District 15 to discuss life safety study results
The District 15 Board of Education's third Community Communication Forum addressing its new life safety study will be 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 29, at Winston Campus Junior High, 120 N. Babcock Drive, Palatine.
During the District 15 Board of Education's Dec. 10 meeting, the district's architects presented the board with the results of the new 10-year life safety study, which was performed on its facilities this summer. The board is now hosting four Community Communication Forums to further detail the results of the study and allow residents to provide their feedback on the results.
Each of the four forums will be held at a different District 15 junior high so that administrators can share more detailed study results that pertain to the specific schools served within each of those geographic areas.
The Thursday, Jan. 29, forum will detail the study's results for the following schools:
• Winston Campus Junior High
• Jane Addams School
• Lake Louise School
• Virginia Lake School
• Winston Campus Elementary
"These study results, as well as the input we receive from residents during these upcoming forums - will significantly shape the way our schools - our actual brick and mortar facilities - will look and function for the foreseeable future," said Scott Thompson, Ed.D., District 15's superintendent of schools. "They will completely rearrange the way all of our building maintenance and repair projects are prioritized, and, in doing so, will establish the work we will need to do and the challenges we will need to overcome over the course of the next several years."
The Life Safety Study Results
STR Partners, the District's architect of record, completed a thorough and comprehensive analysis of the facility needs of each of the district's buildings this summer, and identified a total of nearly $156 million of facilities projects for the district to include in the report it must file this summer. Of that total, $22.1 million of the projects are categorized as requiring completion within a year of the report's filing, and another $112.3 million of them are categorized as requiring completion within five years.
After their initial analysis of the report, administrators determined that the district could effectively reduce that $156 million total to about $119 million, as that overall amount includes $20 million of projects categorized as recommendations, $6.2 million of projects related to noninstructional facilities, and $4.3 million of projects the district can complete in-house.
Dr. Thompson emphasized that his goal moving forward is for the board, the administration, and the District 15 community to use the new life safety study's results to create a comprehensive facilities plan that will outline how the district intends to address its facilities needs for the next decade and beyond.
What is a Life Safety Study?
District 15's facilities and buildings are required to maintain State Board of Education regulations within the School Building Code and the Health Life Safety Code, in addition to occupational safety standards of the Illinois Department of Labor. These codes are maintained and regulated through life safety projects, and these projects are determined by a survey of the District's facilities by an architect and engineer.
Districts are required to conduct these surveys every 10 years, and report their results to the state. Items that are surveyed include roofs, asphalt, asbestos abatements and other environmental issues; plumbing and water safety concerns; necessary upgrades to lighting, boilers and heating/ventilation/air conditioning systems; and other projects to increase energy efficiency and safety in our buildings. Once a survey is completed, the projects are put into a prioritized list according to the Health Life Safety Code.