School district officials recommend the board of education approve a nearly $50 million plan to build a brand new Britton Middle School, with construction scheduled to start this summer and be completed by summer of 2019.
Board trustees heard four options being considered by the district—each varying in price and scope—at an Oct. 11 special meeting held inside the middle school campus’ library.
District staff is now requesting board approval at the Nov. 1 meeting for the allocation of funds ($49,078,449 via Series ‘B’ of the $198 million Measure G bond) to move forward with the first and largest undertaking of four phases of construction at Britton.
The Nov. 1 meeting will be held at Morgan Hill Unified School District headquarters (15600 Concord Circle), with closed session beginning at 5 p.m. and public session kicking off immediately following at about 6 p.m.
The massive project includes three classroom buildings running parallel to Monterey Road (displacing the eastside campus baseball field), a state-of-the-art student union/library/kitchen at the corner of Monterey and Keystone Road (where decrepit tennis courts currently sit), and a new administration building at the shifted campus entrance adjacent to the gymnasium.
Casino Fajardo, MHUSD’s Director of Construction and Modernization, will once again lead the presentation to the board, reviewing the four options for Phase 1 construction along with a request to approve the first proposal.
“By delivering all the buildings at the same time, construction costs will be reduced for escalation and potentially reduced cost of materials, labor, and construction mobilization,” according to district staff.
Each of the three alternative Phase I options removes a piece and lowers the price tag—which in 2014 was proposed at just under $30 million. Option B removes the administration building and drops the price to $45.3 million; Option C further removes one of the proposed classroom buildings for $37.1 million; and Option D strips away the student union/library/kitchen facility to bring the total Phase 1 cost to $33.5 million.
Britton was originally built in 1940 as a high school campus and was converted for middle school use in 1975. It sits on a 22-acre site in the heart of downtown Morgan Hill along Monterey Road and Hale avenues between Central Avenue and Keystone Road. It currently has 28 regular classrooms with 69,000 square feet of buildings. The last modernization work was done in 1993.
The school currently serves approximately 900 students in grades 6-8.
Along with the Britton project, other Nov. 1 agenda items to be discussed include:
• Local revenue enhancement options to increase the district’s revenues;
• Price options for possibility of videotaping school board meetings; and
• Revisions to certain board policies in accordance with California School Boards Association Policy Maintenance Services.
Consent calendar
Items listed under consent are considered routine and are grouped together in one singular vote by the school board unless a trustee requests for any particular item to be pulled into general business for further discussion.
Consent items for Nov. 1 include:
• $189,000 contract (out of Measure G fund) with LPA, Inc. to create the District Facilities Master Plan;
• Among the list of donations designated under technology and for the district office is a sizeable $196,341 donation from a company called NDS;
• $960 contract (out of Educator Effectiveness fund) with Planned Parenthood Mar Monte for 4-8 hour training to Britton, Jackson and Martin Murphy seventh grade teachers on topics of contraception update, STD/HIV prevention, how to answer difficult questions about sexual health and provide unbiased information;
• $54,808 contract (from College and Readiness Block Grant) with Naviance, Inc., a college and career readiness platform that helps connect academic achievement to post-secondary goals;
• $71,110 in contracts for special education services for the 2016-17 school year; and
• Assign Dec. 13, 2016 as the date for the board’s organizational meeting at district headquarters (15600 Concord Circle).
