ASDB would pay to lease Copper Creek campus | News

A proposed lease agreement between Amphitheater Public Schools and the Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and Blind would have ASDB pay $1.3 million a year to lease the Copper Creek Elementary School site in Oro Valley.

That sum, paid to Amphi in monthly installments of $109,182 in the first year, would escalate by 3% annually through a 5-year contract. In the fifth year, ASDB’s annual base rate would reach $1.43 million a year, or $119,306 a month, according to an agreement presented to the Amphi school board for its approval on Tuesday, Jan. 27.

ASDB would pay all utility fees on the campus, located at 11620 North Copper Spring Trail in Oro Valley, to include electricity, gas, water, sewer, communications, telephone, data, trash removal and custodial services for the premises, the lease reads.

For its part, Amphi would maintain and repair all buildings and grounds, and install adult-size toilets and sinks in one men’s and one women’s bathroom within a Copper Creek building before Oct. 1.

Copper Creek, which opened in 1988 and was full soon thereafter, is one of four Amphi elementary schools slated for closure at the end of this school yeardue to declining enrollment.

Copper Creek’s utilities are “a central plant,” according to Amphi Superintendent Todd Jaeger, JD, meaning “the air conditioning’s on, or it’s not.” Because of the inability to close off idle spaces, Copper Creek is “our single most-expensive to operate” among Amphi’s 12 free-standing elementary schools, he said. A district report shows it expects to spend an estimated $550,919 for Copper Creek operations this school year.

The lease, which would take effect July 1, “is advantageous to the district financially, with receipt of monthly lease payments and elimination of site utility expenditures for the term of the lease,” said Richard C. La Nasa, Amphi’s executive manager for operational support, in a summary letter to the Amphi school board.

On Jan. 14, ASDB, now located on a multi-building, 54-acre campus on the north side of Speedway in Tucson, formally announced its intent to enter a 5-year lease of Copper Creek. ASDB Superintendent Annette Reichman published her letter of intent a day after the Amphi school board voted to close Copper Creek, and three other elementary schools, at the conclusion of the current school year.

If a lease is executed, staff and students on the ASDB Tucson campus would relocate to Copper Creek this summer, Reichman said, with fall semester classes anticipated for that campus.

Michelle Valenzuela, director of communications for Amphitheater Public Schools, said ASDB reached out to Amphi soon after Nov. 17, when Jaeger announced his recommendation to close Copper Creek, Donaldson, Holaway and Nash elementary schools.

Initially, ASDB asked for square footage, footprint, site size and other information for each elementary school campus, Valenzuela said. ASDB then inquired further about the Nash and Copper Creek campuses.

“A few days later, they toured Copper Creek and expressed an interest inleasing that site, pending our board’s decision on whether the site would close,” Valenzuela said.

In the Jan. 14 announcement letter, ASDB’s Reichman scheduled a series of meetings about the proposal, two of which were held Monday, Jan. 19. Subsequent meetings were scheduled in Phoenix on Wednesday, Jan. 21, and by Zoom on Thursday, Jan. 22. She plans to present a formal report to the ASDB board on Thursday, Feb. 5.

ASDB, which dates to 1912, is confronting a “rapidly evolving environment on multiple fronts,” Reichman said in the letter, posted on the school’s website.

As with Amphi, ASDB’s enrollment and funding are declining as birth rates fall. It has about 120 students, and about 100 employees, on its Tucson campus. Fewer students are being served with its itinerant services. Those students educated and served by ASDB “have increasingly more complex needs,” Reichman said.

Its Tucson campus buildings and infrastructure are “deteriorating,” Reichman continued. While the ASDB Facilities Team “has done its best” to keep both the Tucson and Phoenix campuses safe and comfortable, “this is becoming less achievable, particularly on the Tucson campus.

“Given the ongoing budget shortfall, ASDB literally has no funds to allocate for building maintenance or renovation projects,” Reichman said. To remain vibrant, “we must be fiscally sustainable.”

In concert with ASDB leaders, board members, administrators, and various committees, Reichman has worked for 18 months to “identify multiple strategies and pathways to achieve long-term sustainability,” she continued.

By moving to Copper Creek, ASDB hopes to achieve “long-term sustainability of the agency and the Tucson campus, so that students continue to receive exceptional education opportunities,” and to decrease operational / overhead costs “in order to have more resources for students and teachers,” Reichman writes.

ASDB has an annual budget of $68.7 million. The state schools employ 577 people across Arizona, to include its Tucson and Phoenix campuses as well as remote staff serving young children and students across rural Arizona.

ASDB is “considering several options” for its Speedway campus, “but nothing has been decided,” a spokeswoman said.

Amphi has been “partnering with ASDB for many years as they provide services to children in the Amphitheater district,” Amphi’s Valenzuela said.

“We are encouraged that the Copper Creek campus could continue to be used to educate children, bringing a sense of alignment and continuity.”