The vision is to provide an equitable learning environment for all students that support the needs of 21st-century learning and learners by embracing diverse places, ideas and student needs, and our facilities support a flexibility of space, time, people and technology. The physical learning environment will sustain and promote multiple modes of student learning by supporting individual and group work. It will provide space for presentation and exploration, promotes innovation and interaction and a sense of community, and fosters formal and informal learning, while ensuring student and staff safety. 

• Darin Rathbun, PE, Principal in Charge
• Greg Barr, PE, Principal, Director of M/E/P
• Kate Doyle, Registered Architect, Project Coordinator
• Michael Jones, Registered Architect, Project Manager

Jon Guizar (board president, committee chairman): Hunt was chosen for the task after extensive debate among the board and administration. In the end, the majority consensus was that they were most able to explain their community involvement piece and they seemed to have the most complete understanding of what it would take to bring the district to a conclusion on a path forward for our elementary program districtwide. They had also demonstrated an ability to approach each project without bias or preconceived notions of what we needed. Rather, they were in agreement that we simply needed to go through a rigorous process of data gathering, inspections, community input and staff direction, put it all together, and then let the actual data lead us to a reasonable conclusion.

Hunt: It’s the evaluation of a building’s condition and space, to determine the remaining life of the building and determine recommended upgrades to infrastructure and function. Hunt’s goal is to listen to the Bellefonte Area school board, building committee and community, and apply their feedback to provide the data to allow Bellefonte Area School District to make an educated decision about the future of their elementary buildings.

Phase 1: Building Condition Survey: Includes data-gathering related to the condition of the buildings, including a walkthrough of each building and visual inspection of every space, every system and the surrounding site – architectural, structural, site/civil, electrical, mechanical and technology. Then the findings are developed into recommendations to improve and extend the remaining life of the buildings within the following categories:

• Health and Safety
• Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
• General Building Interior
• General Building Exterior
• General Site Renovations

Phase 2: Educational Space Planning: Includes gathering data related to the current space, enrollment, capacity and curriculum, in addition to holding multiple meetings with building administrators. These findings are developed into educational space needs recommendations. Hunt has developed charts, graphs and preliminary draft floor plans to review this category. The goal of Phase 2 is to align each building space with the curriculum and provide equity throughout all four buildings.

Phase 3: Community Feedback and Evaluation of Additional Options: This will be ongoing to allow community members to have input on Hunt’s recommendations, and brainstorm additional options for the four buildings regarding equity, reconfiguration, consolidation and redistricting. This phase analyzes current costs for improvements identified in Phases 1 and 2, and current operational costs, to produce multiple options that evaluate efficiency for the function and financials of the district.

Community feedback has been included in Phases 1 and 2, and has been summarized. The goal for Phase 3 is to continue to gain feedback, and gather new comments, concerns and input from the community as additional options and costs are presented.

Please see the building conditions survey packet, here: Conditions survey

Pages 4-12: These are the results and recommendations to each building based on the facilities assessment and walkthroughs. They are categorized by:

• Health and Safety
• Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
• General Building Interior
• General Building Exterior
• General Site Renovations

Pages 13-17: The Community Feedback portions summarize all of the comments received in previous studies or surveys, and also the most recent survey question responses are summarized. There are a few items that we heard that are re-occurring, noted on page 18.

Pages 18-29: Summary of condition assessment – this lists the major cost items from each building related to the Building Condition Survey categories. There are also specific evaluations shown for each building related to the Fire Sprinkler System.

Page 30: Overall cost summary for Phase 1 to upgrade the buildings as is – without equity, renovations or educational space needs recommendations. The results show an average of $167.42 cost per square foot totaling the project cost to approximately $33.8 million.

Pages 31-42: The Educational Space Needs highlights show the major items that were discussed during meetings with the administrators and where each building is focused on related to space needs.  There are preliminary (draft) floor plans that explore square footage needs only, and are intended to show the quantity of renovations (orange) and additions (blue) that would be needed to provide updated spaces that align with each buildings program, curriculum and provide equity throughout the district.

Pages 43-49: Is the gathered data related to the current space, enrollment, capacity and curriculum, in addition to Hunt’s educational space planning recommendations to align the spaces with their curriculum and provide equity throughout the district.

Page 50: Overall cost summary for Phase 2 to upgrade the buildings based on condition (from Phase 1) and includes the educational space needs and equity costs. The results show an average of $251.40 cost per square foot totaling the project cost to approximately $59.1 million.

Jon Guizar (board president, committee chairman): Hayes Large did a study back in 2009. The charge then was to do a facility study and list options for the board with an emphasis on our elementary buildings that had not seen renovation for some time. The study did not result in any major renovations.

In 2016, Crabtree Rohrbaugh and Associates was retained to repeat the process due to the amount of money that we were putting to the task of maintaining and operating our older and inefficient buildings.

Jon Guizar (board president, committee chairman): In 2020, Hunt engineers was retained to go through a lengthier process. We have seen from the past that firms would simply evaluate buildings for their condition and then provide us options that were simply not attainable financially for the district. What we really needed was a firm that could look at our elementary program more holistically and be able to bring the board and the entire Bellefonte community to a path forward for a more equitable elementary program. We needed data on the buildings, for sure, but we (also) needed a firm that could go beyond the previous studies and flush out the data in a methodical and logical fashion, such that information and options could be fully understood and the process could be transparent, such that anyone could see that a process was followed and a collaborative and logical solution could in fact be reached.

Hunt: The previous studies that were reviewed only evaluated the condition of each building with recommended costs for improvements (Phase 1).  Hunt provided the Educational Space Planning (Phase 2) to provide data to the district about space needs, capacity (square foot per student), and to provide equity throughout all four elementary buildings.

Hunt: Hunt is currently working as efficiently as possible with the current situation and is determined to work with the district until enough data is provided to allow the district to make a decision going forward with the four elementary buildings. We believe the project is complete when the district has enough information to make an educated decision.

Hunt: We used a combination of the condition assessment and the educational space planning to produce costs for improvements to the buildings and spaces.

Based on the costs, Bellefonte Elementary School has the most needs due to the age of the building and the way it was constructed originally. The needs include building upgrades and renovations to improve classroom size, special and support spaces.

Benner and Pleasant Gap elementary school have similar needs to each other, which include upgrades to the aged portions of the buildings, and overall renovations and additions to improve the educational space and provide equal special and support spaces throughout.

Marion-Walker Elementary School has been recently updated and has the least need for upgrades to the aged portions of the building, but some need has been identified. There are also areas that need to be aligned for space, which include an addition to replace the trailers, and minimal specials and support alignment for equity.

Jon Guizar (board president, committee chairman): The process will be completed once the board, in collaboration with the administration, staff, students and the community, can decide on a preliminary design for our elementary program. Once that is completed, we will again review our financial situation, decide on a timeline for completion of the path forward, then begin the process of finding the right architect to capture the desires of the district and complete a design for construction.

Hunt: This project and the schools are important to the community and we have heard that throughout the process, and we appreciate the involvement. Our firm takes pride in listening to our clients and incorporating the feedback into the process. In this case our client is the school district, which includes the community.

*To provide feedback, please visit this link: Community input

The public listening meetings held in 2019 were the first step in the district's process. Initially, the district was simply gathering community questions and concerns. The district listened to the insight that was provided. In addition to those meetings, a committee was formed that had representation from all elementary buildings - both staff and parents, as well as administrative presence. A committee was reformed in the spring of 2020 to help oversee the current process -- led board President Jon Guizar and Vice President Jeff Steiner. This committee will review the information gathered from our community, along with the needs assessment data, general research, and input from researchers and experts.

However, information gathering does not end at this point. The district will continue to research, do site visits, and gather information from experts and architects to make sure, regardless of the design model selected, students receive the best educational and learning environment possible. At different phases of the process specific groups will be actively engaged. For instance, teachers and administrators will have significant engagement when it comes to the design of the educational footprint within the design model. Parents and social organizations will be engaged with regard to developing inclusive communities and partnering for extended supports respectively.

It is important to remember this is a long and thoughtful process where providing a successful learning environment for our children is key. 

Hunt: Unfortunately, it is not uncommon to see outdated buildings in the commonwealth, which is mainly due to the lack of funding for building projects in Pennsylvania.  In other words, Bellefonte Area buildings are comparable to others in the state. We are seeing a movement in area school districts to provide STEM-based learning in the schools, which can be approached in different ways throughout the building. In older buildings, we’ve seen a simple solution of adding flexible furniture and storage units to support STEM in the libraries. We’ve also seen districts that are pursuing renovations to all classrooms so STEM can be incorporated into the everyday general classrooms, and we’ve seen larger renovations to provide a flexible makerspace that supports many STEM activities. This is an important piece to consider through this process and has been established as a goal for Bellefonte’s future planning. The costs currently include STEM renovations at all four elementary buildings.