Any Plans for Capital Projects in Your School District’s Future?

What is your board of education planning on building and/or repairing in the next five years? Here’s a handy link to find those plans yourself. You really ought to take a look. You might just find a few surprises like I did.

For example, I was surprised to find that my local board of education is planning to build a $45 million school in 2017. This news was particularly surprising, given that board of education recently voted to end bus transportation for students next year, citing financial difficulties.

The FY14 Capital Plans were due to the ALSDE by September 20.  Hard to know whether the online capital plans reflect the FY14 plans, as there are no “approved” dates, only the date the report is generated, so one can only assume the plan online is the most up-to-date.

There are other plans out there somewhere that will help us figure out what our boards of education are planning. The ALSDE- prescribed budget forms state that “nine other operational plans” must be submitted to the ALSDE in addition to the budget. [Click this link, look at page 2 of the PDF for where this is in the budget.]  These plans are:

1. Capital Projects (described already)
2. Student Transportation
3. Professional Development
4. Technology
5. Special Education
6. At-Risk Students
7. Career/Technical Education
8. Federal Programs
9. School Safety

Sure would be nice to know what those other eight plans are, wouldn’t it? I haven’t yet found where they are housed online. But I’ll keep looking, and I’ll let you know if I find them.