The Portola Valley School District board took steps at a meeting Wednesday, Oct. 3, to determine how the district would implement Measure Z, the $49.5 million bond measure to fix aging and leaky buildings, if it passes in November.

The measure, which requires 55 percent of the vote for approval, would add a maximum of $300 per $1 million of assessed valuation to property tax bills.

Eric Holm, director of bond projects for the neighboring Las Lomitas School District, explained how school buildings are customarily built at the meeting.

“I get a lot of questions about why it costs so much money (to fix school buildings),” Holm said. A classroom is about 1,000 square feet, which is about the size of some people's homes, he said. Schools might add thousands of square feet in a rebuild or renovation, he said.

"It's a big undertaking," he said.

The government also has a lot of liability for having students in classrooms, so every time there's school construction it’s closely monitored, he said. For example, every time a hole is drilled into a school building, inspectors have to observe it.

The structural requirements of school buildings are just one tier below hospitals, Holm said.

Schools are not considered essential services buildings, the category that hospitals, fire departments and police departments fall into, he said. Schools in California are still governed by the Division of the State Architect. This division was established by the Field Act after significant damage to 230 Southern California schools during a 6.3 magnitude earthquake in 1933, according to a report from the state's Seismic Safety Commission. The buildings were not constructed to resist earthquakes, so they were either destroyed, suffered major damage or were deemed unsafe to occupy, according to the report. The earthquake didn't happen during school hours, so no students were present.

During Holm's presentation, Portola Valley School District Superintendent Eric Hartwig was struck by the many factors that contribute to the high cost of school construction, such as constant inspection and the need to design for use by hundreds of children over a period of years. There is a lot of deep planning and consideration of the extremely high standards that school construction is subject to, Hartwig said.

"These realities add to the time and cost of developing projects," Hartwig wrote in an email. "All contribute to a final cost that is more than most of us are used to."

The district has to diligently communicate with residents about the higher cost and timeline of construction because of the "extreme attention to detail" required by the district, said board President Gulliver La Valle. This way, the community won't be so surprised by costs or project timelines, he said.

Part of the discussion Wednesday focused on hiring a project manager to run the bond's building program. The district would need to decide if it wants to hire a project manager through an outside consultant or hire someone internally, Holm said. That hiring process would begin in mid-November if the measure passes. The manager would start in February 2019.

One of the added challenges of building a school in the Bay Area is that it is difficult to hire construction workers because the region already has so much construction, Holm said.

High-priority projects at Corte Madera School (which has grades four through eight) include a new two-story classroom building, which would cost between $38.4 and $42.5 million, according to a facilities master plan. There are $10.9 million to $12 million in projects included as immediate priorities at Ormondale School. The Portola Valley district had 574 students enrolled this school year as of Sept. 6.

The board did not take any action related to the bond measure.

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