Glendale school board sets aside $40M for campus upgrades, maintenance through 2023

Nearly $40 million in Measure S and facility funds were allocated by the Glendale school board recently to support various upgrades and maintenance projects throughout Glendale’s 30 schools over the next seven years.

The board members’ decision to approve the funding last week came after they held several discussions to narrow down upcoming priorities.

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Since voters passed the $270-million Measure S bond in 2011, school officials have already checked many upgrades off their list.

Projects have included installation of high-tech security cameras at most schools, demolition of the former College View School and building a new campus in its place, upgrading many athletic fields, auditoriums, heating and air-conditioning systems and creating a new data center that serves as the school district’s technology hub.

Those past efforts — and the ones that the district has yet to tackle — are all part of realizing the community’s vision for Glendale schools, said Armina Gharpetian, school board president.

“Our goal is, and always has been, to ensure that every bond dollar is being used to create new and exciting learning environments for students,” Gharpetian said in an email. “We believe we have made tremendous progress toward this goal, but there is still a lot of work to be done.”

As part of the $40 million the board allocated, roughly $3 million will support the staff members who will manage the Measure S program over the next seven years, and $10.5 million will be set aside for deferred maintenance.

A little more than $4.7 million will support staff expenses tied to the district’s technology management team, employee training, major technology infrastructure upgrades, software updates and other technology costs.

Roughly $4 million will be set aside for unforeseen costs, and $2.8 million, between now and 2023, will go toward smaller facility projects.

Meanwhile, $11.9 million will go toward installing solar panels at nine campuses using Clean Renewable Energy bond funds available through the state.

The nine campuses that will receive solar panels will be Cerritos, Jefferson, Horace Mann, John Muir and R.D. White elementary schools, as well as Toll and Wilson middle schools and Glendale and Hoover high schools.

About $3 million in redevelopment funds will repay the Clean Renewable Energy bonds through 2023.

School officials still have about $80 million that have not yet been allocated, according to a district report.

One suggestion for using some of that money is to expand the number of parking spaces at Glendale High School.

School board member Greg Krikorian brought up the idea again during last week’s meeting when he referred to the school’s not-yet-built aquatic center that will draw traffic from across Glendale, as well as to its current role as the home field for Glendale, Hoover and Crescenta Valley high schools’ football teams.

He also spoke about the events that are held in the newly refurbished John Wayne Performing Arts Center.

“Specifically, we have a lot of events going on at Glendale High,” he said. “I think it would be prudent for us to look at creative opportunities around that school [so] that we could maybe have more parking.”

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Kelly Corrigan, [email protected]

Twitter: @kellymcorrigan