The unexpected costs of coping with Gilroy’s exploding
elementary school population continue to rise, to the chagrin of
trustees.
The unexpected costs of coping with Gilroy’s exploding elementary school population continue to rise, to the chagrin of trustees.
In two 5-2 votes, with trustees Denise Apuzzo and Mark Good opposing both motions, the Gilroy Unified School District board of trustees approved spending an additional $74,000 in unforeseen costs to install portables at Las Animas Elementary School.
In July, trustees unanimously approved the construction of a $3.76 million wing of eight classrooms on the school’s campus in southwest Gilroy. However, the wing isn’t scheduled to open until next school year. In the meantime, the district will move three unused portables from Gilroy High School to the elementary school’s playground to accommodate the students. Doing was supposed to cost $60,000, and trustees grudgingly approved this figure in a July vote, with Apuzzo and Good again dissenting.
But at the last school board meeting, district staff brought revised numbers before them that more than doubled the price of installing the portables. The total cost is now about $134,000.
The school district will now shell out $19,000 for asphalt work and $55,000 for electrical installation.
“I’m bothered that this was a 100 percent difference,” said trustee Rhoda Bress.
Though Bress approved the expenditure, she questioned the district’s ability to obtain accurate bids. According to Superintendent Deborah Flores, the initial estimate for the electrical installation was “very low.”
“I think it’s a complete travesty,” trustee Denise Apuzzo said. The proposed expenditures were “fiscally irresponsible,” she added.
During prior discussions, Apuzzo called attention to the disparities in the quality of facilities among district schools, and recently suggested housing the students where there is space, rather than “moving space to them.”
Two elementary schools, Eliot and El Roble, have a couple available classrooms, but since both failed to meet federal growth targets until this year, the district can’t require parents to move their children to either school, Flores said.
Trustee Javier Aguirre said that, if allowed, he would have opted for that scenario before the school year began. However, he did not want to consider that option now that school is in session and students have settled in at a school.
Flores expected the portables to be ready at Las Animas by the end of next week, she said. Currently, the school is making due by using the library, combining two kindergarten classes in one classroom and having a roving teacher, Flores said.
“We definitely need classrooms ASAP,” she said.
Rod Kelley Elementary School will also receive a double-wide portable – the equivalent of two classrooms – within the next couple weeks, Flores said. She anticipates similar cost overruns with that project as well, though the board has yet to approve any figures.
“I wish that construction projects were more of an exact science,” she said. “It’s frustrating for me and the board, but the more I do this, the more I realize that we need to anticipate unexpected problems.”
