Adrienne Nettles
Nov 06, 2009 (Montgomery Advertiser - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --

Montgomery Public Schools Superintendent Barbara Thompson is proposing a district-wide study of school facilities, which could include looking at whether the district needs to consolidate its central office sites. It could also cause the board to once again evaluate the fate of schools such as Pintlala and Hayneville Road.

Thompson said Thursday she plans to recommend that the Montgomery County Board of Education enter into a contract Nov. 17 with TCU Consulting of Montgomery to conduct the study.

The new facilities study will be a follow up to the school district's 2006 DeJong study that examined the efficiency and utilization of Montgomery school facilities, Thompson said.

"This is a natural follow up from that report," Thompson said. "The DeJong study recommends that a new study be done at least every three years."

If the study is approved by the school board, it could renew talks about moving the district's administrative offices to a central location, and a former member of the board of education is suggesting that his Taylor Road building could serve the district's need.

Thompson said it was too early to speculate on the recommendations of TCU, including moving the district's administrative offices, which are spread over 14 different locations. The district's main central office is on Decatur Street in downtown Montgomery.

"We'll have to look at what they're recommending," Thompson said, declining to speculate on whether TCU would recommend moving the central office and consolidating its off site offices. "Maybe they want us to sell off some buildings. I don't know."

Former school board member Tommie Miller, who served on the board from 2000 to 2006, said Thursday that he would be willing allow the school district to use a portion of his Southern Guaranty Insurance building at 2545 Taylor Road to use as the district's central office.

"I'd make it available to them at a very, very affordable rate," Miller said. "I'd be most happy to make it available to them because they need to rent a building. It would be my contribution to education."

Miller said the current administration, however, has not contacted him regarding his building, which is about 61,000 square feet, of which only between 25,000 and 30,000 square feet is available to be leased.

Miller, who said his building isn't for sale, described the building as a Lexus in terms on real estate.

"My building is a class A building," he said. "It's competition is at best a Yugo."

Former MPS Superintendent John Dilworth called it a "beautiful building," Miller said, adding that Dilworth toured it while he was superintendent and eyed it as a possible new home for the school district's central office.

"He (Dilworth) was considering putting (the) central office in it," Miller said of his building. "Clay Slagle (chief operations officer for Montgomery Public Schools) was with it as well."

The building, which sits on about 10 acres, is already furnished with more than $1 million in furniture and could work for the school district, although the DeJong study recommends 55,000 square feet for the district's central office, Miller said.

When contacted about Miller and his building as a possible central office location, school board member Mary Briers said that the district does not have the money to consider buying any building.

Briers said that she has been frustrated about talk about Miller's building on radio news programs. She said those discussions had been hurtful to Thompson and her service in the 32,000 school district since she arrived as Montgomery's new superintendent in August.

Briers told the Montgomery Advertiser reporter that as a black female reporter, she should not report negative things about Thompson, who is a black female.

She said if Thompson's Nov. 17 plans and Miller's suggestion were reported, the reporter was being "bitchy," and went on to rant about other members and employees of the school board and of the newspaper. Briers later called to apologize.

The fact is "we're in proration," Briers said. "We don't have the money to buy a building."

Beverly Ross, chairwoman of the school board, could not be reached for comment.

Thompson said the proposed TCU study would take a minimum of 60 days and possibly longer. The study is pressing because the district needs to decide by this spring the fate of Pintlala and Hayneville Road, which the board voted to keep open this school year after Dilworth recommended closing them, she added.

"We need to look at what we're going to do with these schools in the future," Thompson said.

The scope of TCU's study also will cover a number of areas, including where the most student growth is happening in the district, the district's rental buildings and whether the district is getting the best use out of all its facilities, Thompson said.

"We're looking at building in the district to see if were using them the best way," Thompson said.

Ken Upchurch, a partner in TCU Consulting, said his firm's conversations with the school district have been very preliminary and that most of those talks involved work for the school district that is not currently in the firm's scope of services with his firm.

He added that properties his firmed reviewed as part of any work with the school system would likely be confidential in any case.

"The cost of land would go up if people knew the board was interested in it," he said as the reason. Thompson on Thursday stressed that district is not "signing on for a new central office" with the new study.

"This study will look at the entire district's facilities," she said.

The board is still negotiating the cost of the study with TCU Consulting, Thompson added.

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