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Jim Swanson's avatar

Thank you so much for your detailed reporting. I am just sad watching this unfold. When we look at what is MOST important it should be the education of our children. When I see educational scores lagging of any population of kids, I would have hoped that instead of a new school, that creative, and potentially individualized attention could have been given to those that are struggling. The pandemic offered additional opportunities for educators to identify that some children might thrive with non-traditional learning milieus. Combining some of those teaching techniques with more traditional methods might have been a possibility to boost performance. Perhaps even reaching out directly to families to help them overcome any impediments that may originate in the home that would spill over in the learning environment. Instead we are left with a school that is less than ideal, supplanting limited vital green space and uprooting mature trees in an already very congested area. A school whose construction and continued maintenance is supported only by extraordinary pressure on operating expenses that can only be addressed by cuts to staff, unique and special learning programs, and services. This was a school that any sensible person would not have pursued, especially considering the declining enrollment and deteriorating infrastructure throughout the system. I also worry that this shiny new school would become a beacon with unintended consequences, including the acceleration of city-wide tax increases and gentrification, both of which impact the affordability of that section of the 5th Ward.

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Angela's avatar

Also development projects should refer to all project costs not just construction. Those costs are incurred in a similar time frame as the construction cost and often include big line items like interest, architect and construction management fees as well as all the equipment and furniture in the building. The fact that they haven’t evidenced funds to pay for this is a huge red flag. I think the project is under budgeted by over $10 million including this. Inflation alone easily adding 5% to their already stale estimates.

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