68th Street Property Update
SUSD Building Services is working with Phoenix-based Willmeng Construction, Tempe civil engineering firm Bowman and architects from the DLR Group to bring new life and purpose to the former Tonalea Elementary School site at 68th Street and Oak in south Scottsdale.
The preliminary plan for the multi-purpose recreational, athletic and community project was shared at a Nov. 19 public meeting at Coronado High School, attended by about 25 interested citizens. Building Services Director Dennis Roehler reviewed the estimated $1.2 million proposal for the audience. The project would be paid for with revenue SUSD receives from facility rentals. The proposal will head to the SUSD Governing Board for approval in early 2025.
Take a look at the project here - PDF.
PTO Project @ Desert Mountain
Building Services recently assisted the Desert Mountain High School PTO in upgrading the school’s outdoor reflection area. The idea for the project came from DM’s former principal, Dr. Lisa Hirsch, and was completed by Dennis Roehler’s outstanding Facilities team.
The bench bears a comforting inscription from American poet Isla Paschal Richardson:
If I should ever leave you ...
Grieve not / Nor Speak of me with tears,
But laugh & talk of me
as if I were beside you there...
Thank you, DMHS PTO and Building Services, for providing a lovely space where our Wolves can catch their breath and take a break from their busy lives for a few moments when they need it.
SUSD Governing Board Approves Facility Condition Assessment Project
On October 1, the Scottsdale Unified School District’s Governing Board approved the expenditure of funds to hire Bureau Veritas Technical Assessment LLC to perform a comprehensive, district-wide Facility Condition Assessment, or FCA.
When Scottsdale Unified School District taxpayers approved a $229 million Class B Bond initiative in November 2016, that initiative was the culmination of another FCA. In the past nearly eight years, SUSD has rebuilt 6 elementary schools, added security measures to all our front offices, added security cameras, replaced fire alarm systems at several campuses, replaced natural turf with synthetic turf at each of the high school stadiums, built the Innovation Center at Saguaro High School, and completed nearly 500 other projects, both big and small, throughout our district.
Now, in 2024, it is time once again to reassess our facilities and determine what might be next. We are very proud of our Scottsdale school facilities and want to continue to provide the best possible facilities for our students, staff, and community for years to come.
For those of you who have been in Scottsdale for a while, you may find it hard to believe that our high schools that were rebuilt in 2007-2008 are now approaching 16 years old. For example, Desert Mountain HS, which is celebrating its 30-year anniversary this year, is very much in need of some system improvements.
This new FCA project will consider every building on every campus and all the building systems within our campuses. While the 2016 Bond took care of rebuilding our oldest elementary schools, the need to update our facilities is never-ending. Advances in building security, Central Plant (heating and cooling) equipment replacements, academic space improvements, fire alarm replacements, landscaping, and parking lot improvements all must be considered. With nearly 4,000,000 square feet under roof and 600 acres of developed land, such an assessment is a monumental task. It is a task that will require input and support from all our Building Services staff, our building administrators, our staff, students, parents, and community members.
This project is anticipated to take 8-10 months to complete. There will come a time in the months to come when we will seek input from our stakeholders to ensure that we are working to meet the needs of our entire Scottsdale community. We are very much looking forward to this effort and look forward to interacting with all of you. We can’t elevate excellence in the classroom without elevating excellence in our facilities.
Dennis Roehler
Director of Building Services
Work Order and Facility Rental System
Looking ahead to the new school year, we are saying goodbye to our old work order and facility rental software, Maintenance Direct and FS Direct, through SchoolDude.com…
… and we are super-excited to introduce FMX, our new work order and facility rental system!
SUSD staff can access FMX through Homeroom and will find the FMX icon in the Staff Applications.
We know and understand that change can be difficult, and we want to assure everyone that our team has been working tirelessly to make this transition as easy as possible. Our Facility Coordinators on our campuses have all been trained and all of our maintenance team members have been trained, so we are ready to use the new system.
All SUSD staff are encouraged to log in to FMX and place work orders when needed. If the sink is leaking, we want to know. If a door handle isn’t locking, we need to know. Even if your classroom cleaning isn’t being done at the prescribed intervals, we want to know. If we don’t know, we can’t fix it, and it’s important that our campuses are clean and in good repair.
Classroom and Workspace Temperature Settings
When is a classroom or workspace too hot or too cold?
District Standard Temperature Set Points
March - October
Cooling to 76º
November - February
Heating to 68º
Our small but mighty force of HVAC Technicians in Building Services operates uses the following guidelines to set each workday’s priorities:
- 1st in = 1st out – Work orders are addressed in the order that they come in, with very few exceptions.
- Greatest good – If a whole school goes down or a whole building goes down, the priority is adjusted to address the area that services hundreds of people, over an area that serves 25.
- Student learning spaces over adult workspaces – While all of our staff and students are important to us, we must focus first on student learning.
When a work order is submitted in FMX, the Facility Coordinator (FC) on each campus receives the work order and has been instructed to follow these directions:
March - October
When a work order is submitted by staff who report an elevated room temperature in a learning or workspace, the FC will visit the space and verify the ambient air temperature.
- If the space temperature is between 78 – 81º, the work order will be forwarded to Building Services and be placed in the queue.
- If the space temperature is 81º or higher, the work order will be forwarded to Building Services AND a call to the Building Services Dispatcher will be made to elevate the priority of the work order.
November - February
When a work order is submitted by staff who report colder room temperatures in a learning or workspace, the FC will visit the space and verify the ambient air temperature.
- If the space temperature is between 63-65º, the work order will be forwarded to Building Services and be placed in the queue.
- If the space temperature is 63º or less, the work order will be forwarded to Building Services AND a call to the Building Services Dispatcher will be made to elevate the priority of the work order.
Dennis Roehler
Director
HELP NEEDED!
April Showers Bring May Flowers … Weeds!
As the weather starts to warm and we march into the growing season, our Grounds team is struggling to keep up. SUSD has just under 500 acres of developed land, and we are currently dealing with 11 staff vacancies. We offer competitive pay, paid holidays, and medical benefits, so please consider joining our Building Services team or passing along the opportunity to family and friends.
Desert Canyon Elementary School
The Outdoor P.E. Improvement Project has seen incredible progress in the past few months. While our goal has always been to open the new venue before the end of the school year, it’s going to be nip and tuck to bring this project to its completion by then.
The new shade structure is being painted this week. Lights and fans will be installed in the coming weeks.
The new restroom and storage building is progressing as expected. The roof structure will be installed and the building made water-tight in the next two weeks. Interior finishes and final completion are expected to come together at the end of June.
68th Street & Oak Multipurpose Athletic Facility
A well-attended community meeting was held on March 7th at Coronado HS. The presentation and the community feedback can be found on our SUSD website at: https://www.susd.org/Domain/3271.
The final steps to bring an architectural design firm onboard will be completed next week. The design process, using the community feedback as our guide, will begin in earnest this month and continue into June. Our Grounds team has already started prepping the turf for the growing season. We should see a significant improvement in the turf very quickly. We anticipate bringing a finalized plan back to our Governing Board before the new school year.
Last month, the SUSD Governing Board gave the administration the go-ahead to begin the process of developing the 68th Street property, the site of the former Tonalea Elementary School, as a youth sports complex and community resource.
A community input meeting is scheduled for Thursday, March 7th at 6 p.m. in the Lecture Hall at Coronado High School. We look forward to receiving your thoughts.
The Heating and Cooling Challenge, a.k.a., the “Shoulder Months”
There are a few months during the year, especially in Arizona, that it’s cold enough in the morning for heating and warm enough in the afternoon for cooling. It is not unusual during the months of February and March for us to experience a 45˚ early morning and a 78˚ late afternoon. This same thing tends to happen in the fall, during October and November.
These months are considered the “shoulder months,” and during these months, it can be challenging to regulate our facilities’ indoor temperatures to the satisfaction of all occupants. Our district standard set points are 68˚ for heating and 76˚ for cooling, which translates to if it’s cooler than 68˚ in a classroom, the heat will come on and if it’s warmer than 76˚ , the cooling will come on. Anything in between, there is neither heating or cooling, and that’s where the challenge begins, because when it’s 69˚ degrees outside but its 73˚ inside, that space feels warm. It is not at all unreasonable to have classrooms or any workspace, for that matter, between 68˚ and 76˚ , but to some occupants, when the indoor space gets closer to 76˚ than 68˚ , it is uncomfortable.
Please bear in mind that the indoor fans in our AC units run continuously throughout the school day to bring in fresh air, as required by law. Our school HVAC systems do operate differently than what most people are accustomed to in their homes, but it is our goal to maintain a level of comfort that is acceptable to most building occupants while maintaining a responsible balance with our utility costs. As we experience the upcoming change of seasons and see more consistent (higher) temperatures, we’ll also see more consistent temperatures in our indoor spaces that will be comfortable to most, right in the 76˚ range.
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