School Sites Tomorrow Advisory Committees

Status of Closed School Sites
Proposals for Closed School Sites - Winter 2012
Proposals for Closed School Sites - Spring 2011
Schedule for Disposition of Closed School Sites (in PDF)
Community Meetings - Spring 2011 (Includes meeting notes and presentations)

Contact Information - Closed School Sites

For repairs or maintenance:

Planning: 520-225-4949
Operations: 520-225-4912

To report suspicious activity:

School Safety: 520-584-7676 (24 hours)

FAQs for Closed School Sites

Q. Is the District going to sell all of these properties?

A. TUSD is considering all options including sales, leases or exchanges. TUSD will be casting a wide net for a broad range of offers. Then with, comments from affected neighborhoods TUSD will evaluate the proposals to determine which approach best meets the Ditrict's goals.

Q. What will TUSD do with the money that they get for the sale or lease of these properties.

A. By State law, the proceeds of any sale, lease or exchange of real property can only be used to pay outstanding bonds, improve and furnish existing schools, to purchase school sites, or to reduce taxes. Thus, gains from sales, leases or exchanges must be used for purposes that benefit students with improved school facilities, or the taxpayers with reduced district bond debt or lower taxes.

Q. Is TUSD continuing to maintain the landscape at each site, and if so, to what level?

A. TUSD's policy on closed schools is to keep them looking as they did when the schools were open. Roving crews visit the closed sites on the regular rotation, which means two grounds workers are on site for about 3 hours every 9 to 11 calendar days. However, patios which are not visible to the public are not maintained as frequently as at open schools and sand bays/wood chip bays for play equipment are not being maintained (most play equipment has already been moved).

Some closed schools still have irrigation problems from the freeze. These are primarily damaged backflow preventers, which we are replacing as fast as we can. Work orders have been submitted on these and they will be handled, as all work orders are handled, by submittal date and urgency.

If you see damage or irrigation problems at the sites, please report them to TUSD Operations at 225-4912 or TUSD Planning at 225-4949.

School Sites Tomorrow Advisory Committees:

To find more information, please select one of the committees above.You can also find Facebook pages for each of these committees.

Background

In spring of 2010, due to budget constraints, TUSD made a hard decision to close nine schools. This helped to cut costs, already returning 2% (approx. $30,000) to every school that remained open. Now, there is the potential to generate revenues from the vacant properties to continue to support education and improvements in the remaining schools.

The focus of this project is the disposition or repurposing of the closed schools as quickly as possible to generate revenue and to minimize costs and negative impacts to the community.

Community Participation

Shortly after the decisions were made to close the schools all landowners and neighborhood associations within 1000' of the schools were invited to apply to serve on advisory committees to help determine the future uses of the sites. Those committees met during the 2010-2011 school year.

For any further information about the School Site Advisory Committees, please contact: Planning Services – (520) 225-4767.