BY MARK J. CRAWFORD
Some options for the future of Bradford’s middle and high schools were presented during a Jan. 13 school board workshop.
The district has been preparing its case for the state funding needed to replace both schools, which could be united in single campus.
Architect Paul Stressing is finishing up what is known as a Castaldi Report. The report explores the economic feasibility of renovating a school versus replacing it. If the cost of modernization is more than 50% the cost of new construction, then it is considered better to rebuild than invest in “old bones.”
According to Stressing, there is no doubt the aging schools along with North Florida Technical College need to be replaced. With the requisite three years having passed since the school district first received money to build Bradford Elementary School, it’s time to get back in line with a new funding request.
“When we applied for the elementary school, we had to present the big picture. The big picture was elementary school first, [then] high school, middle school, and that we were going to look at the possibility of doing a consolidated site with a middle school/high school in order to better use the funds and make it more appealing for the state to fund a larger project,” Stressing said.
The architect has worked with Operations and Safety Director Jeff Edison exploring all the nooks and crannies of each campus to prepare a Castaldi Report that calls for fully funding the new schools. The report will assist the Florida Department of Education in its assessment of the school buildings.
Financial reality has already impacted past plans, meaning the seventh grade at BMS could not move to the new elementary school as originally planned. Plans for a gymnasium and additional classrooms were cut for cost, Stressing said, and an additional $2 million had to be spent on extending utilities to the site. That means that talk of a junior/senior high school for grades eight to 12 must now include grade seven.
Stressing said there were three options included in the report, but one of those is probably not finding a new school site. He said several sites were identified by a site selection committee prior to constructing Bradford Elementary, which was eventually judged to be the only viable site to accommodate a new school.
A new school for grades seven-12 could be built alongside Bradford Elementary, but a lot of money would be spent on building up the site and making it construction ready. Stressing said nearly $5 million was spent preparing the site for the elementary school.
A second option would be to build on the existing sites. That would be difficult for landlocked BHS, Stressing said. Construction would be extremely disruptive to school operations.
The third option — the architect’s recommended option — involves moving classes at North Florida Technical College to the high school campus, which would also eliminate busing students back and forth each day. The 60-year-old vocational education center would be demolished, the first domino to fall as Stressing described it. In its place, the new middle school for seventh and eighth graders would be built. Then, the old middle school would come down and the bus maintenance facility would be moved to one of several potential sites, including Hampton, he said. A new high school would be built in place of the old middle school, sharing amenities like a gymnasium and cafeteria with the new middle school, essentially combining the two schools. Edison described it as a “seven through 12 center.” Among other advantages, Stressing said consolidating would result in long-term cost savings.
Access to the high school’s sports facilities would be maintained where they are, another reason not to move the school further away. The modern media center could be used by district-level administration. As for the classroom buildings on U.S. 301, there are no plans to demolish those. Stressing said the city of Starke has expressed serious interest in acquiring them.
The amount of state funding required will be significant given the increase in construction costs. Stressing said the cost to build a high school has risen from $250 to $500 per square foot. Schools that once cost $40 million to build now cost more than $100 million, he said.
Following the workshop, the school board approved the Castaldi Report during its regular meeting. It will now be submitted to Tallahassee for review.
