Community-led Committee Plans for Future Facilities
Members of our community-led Capital Facilities Advisory Committee (CFAC) dove into enrollment projections and tax rates at their April 24 meeting. They are gathering the information they need to recommend which schools be rebuilt in the next school construction bond — aiming to deliver a recommendation to the school board by the end of next school year.
Community member co-chairs Omaha Sternberg, Shane Stender and student co-chair Jamylet Perez led the meeting.
School board member Azeb Hagos was present to listen to presentations and the discussion of community members serving on CFAC.
CFAC Meeting Summary
Announcements
CFAC members gave a standing ovation to two retiring Highline Public Schools leaders who provided staff support to CFAC since its inception in 2015:
- Chief Operations Officer Scott Logan has served Highline for 14 years, and
- Chief Communications Officer Catherine Carbone Rogers for 23 years.
"Our district has benefited from the leadership of these two outstanding public servants," Shane said. "I hope you have a bit more time to relax after being on call 24/7, planning and responding to district needs to serve students, staff and families, as well as spotlighting their remarkable stories."
CFAC members welcomed:
- Jackie Bryan, chief financial officer, who now oversees the Capital Planning & Construction team led by Ellie Daneshnia, executive director. Jackie joined Highline's Business Services department in 2016.
- Tove Tupper, incoming chief communications officer, who has served Highline's Communication team since 2013.
Jackie, Tove and Ellie will support needs and requests for information from this community-led committee.
CFAC members congratulated student co-chair Jamylet Perez, who will graduate from Big Picture School in June, and thanked her for her volunteer service.
Jamylet:
- Served three years on CFAC, attending evening meetings, leading school tours, and being one of several student voices among mostly adult community members.
- Was recommended by former school board member Aaron Garcia Virgen and her school principal as a student representative.
- Served as a committee co-chair for two years, helping lead meetings.
- Plans to attend St. Martin's University in Lacey, studying biology with the intention of becoming a doctor or university professor.
Enrollment Projections
CFO Jackie Bryan presented an overview of enrollment trends and projections:
- Puget Sound region enrollment continued to decline in 2023-24.
- Birth cohorts are smaller than the cohorts between 2012 to 2019
- Slower in-migration of families with children into the Puget Sound area
- Projected to continue to decline or remain flat over the next few years
- Highline enrollment is projected to continue to decline over the next few years.
- Declining birth rates result in smaller kindergarten classes
- Cost of living increase in our area results in higher projections for outlying districts
- Long range forecast predicts that Highline enrollment will stabilize and begin to grow towards the latter part of the decade.
Budget
Jackie explained that Highline Public Schools has five different funds. A change in enrollment impacts the general fund, but does not directly impact the capital project fund.
- Capital Project Fund
- Transportation Vehicle Fund
- Associated Student Body (ASB) Fund
- Debt Service Fund
- General Fund
Capital Facilities Planning Presentation by Bond Counsel
Long-time financial advisor to Highline Public Schools, Mark Prussing is a CPA and executive director of the ESD 112 Financial Advisory Services for school districts.
Mark provided a primer on the capital funding for school districts covering the following topics:
- Typical Funding Steps
- Facility Funding Goals
- Capital Funding Sources
- Debt Capacity
- Bond Market Update
- Election Timing
- Bond Planning
- Projected Tax Rates
- Comparable District Tax Rates
- Key Decisions Points and Next Steps
Update: 2016 & 2022 Bonds & Other Capital Projects
Highline Capital Planning & Construction Executive Director Ellie Daneshnia updated CFAC members on bond projects. She shared updates, aerial photos, renderings or time lapses of progress on these 2022 bond projects:
- Evergreen High School Construction
- Tyee High School Construction
- Pacific Middle School Design
- Sylvester Middle School synthetic turf field/track, soccer mini-pitch, and modular restroom
- Transportation Building to replace two antiquated buildings for bus drivers and dispatchers
- Southern Heights campus renovations to host Highline Virtual Academy and Innovation Heights Academy — completed except some additional work requests
- Maritime High School — campus search is ongoing
She shared information about two capital projects with grant funding:
- Highline High School Tennis Court Lighting
- Six directional lights were added with partial funding from a $100,000 grant from Dick's Sporting Goods Foundation. Next step: Programming the lights and sharing instructions for community use.
- Highline Memorial Field Synthetic Turf will be replaced with partial funding from a $250,000 grant from the NFL Foundation/Seattle Seahawks — coming summer 2024.
CFAC School Tours
Ellie shared a photos of schools toured by some CFAC representatives on April 14. They visited the first four schools listed on the CFAC living priority list. More school tours will be offered to CFAC members this fall.
CFAC Next Steps
Committee members discussed building condition scores, the number of students served in each building, and began a conversation about information learned in the meeting that will lead to further discussions in the 2024-25 CFAC work session meetings.
Omaha presented a draft timeline to guide the committee:
- 2024-25 CFAC Work
- Review Priority List: 2 meetings, fall 2024
- Initial recommendation from CFAC by November 2024
- Capital team sizes bond package(s) for CFAC review
- Review bond packages: 2 meetings, spring 2025
- CFAC presents recommendation to school board by May 2025
- CFAC 2025-26: Continue to plan for future & public feedback
- Next possible bond election year: 2026
- The Highline School Board placed the 2016 and 2022 bonds on the November general election ballots.
CFAC is an advisory committee and provides recommendations to the School Board. Then the School Board makes the final decision on bond packages and when to place bonds on the ballot.
CFAC Tentative Meeting Schedule, 2024-25
Next year, CFAC members are planning four CFAC meetings, tentatively scheduled for the following Wednesdays, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. in the boardroom at Highline Public Schools' Central Administration Building at 15675 Ambaum Blvd SW in Burien.
- September 25, 2024
- November 13, 2024
- February 26, 2025
- April 30, 2025
CFAC Lottery, Fall 2024
Interested in the work of planning for future school buildings and willing to take into consideration the needs of the district as a whole? You are invited to enter your name for the fall 2024 CFAC lottery, and we will let you know if seats open in your service area.
