A community Facilities Advisory Committee will meet monthly from February 2025 through fall 2025 to develop recommendations to the Board of Education for a long-term district master facilities plan. The Board sought volunteers and 45 residents offered to serve.
The first meeting will be Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025 and the committee will meet monthly, with a goal of delivering recommendations to the Board next fall. The group will review district facilities needs, enrollment, budgets, state revenue limits, other financial issues, the district's building footprint and school boundaries.
Learn more about the facilities audit.
Facilities Needs Discussed at Community Information Session
See video recording
At an Oct. 23, 2024 Community Information Session on district facilities planning, Interim Supt. Lee Thennes said he is excited for the district to create a master facilities plan that will serve MPSD students, families and community for the next 50 to 75 years.
Thennes, a former Lincoln High School principal and teacher who was named as Interim Superintendent in September, has begun to gather community input on MPSD's facilities needs, following a comprehensive facilities audit that found about $161 million in repairs and maintenance needs over the next 10 years.
Thennes met with staff at every school in the district throughout October to share audit information and answer questions. He did the same with community at an information session Oct. 23 in the Washington Middle School auditorium. The event was not live-streamed or recorded due to challenges in the aging auditorium, but Thennes recorded the presentation which you can watch below
or here. Th
e presentation slides also are shown below.
Thennes told the community he plans to seek Board of Education support as he takes these next steps in the district's master facilities planning:
- Present to the Board a proposal to fund critical maintenance projects across the district.
- Create two facility advisory committees that will start meeting in January or February 2025 to review longer-term and larger potential projects and issues such as budget challenges, declining enrollment and excess school capacity. One facilities advisory committee will be composed of MPSD staff and another will be composed of community members.
- Mail a survey to every MPSD household in January with information about the facilities needs and seeking feedback on issues and options.
- Share the survey results with the two facilities advisory committees to help them develop recommendations to the Board on long-term master facilities planning for elementary and secondary schools.