District staff and dsk Architects will present a new campus plan for the Franklin Elementary School campus at Thursday’s meeting of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board of Directors meeting (agenda). The meeting will begin at 6 p.m. and the public may attend the meeting in-person at the District Administrative Offices (1717 4th St.) or via Zoom webinar.
This new plan, slightly different from the one approved by the board in 2022, was already approved by Franklin’s staff (in September of 2023) and Franklin Site Committee (October 2023) by unanimous vote. The District and dsk Architects held public meetings for everyone in the Franklin community to see the plan and give feedback. Video from that meeting can be viewed here.
The full presentation that will be given to the SMMUSD Board can be viewed here. The plan includes construction of new green space, upgraded and modernized classroom facilities, and new indoor and outdoor learning facilities.
The new Master Plan for Franklin has been in the works since before the pandemic, with the public phase kicking off with a series of public meetings in the pre-lockdown days of early 2020. A final plan was approved in 2022, but during the environmental reviews, and dsk Architects was brought on to create the final designs.
However, new information caused the district to both pause and modify their plans leading to dsk Architects to bring forward this modified plan.
First, the California Geological Survey notified the district that there was an earthquake fault on-site. This information proved to be incorrect, but it delayed portions of the planning process. A change in requirements for interim classrooms during the construction phases for current students also necessitated a change.
Funding for the projects in the Master Plan will come in part from Measure SM, a bond measure passed by voters in 2018.
