School board hears Drew Middle design update, debates redistricting tweaks and special-education changes as budget uncertainty grows

Drew Middle School design update: The board heard a detailed preliminary design briefing for Drew Middle School from a district presenter and the project architect. The updated plan keeps athletics fields on the south of the site and places the building and most parking to the north, adds a standalone bus loop at the front of the site and a separate car‑rider/parent loop, and pulls building and parking further from parcel lines to increase buffering. The design now includes a forum/flex space adjacent to an auditorium-style area and adds program spaces that together increase the building footprint from the 2009 program estimate to about 165,000 gross square feet. The team presented two approaches for student lockers: a conventional hallway approach (roughly 4,000 sq ft) or a series of locker “pods” (about 7,000 sq ft) that could be converted later to classrooms or labs. The presenters said, based on a rough order of magnitude, construction costs are currently in the $385–$450 per square foot range: the 165,000‑sf base building would be roughly $63.5M–$74.25M; building to 172,000 sf (including the 7,000‑sf locker pods) could be in the high‑$77M range. Speakers stressed there are operational savings to building expansion now versus adding space later (procurement/permitting escalation and duplicate general conditions). The design team told the board it expects to start the site plan work “in earnest” and noted closing/settlement work on acquisition may shift possession dates by a few months; no final construction contract was authorized at the meeting.

Why it matters: The design choices affect project cost, school operations (bus vs. car circulation and guest parking), and future…