Frequently Asked Questions

Education has continually evolved to address the needs of society at various points in history. In the 1880s, a one-room schoolhouse sufficed because the primary educational goals were geared towards agriculture, factory work, and small business. College preparation was limited to a select few. 

As we advanced through the Industrial Revolution, the increased complexity of governments and organizations created a demand for educated managers and civil servants. To meet this need, the education system expanded to include more subjects such as accounting, math, and basic science. This shift necessitated a move away from the one-room schoolhouse to a model featuring multiple grades and specialized teachers, with physical facilities evolving to support these changes.

Today, we face similar challenges. Modern business and academia require knowledge of science, robotics, coding, new literature, and an appreciation of diversity. The educational demands of the 21st century can't be fulfilled using facilities and methods developed in the mid-20th century. Just as it was necessary to evolve from the one-room schoolhouse and the curriculum of the 1930s, it is now time to update our educational infrastructure and approach to meet contemporary needs.

Our school infrastructure is approaching a breaking point. Pond Cove Elementary School, Cape Elizabeth Middle School, and Cape Elizabeth High School all require costly and critical updates to safely educate our community’s children. 

Comprised of a patchwork of additions and renovations, the middle school has an average age of 64 years with some portions of the building dating to 1934. This building is beyond its useful life; most school buildings are abandoned after 60 years, let alone 70 or 90 years. It is the oldest of our school buildings — and it shows. Maintenance and utility costs are soaring, and many of the walls are load bearing and cannot be renovated in order to meet educational needs. 

Bonding tens of millions of dollars to extend the life of this failing infrastructure would yield a poor return on investment. According to the work of the SBAC, the expected lifespan of a new middle school would far exceed that of costly renovations — by decades. New construction provides a better return on investment on a year-of-useful-life-per-dollar basis, making it the most cost effective approach. 

Unfortunately, they are easy to find, per our architects: Barriers to Education in Our Existing Schools.

Our oldest schools lack modern security measures and have inadequate entrances, making it challenging to monitor who enters and exits the buildings. The "middle ground" project solves this challenge for CEMS, creating distinctions between public spaces (ex. gymnasium) and student spaces (classrooms). The project also greatly enhances security at Pond Cove with a new entrance and administrative offices.

The administrative addition to Pond Cove will solve challenges with the Nurse's Office, like how students are waiting to be treated in the main lobby due to a lack of triage and waiting space. The "middle ground" project will also address the needs for more specialized learning spaces such as Special Education, speech and occupational therapy, mathematics and reading intervention, and more.

On the academic side, our small, outdated classrooms and technology infrastructure is inadequate and falls short of supporting the demands of modern-day teaching methods. This results in limitations on providing learning experiences that reflect today's workforce, such as spaces that support hands-on, group projects and technological creativity and communication. The elementary school STEM lab is housed in a hallway, along an ADA ramp — the "middle ground" proposal will add a STEM space to the library.

One of the largest challenges educationally, is the cafetorium which controls the schedule for both Pond Cove and CEMS, restricting academic scheduling for over 1,000 students. The "middle ground" project addresses this with the separation of CEMS and Pond Cove as two distinct schools.

Lastly, our current facilities' maintenance costs are increasing yearly due to their age and design. Our mechanical systems are outdated, past their useful life, excessively loud, and inefficient. Finding replacement parts is a challenge for our school budget. There are over two dozen roofs at the current CEMS/PC building. In some areas, when it rains, it drips into the classrooms and hallways, with swim tiles used to absorb the moisture above the ceiling tiles.

The "middle ground" project not only resets the clock on CEMS, but it also includes significant maintenance upgrades at Pond Cove (including mechanical, new flooring, new ceilings, and paint) that will help reduce these rising expenses in the long run, benefiting both taxpayers and students alike.

This is just a short list of some of the day-to-day challenges in our buildings. For the full 900-page Facility Needs Assessment Report, click here to download.

Multiple architects, engineers, and the town’s Owner’s Representative have identified numerous critical building needs and barriers to education. The cost of addressing these issues through renovation (~$78 million at last estimate) is almost as high as building a new school and lasts significantly less time before requiring additional investments.

Due to the building’s load-bearing walls, a renovation cannot address major educational needs such as the outdated, undersized classrooms that are not decided for modern technology or hands-on learning. “Resetting the clock” on our oldest school avoids putting taxpayers on a collision course with three concurrently failing school buildings at once.

1. Our Middle School Is In Very Poor Condition: This isn’t just an old building that needs a coat of paint. Across multiple rounds of architects, a plethora of critical needs and failings have been identified, vetted, and confirmed by our hired professionals and affirmed by the SBAC, Owners Rep, and School Board. Already beyond its expected useful lifespan, the magnitude of required improvements carries a cost that is only marginally lower than the cost to build a new school. Don’t take our word for it: read the Facility Needs Assessment Report. 

2. This Project Provides A Better Return on Investment: Bonding tens of millions of dollars to extend the life of this failing infrastructure would yield a poor return on investment. According to the work of the SBAC, the expected lifespan of a new middle school would far exceed that of costly renovations – by decades. New construction provides a better return on investment on a year-of-useful-life-per-dollar basis, making it the most cost effective approach. The town will need to fund additional renovations and construction in the future. We can control how soon that happens with our investment decisions today (aka in 25 years, not 10).

3. It Avoids Disruption: A renovation would stretch across 2-3 school years and disrupt the learning space of 100% of middle school students. Dozens of portable trailers costing millions of dollars would occupy Moulton Field, likely surrounded by tall security fencing. Students would be displaced and isolated — further disenfranchising those students requiring additional services. Additional prep and travel time would be required, with students going in and out of doors multiple times per day for allied arts, lunch, assemblies, special services, or activities. 

   With scores of individual entry points and outside doors, acceptable security measures would be almost impracticable. At the end of this extended disruption, teachers would return to unchanged classrooms. Proposed renovations don’t even provide a coat of paint for the learning space of our middle schoolers. The school board, with the input of the School District and MS Administrators, found this level of disruption unacceptable relative to the benefits of the renovation. 

   A new middle school would be constructed while students remained in the current building. Upon its completion, students would move to their new building while the old building is demolished and converted to field space. No portables, no disruption to learning, and more learning needs met by the project. 

4. It “Resets the Clock”: Renovations alone for the MS, along with planned renovations Pond Cove and HS, puts Cape taxpayers on a collision course with three concurrently failing school buildings in the coming 20 years. This is a very expensive roll of the dice.

5. We Don’t Know What's Inside The Walls: Renovations are commonly plagued by expensive surprises, unexpected mitigation outlays, and cost overruns. Expected cost savings can easily evaporate in the construction process. (2:44:38 Public comment from Patrick Cotter, member of SBAC.).

No. This timeline gives you a detailed account of the project to date. The "Middle Ground" project is called the middle ground because the SBAC Advisory Committee could not reach a consensus and gave a divided 5-4 recommendation to the School Board.

​The School Board invited SBAC members on both sides to present their case.Option B focused on a tax impact of around 10% around 10%, Option E focused on meeting educational needs, safety, and long-term investment.

After the presentations, the School Board asked a round of 20+ questions of the architects for clarity and understanding. The School Board then directed the architects to find a compromise between Option B and Option E given each side's major concerns.

As a member of SBAC, Town Councilor Penny Jordan was the deciding vote in favor of Option B over Option E. When the "Middle Ground" was presented, she supported the compromise: "You have done a fabulous job. I can support it and I will support it. I just ask that you keep chipping away at the total price, but I think the direction we are headed is really positive." Later, in August, Councilor Jordan voted in favor of sending the "Middle Ground" to the voters and recommended it be approved by the voters.

SBAC Members who have publicly supported "Middle Ground":

1. Caitlin Sweet, School Board

2. Cynthia Voltz, School Board

3. Penny Jordan, Town Council

4. Corinne Bell, K-12 Architect

5. Patrick Cotter, Former Fire Marshal of Sanford, Current Lieutenant of Cape Elizabeth Fire Dept.

They are conflating the bond for this construction project with CESD's Capital Improvement Program (CIP).

Every year, the school budget includes a line item for Capital Improvement Program, or CIP. For this year the school budget increased that amount from about $350,000 to $700,000 annually. This line provides the school department flexibility to complete smaller capital projects over time, as opposed to one large renovation plan. Sometimes these can be completed with internal staff, as opposed to hiring more expensive contractors.

A couple of examples from this summer — the high school transformed a room into a weight room and renovated a hallway into a space for cardio equipment. This is a capital project, but didn’t require hiring an architect or owners representative, or even a third party contractor. The town used its existing maintenance staff to complete the work.

A second major project involved the elementary school completely renovating its gymnasium. This project was done by a small, local contractor, but was completed with funding from the annual budget.

These types of improvements occur every year, and with the increase in the budget already baked in, will require NO further tax increase. In fact, trying to include them with the bond would be double-counting, which is not prudent financial planning.

One of the top concerns from the "No" side after the 2022 referendum was the need to hire an Owner's Representative. They wanted to ensure that the next proposal wouldn't include unnecessary extras in the bond amount (aka "the Taj Mahal").

As a result, the town hired Turner and Townsend to perform the role of Owner's Representative to oversee the school building project on behalf of the town, school department, and taxpayer. This firm works to manage the project's resources, time, money, and quality independently of the hired architect.

Part of that work included independently verifying the project estimates from Harriman architects.

Further, in June, Turner Townsend presented a long-term plan for Cape Elizabeth schools. After studying past work by Colby and current work by Harriman for 8 months, they created a list of repairs and renovations to include in the Middle Ground project.

They also identified:

• The projects that are best to seek SRRF Funds (state grant, 0% interest loans program) for

• Completed projects that were tackled between the start of the building project years ago and today

• Projects that are no longer required or at issue after further inspection

• The remaining list of tasks to be addressed over the next few years through the regular CIP process.

We're grateful to see how this decision has already helped reduce costs for the "middle ground" project. They have also been able to provide a detailed, prioritized plan for our Facilities Department to implement through this work.

The Maine Major Capital School Construction Program accepts applications in phases. It is a very competitive process that requires a significant investment into a Facilities Assessment in order to even apply. Leveraging the reports produced by Colby, Harriman, and Turner & Townsend Heery, CESD submitted applications for all three schools for the most recent funding round on August 30, 2024.

It is our understanding that CESD did not apply in previous application years (2011, 2017). Doing some digging, we discovered that CESD attempted to budget a full Facilities Study in 2017, however state funding cuts and "a wish for greater community participation" (as well as lack of support at the Town Council level) nixed the funding needed to study the facilities properly.

It's important to note that the state process is a lengthy one that only opens for funding roughly once every 7 years. The South Portland middle school that opened last year was approved in the 2011 funding cycle. In 2017, where 75 applicants were accepted and only 9 were approved for state funding, some of which are still waiting to begin the concepting phase today.

In February, SBAC met with the Maine Department of Education who said the State’s selections are based on need no matter if a project is in process or not. The Department of Education has recently opened their latest cycle with an application deadline of August 30, 2024. CESD submitted an application for each of our three schools.

CESD has applied for and received grants to address some high-priority issues through the Maine School Revolving Renovation Fund (SRRF) which provides 10-year, 0% interest loans to schools. A portion of the loan is considered a grant and is forgiven. CESD will continue to pursue these partially-forgiven loans through their typical CIP budget process.

Overall, enrollment for all three schools has been holding steady at +/- 1500 students. In particular, the number of students in the elementary and middle schools will grow at a faster pace than the high school.

Architect Lisa Sawin explained that they “build for flexibility without building to excess” when they factored enrollment fluctuations into the school building design. If wings are built based around 5 core classrooms and 2 flex spaces, it allows cross-grade programs like World Language and Special Education to move to other wings of the building.

For example, if the 6th grade class only requires 5 classrooms, but the upcoming grade requires 7, the "flex" classes can move with those 6th graders to the 7th grade area, where there will be space for them.

While enrollment is steady, we still have significant spacing challenges in our current buildings.

Currently, students are receiving math and reading intervention in closets, the only conference room has been converted into a classroom, the STEM program is housed in a hallway, sick kids wait in the main entrance to see the nurse, and the principal often works on a bench in the hallway because her office is used for meetings.

The "middle ground" project is meant to serve not only today's 544 Pond Cove and 450 CEMS students, but also the 68,000+ future students over the next 70 years. Read more here.

Absolutely not. Teachers’ salaries and budgetary issues have nothing to do with bonding a school building project. In fact, new buildings would have a positive impact on our school budget due to reduced operating and maintenance costs for the old buildings. Additionally, modern facilities would attract more high-quality teachers and administrators, particularly in a time of teacher shortage and upcoming retirements.

If the bond is approved at the ballot box in November 2024, payments will begin in FY 2027.

Your taxes due to this bond will be incrementally increased over 3 years, totaling 12.2%. (Source: Tax Impact Document.)

• October 2026: +2.0%

• October 2027: +6.1%

• October 2028: +4.1%

• 2029 and Beyond: +0%

For the median homeowner with an assessed property value of $720,000, the cost of the bond is estimated:

• Year 1: +$13/month

• Year 2: +$40/month (for a total of $53/month)

• Year 3: +$27/month (for a total of $80/month)

• Year 4 & Beyond: No further increases due to the bond, the total will stay at ~$80/month.

The Town Council agenda for the September 9th meeting includes a preliminary estimate for every household. You can view it under: "4. Town Council Reports and Correspondence".

The good news is that there are existing relief programs in the state for those in need. We’ve compiled a list of property tax relief programs here, please share it far and wide!

Additionally, at its July 8, 2024, meeting, the Town Council requested that the Ordinance Committee revise the local Senior Tax Relief program to find additional ways to support those in need. The planned changes include a tiered program so those of higher need receive higher benefits and increasing funding to the program.

The "Middle Ground" plan maintains the current number of athletic fields and quantity of green space.

While the new MS is under construction for two years, the existing fields will be temporarily unavailable. However, the final plan includes two basketball courts and a relocated multipurpose field on the site of the former CEMS.

Source: Page 13 & 14 of Harriman "Middle Ground" presentation.