Quaker Valley School District hires national firm to seek grants for proposed high school, no start date set
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Quaker Valley School District officials have approved a contract with a national consulting firm to seek grants for a proposed high school.
The board voted 8-0 at its Oct. 18 meeting to hire Summit Strategies to “engage in governmental relations work to identify potential federal and state funding opportunities and provide grant writing consultant services.”
The cost will be $10,000 per month.
School Director Jeffrey Watters was absent.
District officials noted the contract is pending final legal review, which means there is no formal start date.
That was something of a concern of Helenrose Fleming of Bell Acres, who questioned the board about seeking grant services while the high school project is in legal limbo.
“We don’t even have permission to build this yet,” Fleming said. “We just seem to be throwing money at this project when we don’t even have permission to do it. You have to still fight and win to get permission from Leet Township.”
Legal challenge
The school district wants to build an estimated 167,000-square-foot facility on about 150 acres of land off Camp Meeting Road. Project costs were estimated earlier this yer to be between $90 million and $100 million. About 650 students would eventually be enrolled.
The property straddles Leet, Edgeworth and Leetsdale. BSHM is the lead company working on the project.
The Leet Township Zoning Hearing Board on Feb. 9 denied the district’s application. Its main reason was the lack of an emergency access road for police fire and EMS.
District officials had said they did not object to the idea, but that it would be more suitable in a land development plan and not part of a zoning exception application.
Quaker Valley’s 45-page appeal was filed in Allegheny County Court in April. A virtual status conference took place June 16 with Common Pleas Judge Joseph James and attorneys representing the district, the zoning hearing board, and a small group of petitioners that support the board’s denial.
Oral arguments before Judge James are scheduled for Oct. 27.
There is no deadline for the judge to rule on the matter.
District officials had hoped to have the new school built and ready for students by the 2025-26 school year.
Those plans have since been altered to have construction begin in 2025 with doors being opened in fall 2027 due to the ongoing litigation.
Seeking grants
Board member Gianni Floro said he is confident the district will clear its legal hurdle and needed to hire a firm with experience and connections to find ways to ease the burden of project costs on Quaker Valley taxpayers.
“There is a multitude of public money available for certain aspects of the high school development,” he said. “That can go toward sustainability. That can go toward transportation and infrastructure. That can go toward mutual aid between municipalities in developing infrastructure. All these things are available with public money.
“With this proposal tonight, we are tapping a pretty solid group of individuals that has a proven track record of delivering for their clients. We just didn’t make this decision in haste.
“We’re not looking to delay this project. We’re looking to move this project forward. … The return on investment on such a proposal merits moving such a proposal forward.”
Floro said Summit Strategies may be able to find grants for other district needs, however, proposal language states it is for “services relative to the new high school project.”
District Solicitor Don Palmer said the contract is for a professional service and so it didn’t need to be put out for public bid.
“Writing a grant is not just filling out one piece of paper. It is hours of work,” said board member Daniela Helkowski. “This third party, they have the relationships and connections that nobody in this room has.
“If it’s going to benefit the children of this community by going out there to get money that’s just sitting there to help build a high school or help do something else in this district, it’s something that we need to look at.”
Assistant Superintendent Andrew Surloff echoed Helkowski’s comments about needing an entity outside the district seeking grants.
“The level of grant writing that we’re talking about here is very different,” Surloff said. “Our administrators (and) our teachers, in fact, do an excellent job (seeking) local funding — a few thousand here, a few thousand there. Sometimes we’ve even seen some larger grants, but only because they were available specifically for educators and for educators to write for them.
”These grants are a much different operation. These are much different private and public sector levels. … For us to hire our own grant writer with salary and benefits would meet, if not exceed, the $120,000 that we’re spending annually on this firm for us to hire someone at this level. We wouldn’t have a 30-day ‘out clause’ with an employee.”
Surloff also stressed the pending final legal review of the contract prior to “engagement” with the firm.
It is unclear how long Summit Strategies’ services would be needed. Contract payments would come from the district’s general fund.