June 11, 2002 - Baltimore City Public Schools

Board Meeting Minutes
educational perspective, but the facility is in poor condition, and we are reminded about that from our
elected officials constantly. So that is a project that is very high on our list. For the PDC in Northern, we
have $2 million for this year to make the renovations we had talked about, and the transformation of
those schools, in terms of separating the Northern facility and doing some other moves. I'm hoping --
this number is high for the initial year, but I think, over time, we will need to put that kind of money into
the Northern facility and PDC. The next thing I will spend a couple of minutes on, and this is a -- I kind
of categorized it as Six Innovative High Schools. And you'll see some numbers that look really very low
when you say -- when you understand six high schools. The reason for it is, if you look up above, you'll
see that the average high school investment is, roughly, $39 million. For us to spend 39, I think that
might be a little high for these six schools. But even if it's 25 million for these schools, 25 million times
six schools is $150 million. We clearly cannot afford $150 million at this point in time. So what we
would propose for these six innovative high schools is to look at some financing possibilities, like a
sale/lease back, where we can contract with a developer who would come in and finance the
construction of a new facility today, and we would then pay it back at an interest of, hopefully, 4 to 5
percent, over time, so we can leverage dollars. Otherwise, we are very hard pressed, obviously, to invest
$150 million in the six innovative high schools. I had provided a handout earlier that goes through one
of our six innovative high schools. And we can talk further. But we are talking about high schools on the
east side of town, central, west, south, southwest, and downtown. And so those were the areas that we
are talking about. And, again, as we execute Ms. Russo's blueprint for high school reform. And then,
finally, the last school is Fredrick Douglas. And, again, I'm going to underscore that clearly needs to be
renovated as well. I just wanted to mention that the 19 million is not the total cost. It cuts off at FY '08,
and FY '09 would probably be another $15 or $16 million. So that the total cost would be in the $30
million range. As we -- we just cut it off at that point in time. So those are the details of the high school
reform. Moving to other capital projects. There's a list of, roughly, 17 projects. And, again, we tried to
limit these projects to no more than really three a year. And, again, we have to move some projects back.
Anyway, let me go through those quickly. Lexington Terrace has been approved by the State, as well the
new Southeast pre-K to 8. We're moving along with our Lexington Terrace. We will come forward next
Board meeting with a selection of an architect, which will be critical for us to meet the deadlines there.
Mt. Washington is listed here as well. Pimlico Middle is listed. And you can see an asterisk there,
where, again, for this school, you're looking at a sale/lease back arrangement there to build a -- either a
new school on that facility, or to renovate the existing building. Moravia is a new pre-K to 8. We believe
that we can do some systemic work to get the school back to where it needs to be, as opposed to a full
gut renovation. Steuart Hill, pre-K to 8, is one that I want to just highlight and seek your assistance. We
had approved Steuart Hill to pre-K to 8, subject to CIP funding by the State. That was scheduled for FY
'05. In view of all our other needs, we have taken a look at, well, maybe there's another way that we can
accomplish a pre-K to 8 for Steuart Hill. And we believe, with some work done by architects, that we
can convert Steuart Hill to pre-K to 8 starting September '02 with just about $2 million next summer to
convert existing space at that school. So that, therefore, instead of us going through a $20 million project
and seeking State funding, that we can probably accomplish the same result with $2 million. It wouldn't
have all the bells and whistles, necessarily, in the building, but we think we'd meet the community's
needs of converting to a pre-K to 8. And we are going to propose -- we are proposing that to the Board
for consideration, to move with Steuart Hill. Leith Walk is a very, very -- the largest elementary school
in the System. Again, needs renovation. And we have accelerated to that FY '04 planning as one of the
major projects we're going to look at this fiscal year. Booker T. Washington is a -- we're proposing a 6
to 12 curriculum, arts focus curriculum. It is one that we would hope that we can maybe do faster than
what we have on here. And we will work with the Board and other parties on that project as well.
MR. TILDON: When did we amend that price?
Page 23 of 41
MR. SMOLARZ: We upped it at the advice of Commissioner Daniel, because we needed to put a high
school there, and the price tag doubled. And so -- I'm glad you pointed that out for me. We increased it
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