Site Selection Briefing p.8 - AHSCC - Alpine High School Citizens Committee - www.AHSCC.com

State of California screening and Ranking Criteria for School Sites

To help focus and manage the site selection process, the Department of Ed. developed screening and ranking procedures. The procedures were created on the basis of the following criteria, which are listed in the general order of importance:

Safety
Location
Environment
Soils
Topography
Size and Shape
Accessibility
Public Services
Utilities
Cost
Availability
Public Acceptance

It is not our decision to make on which site is selected. That decision will be made by the Grossmont District and the State of California following the established procedures for site selection used for every school site in the whole state.

Thorough studies must be conducted to assure that whatever site is chosen meets the standards set by the State. They have lots of experience doing this, having chosen every school that exists today.

The best thing our community can do to assist in the process is to provide any information that may help the District and State in their study. Please review the criteria the State uses on the Department of Education web site.

(Link Provided - Bottom of Page)

Public opinion is low on the list, and is usually only considered when "all things are equal" beween sites, a condition that rarely occurs. A coalition's petition would fall in that catagory. More important are issues of traffic, soil condition, hazardous waste, power lines, student accessibility, etc.

The unity of the Alpine community is far more important than who is right about the placement of the site, in which we have no ultimate say.

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CRITERIA:

An explanation of these criteria is in Appendix A, Site Selection Process. Appendix A also contains three work sheets created on the basis of a screening and ranking procedure developed by School Facilities Planning Division (SFPD) staff.

The first work sheet, Site Selection Criteria, outlines the 12 major criteria listed above, with several secondary criteria listed as subtopics.

The secondary criteria have been designed to help the selection team define more clearly the factors that must be considered and understand better the types of data needed in the selection and acquisition of the school site.

After considering both the primary and secondary criteria, the site selection team should be able to rank the sites in order of acceptability by completing the next two work sheets, Site Selection Evaluation and the Comparative Evaluation of Candidate Sites.

Although the criteria contained in Site Selection Criteria are not the only ones a site selection team should consider, the team might find those criteria useful when explaining to school boards and other interested entities how the selection process was accomplished.

School districts purchasing the site with state funds will find the criteria helpful when screening available sites and in identifying at least three acceptable sites. Districts not applying for state funds are not required by Education Code Section 17251 to review a specific number of sites.

However, the California Environmental Quality Act requires that alternative sites be reviewed in the Environmental Impact Report (EIR). Prudence suggests that identifying alternative sites is a desirable procedure, and the Department recommends it.

and here is the state website: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/fa/sf/schoolsiteguide.asp#proper

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