Master Facility Planning Underway

FALL 2023 UPDATE

At this time, the master facility planning committee has met with ARCON & Associates four separate times to develop, review, and provide feedback on a number of infrastructure strategies. The administration has reviewed the strategies and it was presented at our August 29th Committee of the Whole meeting. You can view the meeting here.

For a quick overview of the meeting, check out our BOE Recap Here.

DPS 109 is in the midst of a master facility planning process, which will help us determine the short and long-term needs to make our schools the best educational and working environment possible for students and staff. Our aim in our approach is to be proactive; tackling these big discussions now while there are a variety of options to consider, and interactive; seeking out and engaging the community in our approach and their wants and desires for the educational facilities they pay for.

Being Methodical and Strategic When Moving Into The Future

As a reminder, this is a dynamic process subject to change. Our commitment to you is to keep you updated through this webpage, 109 News, and other means necessary so that you know the latest developments.

Below are the phases we have worked through and will continue to work through as we move forward in this process.

The Discovery Phase began Mid-August of 2022. In this stage, ARCON toured the buildings and met with community members and staff in order to gain a deeper understanding of how each space in each building is being utilized and identify challenges and opportunities.

Throughout this phase ARCON:
- Consulted with building principals to describe what each space in their building was being utilized for.
- Toured each school building with faculty, students, and leadership teams to garner feedback.
- Invested time in observing daily teaching practices and building movement patterns and how they are influenced by current building layouts.
- Toured facilities of peer school districts that have recently undergone building development for inspiration.
Throughout this phase, we continued to facilitate a review of initial planning diagrams and refine space based on the two previous phases. The Steering Committee and Administration Leadership Group began meeting. The focus at this stage will be on learning environments, budget, and schedule options. Opportunities for additional feedback will be considered.

Here are our goals when planning for the future:

As teaching and learning strategies change and evolve, so must our school buildings. The focus of these committee meetings is to develop strategies for each facility over a 30-year period that will best serve the district from an instructional perspective while carefully considering financial and equity implications. The master facility planning committee has studied options spanning from continued maintenance of all buildings as they are presently constructed to moderate additions and improvements at all buildings to full replacement of a number of facilities. An official from Raymond James updated the group on the potential cost of the presented paths and the different ways the district could fund these options. The group provided feedback on the various options presented for the architects & the administration to consider. As we continue to move forward in this planning process we will continue to be financially responsible, intentional, and transparent.