Lucia Mar has $170 million to fix facilities. So what projects will get done first?

Deciding where to start spending $170 million is an arduous task, but Lucia Mar Unified School District Superintendent Raynee Daley says the district is up for the challenge.

“Our district represents children that deserve nothing but the best,” she said. “We believe we offer a great education, but in order to have our education be at the level of 21st century learning for our kids, we just needed the ability to improve our facilities and our technology. So to see that door opened, and for us to know that the things we have been planning for a long time are possible? … Totally stoked — that’s how we felt.”

In November, 65.6 percent of district voters approved Measure I, Lucia Mar’s $170 million bond measure that will pay for facility improvements and technology upgrades at school campuses.

The measure will cost property owners an average of about $41 per $100,000 of assessed value on their property tax bills per year, with the first bond being issued by summer 2017.

Now that the measure has passed, the district’s hard work is just beginning, and administrators are tasked with prioritizing Lucia Mar’s long laundry list of desired upgrades and improvements.

The district will hold several study sessions with stakeholders to figure out what the public’s priorities are for repairs and upgrades over the next few months, Daley said. That, coupled with its facilities master plan, will act as a guide to which projects will be tackled first, she said.

The master plan lists about 10 common site priorities. Those include technology upgrades at all of the district’s 13 schools, portable classroom replacements at 12 campuses, heating and air conditioning upgrades, and improvements to shade and outdoor eating spaces.

Other priorities include blacktop and concrete repairs, upgrading and repairing athletic fields, upgrading restrooms, adding flexible learning furniture, improving fencing and upgrading plumbing.

Though a specific timeline of projects has not yet been determined, Daley did offer an observation on some of the top-priority projects for the district.

Most of the money is expected to go toward replacing portable classrooms, she said. About 40 percent of the district’s classrooms are in portable buildings.

“Those all have a shelf life, so to speak, and many of them have outlived their shelf life,” Daley said. “So those need to go.”

Other funds will go toward infrastructure repairs such as a new sewer system at Dana Elementary, a new electrical system at Branch Elementary, heating and ventilation repairs at Nipomo Elementary, a new band room at Arroyo Grande High School and replacing the asphalt at several campuses.

“Asphalt is a big deal,” Daley said. “Some of these kids have a skinned knee from kindergarten through sixth grade at some of these schools because the asphalt has gotten so bad.”

Another priority is technology upgrades, such as improving the broadband network at all of the schools and ultimately having Wi-Fi at each campus.

“The infrastructure isn’t the only part,” she said. “As we replace the classrooms, we’ll be able to equip those classrooms … with certain kinds of equipment that is permanent to the classroom.”

This is by no means an exhaustive list of all the projects the district is planning to undertake over the next nine years.

Decisions on how to spend the money will likely dominate board discussions for the next few years, Daley said, starting with the Jan. 10 meeting, where the board will decide the schedule for when it will sell its bonds.

This story was originally published December 18, 2016 at 5:12 PM with the headline "Lucia Mar has $170 million to fix facilities. So what projects will get done first?."