Editor's note: This is the first in a two-part series about questions related to the construction of a new middle school in the Upper Perkiomen Valley. This week's story highlights the district's reasoning for a new school. Next week, the Town & Country will examine district finances and audit reports to provide deeper insight into the issue.

                The need to replace an aging facility, coupled with the enhanced education the Upper Perkiomen School District could provide to its sixth, seventh and eighth graders, provided the impetus for the plan to construct a new middle school, according to Superintendent Alexis McGloin.

                "It's a melding of many things," she said last week during an hour-long interview with the Town & Country newspaper. "What we have said, and continue to say, is that with a new middle school we can build a facility that is optimal for middle school learners."

                In October, the school board voted 6-3 to construct a new facility on Montgomery Avenue next to the Green Lane Reservoir and adjacent to the Upper Perkiomen School District.

                According to McGloin, the members determined that building the new school would provide the best long-term financial solution and best return on investment for the district.

                "The board members are moving forward with this project because they all agree that it is going to improve the learning environment for the middle school students," she said.

                District officials have already made a substantial investment in the project, according to the superintendent.

                Business Administrator Sandra Kassel said the district has paid Breslin Ridyard Fadero Architects, from Allentown, $825,986 in basic fees. She wrote in an email that the estimated basic fee is based on 6 percent of $49.337 million. According to Kassel, the district is currently using a basic compensation level of $2.960 million, but the final number for the base will be determined after bids are awarded.

                The district also expects to spend $872,500 to hire D'Huy Engineering, Inc. to manage the construction.

                The administrator said she felt comfortable with the accuracy of the total projected cost of $58.496 million, which includes a $2 million contingency fund.  McGloin expressed confidence that the architect and the construction management company have done their due diligence.

                "I feel that number is spot on," she said during a Jan. 17 meeting in her office at the district's Education Building on East Buck Road in Upper Hanover.

                A "perfect storm" that includes the refinancing of a bond that came due this year, as well as relatively low interest rates created the proper conditions to build the new school, according to McGloin. 

                "People are saying we can't afford it," she said. "My reaction is that the timing is ideal. We will likely be in a much more difficult situation if we wait 10 years to do this."

                A $10 million loan, approved late last year by the school board, recently came in with an interest rate lower than expected and should shave $900,000 off the total amount borrowed, according to McGloin. She said the district's high level of fiscal responsibility played a significant role in the favorable interest rate.

                Construction expenses are projected to create 8.62 percent tax increase over four years. The median property tax owner in Berks County can expect to pay an additional $242.54 in school taxes over that period.             In Montgomery County, the median property tax owner will pay an extra $309.44 over that period, according to information provided by McGloin.

                "The additional increases due to construction will not factor in after four years," she wrote in an email.

                However, on Saturday, Upper Perk Concern Citizens convened a special meeting at the East Greenville Fire Hall where a school district finance expert talked about how the projected tax increases district officials are proposing could be misleading to residents. Keith Knauss, a former school director at Unionville Chadds Ford School District, said in a critique of Upper Perkiomen that "sound financial information and informed input from all stakeholders" are "both lacking" in the districts' plan for a new middle school. (The Town & Country will examine Knauss's statements in detail next week.)

                The district's current timeline calls for the board to post the construction bids in May and award them in June, with work on the structure to begin in July, according to McGloin.

                If the construction figure exceeds the projected cost, the "board would need to evaluate the bids and project and decided if they wanted to proceed," McGloin wrote in a Jan. 24 email. She added that district officials will make every attempt to "bring the budget in as tight as possible."

                She said the new middle school would be completed in time for the beginning of the 2019-20 school year with approximately 800 students.

                She said the new school – which includes an auditorium, true science laboratory facilities and adequate spaces for contemporary technical education and family and consumer sciences classes – would create an optimal educational experience for middle school students.

                The facility will allow district officials to better implement "Teaming," an educational discipline that promotes collaboration and community among middle-level learners. McGloin called it a key component for the proposed school.

                The plans call for educating sixth, seventh and eighth graders on separate floors.

                "We need a middle school that functions as a middle school," she said. "Not having sixth, seventh and eighth graders together is a hindrance to us."

                According to the superintendent, two teams of students in each grade – separated by a hallway – would take their classes in five core areas within a confined area.

                McGloin said the arrangement would permit the teachers to better collaborate and make sure their students succeed."It allows students to be made to feel like they are part of a community," she said. "They would do activities as a group. They would become a community of learners."

                Six teams, each with five teachers, are utilized at the current middle school, located at 510 Jefferson St. in East Greenville. However, collaboration is difficult since classrooms for the same team are located on different floors and sides of the building, according to McGloin. She states in an email that the current middle school structure "does not allow us to move the teams closer to each other.  It was not built to allow for this."

                According to the superintendent, district officials have discussed the need for a new middle school for several years. In 2003, the school board contemplated the construction of a new middle school that would house 1,100 students along Montgomery Avenue. In March of that year, the board voted 6-3 to move forward with the site plan to build a 196,000-square-foot facility at an estimated cost of between $35.8 million and $37.3 million.

                Three months later, the board voted to put the project on hold until after the election later in the year. Sam Varano, John Gehman, Joan Smith, Tom Sands and George Bonekemper voted for the delay, according to the June 26 edition of The Hearthstone Town and Country. Dr. John Farris, Jennifer Allebach and John Dale voted against the measure. Tom McCabe was absent from the meeting.

                "This is not a new concept," McGloin said.

                Elected officials felt that funding a sixth addition at the school, one of five options considered by the board and its facilities committee, would not serve the best interests of the district and its students.

                "In terms of being fiscally responsible, putting more money into the current middle school makes no sense," McGloin said. "It will never function as a middle school should function."

                At the same time the new middle school opens, the current middle school – built in 1947 as part of East Greenville High School – would be utilized as a fourth and fifth grade center, according to the superintendent. She said the facility, which currently meets the needs of fourth and fifth graders, would only require minimal renovations.

                Portions of the building, such as the technical education and family and consumer sciences rooms, which are not necessary for fourth and fifth grade students, will likely be blocked off, according to McGloin. She said a full evaluation of the building will occur in the near future.

            "It is too premature to say how many classrooms would be used," the superintendent said.