WUNC - The Durham Public Schools Board of Education had a lengthy debate Thursday night about whether to approve a contract for a consultant to conduct a "right-sizing and consolidation" study.
The school board approved a request for proposals and scope for the study in June. Four new board members on the seven-member board have been sworn in since, and now district administrators are requesting that they approve a contract.
After receiving three bids, district administrators recommended a $474,405 contract with Florida-based MGT Impact Solutions to evaluate enrollment and facility needs, including possibly closing schools. The company has conducted more than 100 similar studies for school districts nationwide.
Following two hours of discussion and multiple failed motions, the school board tabled a decision until its next meeting on Nov. 19. Ahead of that meeting, the board directed the district's attorneys to renegotiate a contract with MGT with more parameters.
Concerns about MGT Impact Solutions: Cost and CEO's background
Some board members and community members raised concerns about the contract's cost, and the company's ties to school privatization. The company's CEO Trey Traviesa was the founder of a charter school and a former Republican state representative in Florida, a state that has been a leader in the school choice movement.
Paige Prather, a parent at Watts Elementary — one of the schools mentioned in the district's draft Capital Improvement Plan for possible closure — told the board she only needed to look at the company's website to see that Traviesa also contributes to A Foundation for Florida's Future, a nonprofit that has been a leading architect of the state's private school tax credit program.
"You can imagine I have so many questions as to why DPS thinks this is the right direction for our public schools in Durham, North Carolina," Prather said.
However, Traviesa is not on the team that would be directly working with DPS. That team includes former public school district administrators and a GIS expert. No one from MGT attended this week’s meeting.
The president of the Durham Association of Educators Mika Hunter Twietmeyer echoed concerns about the company's leadership, and about its consistent track record of recommending school closures in other districts.
"While this fight tonight might not technically be about closing schools, let's at least be honest that it would represent a clear step in that direction," Hunter Twietmeyer said. "If we are serious about addressing our facilities issues, but there is specific information that still needs to be studied, let's hire a firm under a limited scope to complete that work."
New board members Gabby Rivero, Nadeen Bir, and Natalie Bent Kitaif also expressed hesitation about the contract's price tag.
"We need data, but I do not like the cost of getting the data," Rivero said. "I do not feel like that is worth the cost to me."
"We're recommending the leader in this work," DPS Superintendent Anthony Lewis told the board, directing his next question to Rivero: "So you're not good with the leader that has been doing this work all across the country for years?"
"No, I'm not good with the leader," Rivero responded.
Several board members said they had received emails from constituents urging them to rethink the contract.
"I just want to be crystal clear here that your administration has done the work, brought you a proposal, and you get 20 emails, and we want to change paths," Lewis said.
Board member Nadeen Bir responded to this point by saying they had received emails from several coalitions including Public Schools Strong, the Durham Association of Educators and Durham For All, which represent larger member bases.
Superintendent Lewis said decisions on school closures would be difficult, but could yield positive results for students, with safer school buildings and potential cost savings.
"Make no mistake, they're not easy decisions, but I think we owe it to this community … to our students and our staff. We owe it to them to at least study the issue," Lewis said.
Declining enrollment and aging buildings led to a right-sizing discussion
Durham Public Schools, like many districts across the state and nationally, is facing a decline in enrollment that is projected to continue over the next decade. The district anticipates losing up to 8,000 more students by 2035.
"Seven thousand to 8,000 students less in our district means something very significant to our facilities," said DPS's Director of School Planning Devan Mitchell. "When we think about that kind of square footage, you're talking about half a million square feet that (would be) unused in our district."
While the declining birth rate is a factor in this nationwide shift, Durham also has one of the highest ratios of charter school students to traditional public school students in the state. With uneven population growth in the county, DPS is also managing both under-enrolled and overcrowded schools, even despite a recent redistricting initiative nicknamed "Growing Together."
Meanwhile, the district has many aging school buildings and a growing slate of deferred maintenance. A 2025 facilities condition assessment found the district would need $965 million just to replace failing infrastructure in existing buildings, not including the cost of building new schools. A statewide report on unmet school facility needs presented to the State Board of Education this week demonstrates that this is a statewide issue.
"The average age of our schools is 65 years old," Mitchell said. "Sixty-five years old may not seem old for a building, but in school districts, it is relatively old because school districts typically struggle with financing to keep up their facilities."
DPS officials and school board members said they hope to seek a local bond referendum in the 2028 election to ask county residents to approve a property tax increase to finance school building repairs and renovations. District officials said there is urgency to develop a long-term facilities plan ahead of preparation for a bond.
School board deadlocked on proposals to move forward
Board Chair Joy Harrell Goff said she felt conflicted given that urgency.
"I'm struggling with whether or not we should move forward and we as a board can hold the values of our community working with this company, or if we really do need to pivot and risk missing that timeline," Harrell Goff said.
But the school board struggled to pass a motion with an alternative solution.
Board members Rivero and Bent Kitaif floated proposals to reopen the request-for-proposals or open a new call for bids, but those motions did not have enough support from the board to move forward.
Mitchell warned that restarting the bid process could set back the district's timeline by up to six months, and spur some of the current bidders to not reapply.
"We're in a position right now where any of the vendors, all of the vendors can withdraw their bids … especially after the conversation that we've had at the table tonight," cautioned board member Millicent Rogers.
Harrell Goff suggested putting additional stipulations on a contract with MGT, including a statement of conflict of interest if the company also has contracts with any charter schools that operate in North Carolina.
Rivero asked what the board could do if the contractor does not follow those parameters.
"We tell them professionally to kick rocks, because it's a contract," responded Deputy Superintendent Nicholas King.
Board member Wendell Tabb made a motion to approve the contract with MGT, but provide additional parameters and a phased approach where the consultants would complete each phase before moving onto the next. That motion failed to gain a majority, with the vote deadlocked 3-to-3 and board member Xavier Cason absent.
The board tabled the decision until its upcoming board meeting on Nov. 19 while directing attorneys to work on renegotiating terms with MGT before seeking final approval.
