’s not necessarily so.

He said members of the board and administration have said that Unionville High School has a lot of light has a lot of light in the classrooms, yet, Grosskopf added, performance is declining.

“I think the focus should be on bringing better people here, improving performance, and then possibly building a school after that.”

He said after the meeting that the board should regard the taxpayers as an interest group.

About Rich Schwartzman

Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.