Morning Reads – Thursday, May 25, 2017

The lack of pre-K growth due to lack of expansion in pre-K classrooms comes down to different departments of government agencies with their various funding streams, and who controls what and where classrooms can be created. Same thing with integrating the tech system, college courses, and Headstart with K-12 education. Every government body has their own fiefdoms with rules, standards, record keeping, etc., and none of them play well with others.

A school building is owned by the local school system. It is its own government body (fiefdom) and holds the deed to the property, plus the liability and insurance requirements of the building. Setting local tax collection to the side for a moment, the way the state budget is structured, school systems are funded by the state for K-12 education only – this includes whatever money they receive for new construction. The ESPLOST law is written so the money can only be used for K-12 construction use, and so on. You can’t add a line saying we are building a new Pre-K wing to your systems ESPLOST. You can write a line ESPLOST to fund a new $20 million high school football stadium, but not pre-K instruction.

If you want to have additional pre-K classrooms, who pays for the actual classroom. You might say the regulating body of the pre-k funds from the lottery, which is separate state governing fiefdom know as Bright Start. Some of the funds go towards ‘building environment’. On average the funding is part of the yearly total the state hands out to cover the total cost per year -on average less the $100.00 per child. If you have an existing classroom, this should cover use. Most systems do not. K-12 overcrowding is such that systems have variance for student sizes or portables. In most cases you need find a new pre-K classroom.

On average, new classroom construction in Georgia ranges $120 to over $180 a square foot depending on location and available labor. (Larger urban areas and coastal systems that have higher wind loads and rural systems with soil and limited water pressure and/or sewer issues will cost more in general – prior to any labor issues). A pre-K classroom has at be at least 750 SF (I’ll explain why later). Additionally, the folks at Bright Star have rules about restrooms to make sure little kids (4 year olds) and big kids (anyone older than 6) don’t meet. So they need their own bathrooms (56 SF min), and they must separate for each sex under plumbing code so you need two for each classroom or a pair of classrooms can share with a connecting vestibule – adding 100 to 130 sf to each classroom. Somewhere a school system needs to find $102,000 – $160,000 to pay for 1 (one) new fully finished unfurnished pre-K classroom with restrooms without using state funds or ESPLOST. If your system is lucky, it might get a good chuck from an educational block grant (if they still exist in the federal budget in the future) for reasons ranging from level or poverty, rural average income, number of HUD units in the school location, military defendant funds, etc. If your system is not lucky but it is committed, they will place it as a line item to be funded by property tax collection. Since most systems can’t pay for what they already need without raising tax rates, local BOE’s end up not building more Pre-K classrooms since they are not legally required to have a pre-k program. Any parent can sign up for a local free pre-k program some private school, daycare, YMCA or church program has and they don’t have as many state K-12 requirements as a school system has as a taxpayer Title II entity under the Civil Liberties Act.

The school system could remodel an old existing building that is currently not assigned a current school code. Many system have older building they maintain after modern replacements were built. However, these buildings were removed from use for a reason. Location, cost to operate, environmental hazards… Most will require extreme renovations and ADA updating that is costly. Some are no longer fully insurable to be used by minors. If can be done, but you still need to pay for it at anywhere from $70 – $150 a square foot.

Most schools will resort to new classrooms to existing schools or added to new construction for a couple of reasons. The first is having to do with future needs and classroom inventory. Under GABOE rules, even if the state did not fund the construction, it can still be counted as part of your systems over all inventory for future enrolment, which makes it eligible for state funds and ESLOST at a later date. 10 years from now you might need to add an additional wing to the building or the school which was a Pre-K -8 become a pre-K -5. This will shift classroom use. Or your system got a huge grant for all new pre-k classrooms from somewhere. In order for the existing Pre-K to become a K-12 classroom, it has to meet the state minimum size requirements for a K-2nd grade classroom, which by law, has to be 750 SF. You didn’t think systems built shiny new pre-K classrooms without at long term chess move in mind did you? All you need to do to turn a 750 SF pre-Kindergarten classroom in to a Kindergarten classroom is take the ‘PRE’ off the sign next to the door and switch out some furniture.

Another reason to have a pre-K as part of the elementary school program is shared resources in the building. You already have food services on site, special education assistants, media centers, admin staff and bookkeepers, and bus drop offs. Less you have to ay for over years of use. They still need their own playground (so sayeth the Lords at Bright Start), but they can now use any overlapping program a K-2 would use.

If some one can figure out how the state can fund pre-K construction, we would have more classrooms and more enrollment.