[8/11/03, Item 9.7]

San Jose Unified School District

2002 Measure F

Citizens’ Bond Oversight Committee

Expenditure Efficiencies Subcommittee

Jill Escher, Chair

SJUSD has proposed a number of substantial capital improvements common to a number of campuses to be funded with Measure F proceeds. This subcommittee briefly reviewed preliminary plans for four areas:

This report is intended to provide some basic information about these expenditures.

(1) Synthetic Turf: The District proposed replacing the 6 current football fields at Gunderson, Leland, Lincoln, Pioneer, San Jose High, and Willow Glen High with artificial turf. Installation of synthetic turf is more than twice the cost of natural grass, about $688k per field, compared to about $332k.

However, maintenance tends to be much less costly, about $30k over 10 years, compared to about $334K. (Note that these figures come from the District's synthetic turf vendor.) Although the thought of artificial turf sounded alarming to many of us, we found that the synthetic turf is not like the "astroturf" of old, but rather is natural looking with a soft subsurface made of rubber pellets and sand. It is reported that the artificial playfield results in fewer injuries than occur on natural grass, mainly due to reduced slippage and gopher holes. This is reported to be one of the major benefits of this new style of synthetic turf.

Also, because the artificial turf never gets muddy, it can be used year-round, even during or after rains. However, the turf must be cleaned with a hose if dog droppings or other garbage is found. The top "carpet" of turf features permanent white striping appropriate for a variety of sports, including football, soccer and field hockey. The carpet apparently wears very well, but needs replacement at least every 8-10 years.

You can see an example of this turf at San Jose City College.

Subcommittee members expressed concern that the vendor's favorable cost analysis contemplated that all six fields would be equipped with stadium lighting so that the District could generate revenue by leasing out the fields for nighttime sporting events.

Many neighborhoods would be strongly opposed to the installation of lighting and the consequent radical increase in noise, traffic, and light at night. District staff acknowledged that stadium lighting at most high schools would cause substantial disruption of neighborhoods, but responded that it is only contemplating installation of stadium lighting at Gunderson and San Jose High, where, according to staff, there would only be minimal disruption due to the distance of the fields from housing.

The subcommittee believes affected neighborhoods should be alerted to the District's plans, and have the opportunity to comment. Some committee members asked whether it would be advisable to install synthetic turf systems at some other schools, for example at middle schools. Staff responded that the cost of synthetic turf is high, and that the money would best be focused at the high schools, which have well defined multiuse ball fields.

(2) Portable Classroom Replacement/Refurbishment: The District plans to use Measure F funds to bring aging portable classrooms up to current standards, and in some cases to replace portables with new construction. Staff has identified six campuses where existing portable buildings will be replaced by new construction. The new buildings may be one or two stories, and accommodate from 12 to 16 classrooms.

These six campuses are Booksin, Anne Darling, Empire Gardens, Hacienda, Schallenberger, and Gunderson. Other schools' portables will be refurbished to current standards.

(3) Open-Plan Classrooms: Open-plan or "pod" classrooms, built in the 1970s around the notion that learning is facilitated in an "open" environment, can be found at Carson, Greystone, Los Alamitos, Randol, Almaden, Olinder, Hester, Lowell, Bachrodt, Anne Darling, Gardner, Grant, Trace, Washington, and Willow Glen Elementary. It is now uniformly acknowledged that open-plan classrooms are noisy, present student circulation problems, and inhibit learning and classroom management. Many of these schools have already been retrofitted to minimize the problems.

The District is planning to convert five of these schools (the five which have historically presented the most persistent problems)--Hester, Trace, Willow Glen, Lowell, and Bachrodt--to a closed configuration, while at the same time bringing classroom size up to the 960 square foot standard. The total cost will be about $15-million.

About 1-4 classrooms will be lost as a result of the reconfiguration, resulting in the need, in some cases, to add portables. Some committee members wondered, why not just knock the unloved old buildings down, and just rebuild from scratch? Staff responded that rehabilitation made more economic sense.

4) Central Kitchen Facility: A central kitchen is proposed for a district property near Highway 87 and Curtner. Currently there are twelve production kitchens, serving about 13K lunches and 5K breakfasts per day, total.

One central kitchen would allow the twelve production kitchens to be closed and converted to satellite re-therm kitchens. The cost for kitchen construction is projected to be about $6-million. Staff envisions a return on investment in approximately 8.5 years, if approximately $700K is saved each year due to reduced costs of food delivery and labor.