On January 23 2025, the Plumas Lake Elementary School Board held a community meeting to discuss options to address school overcrowding due to ongoing growth in Plumas Lake and voters rejecting school bonds to build a Middle School.
You can view the presentation for more details, but here are the options considered and discussed:
- OPTION 1: New Middle School
- OPTION 2: Year-Round School
- OPTION 3: Small School Solution (aka Phase 1 of a Middle School)
- OPTION 4: Early Childhood Education Center
- OPTION 5 A&B: Expand Capacity at Existing Sites
The District presented details on each option, including the costs, how it would be paid for, and the number of additional capacities the option would create. During the meeting, the District received live input from the almost 70 parents, teachers, and community members in attendance. Feedback was overwhelmingly in favor of Options 1 & 3. Unfortunately, Option 1 was deemed infeasible as it would require the District to borrow $60M and, without bonds, they would have no way to pay the debt service.
During public comment, attendees raised significant concerns about the impact of year-round school on the teachers, parents, and community. Attendees also strongly opposed any plan that spent development impact fees on an option that couldn’t be used as a future middle school.
The result is that the board voted 5-0 to move forward with Option 3, which is:
- Build the First Phase of a Middle School Facility, including: 16 Classrooms, Office Building, and a Multi-Purpose Room.
- For a Cost of $50M, funded by: $20M in Development Impact Fees + $20M in State Match Funds + $10M Loan ($667k annually paid back through future builder fees and/or general fund)
- Expected to open in 2027 and hold 225 students (7th and 8th graders?)
As a result of this action, PLESD will put off moving to year-round school at this time. You can read the community letter drafted by the District regarding the announcement of the decisions made at the board meeting.
I applaud this action by the District, as it’s responsive to the community, creates additional capacity, and takes the first step towards a much-needed middle school. It does all of that without wasting development impact fees on temporary solutions. The facilities built with these funds can be used as part of a future Plumas Lake Middle School.
A fair question I’ve seen, and one that I also had, is “Why wasn’t this presented as an option in 2024?” This is the answer from the district: The plan was always to use $20 million in builder fees and $20 million in State matching money along with the $54 million from the bonds to build the middle school. On July 1, 2024 we had $10.5 Million in the bank from builder fees. This year so far there has been a tremendous amount of growth and at this moment we have seen another $6 million collected in fees in just the first 6.5 months of the fiscal year. This makes it very probable to have the $20 million in builder fees in the next couple of years. Making it possible to borrow $10 million to be paid back by future builder fees. This $50 million will only build the first part of the school. This school will not have a science classrooms, music facilities, a gym, sports fields, or a library. Those will all need to be built later. We know that construction costs will only go up.
It is important for the community to understand that this doesn’t significantly change the overall funding makeup of a future middle school nor solve our school overcrowding issues long term. The proposal put before voters in March and November was based on $20M in development impact fees + $20M in state funds + $54M in school bonds to build a full middle school with a capacity of 800 students. This proposal builds the initial phase of a middle school (225 students) using $20M in development impact fees + $20M in state funds + $10M loan. When it comes time to build the remaining phase(s) of the middle school, those developer impact fees and state funds will not be available, likely resulting in most of the funding ($50M+) needing to come from a school bond. Still, I firmly believe it’s a step in the right direction for the future of our community.