The School Committee on Monday unanimously approved a pair of resolutions seeking to place a $147 million bond question for a five-year school facility improvement plan on the November election ballot.

The figure is $14 million higher than the $133 million number that has been cited in recent months as the district seeks to embark on an ambitious facilities project in conjunction with the Rhode Island Department of Education.

Superintendent Jeannine Nota-Masse said the added $14 million in effect represents a contingency fund – money to address any unexpected needs at school buildings other than the five outlined in the $133 million plan as the work is conducted.

“That extra $14 million is kind of a built-in insurance policy if something goes wrong in one of the schools in one of the schools that we are not affecting,” she said.

The five-year facilities plan – which Nota-Masse said was submitted to RIDE this week – includes continued renovations at Eden Park Elementary School; the modernization and expansion Garden City Elementary School; the replacement of Gladstone Elementary School; additional renovations at Park View Middle School; and improvements at Cranston High School West. The plan was developed in conjunction with the educational planning and design firm Fielding Nair International, or FNI, over a period of roughly 18 months.

Nota-Masse said the inclusion of the additional $14 million requires state approval, just as is needed for the five specific projects.

“If something happens in one of those other buildings, we need to make sure that the Department of Ed has a plan for any kind of health and safety needs that would occur during that time … If something happens here at Cranston High School East that requires immediate health and safety fixing, that extra money in the bond would be used for that,” she said. “But we can’t use that money unless the Department of Ed has it already approved. So that why there’s a bit of a difference in the number that we’ve been talking about frequently and the signs that you’ve seen everywhere and this bond.”

She also said that if the additional $14 million is “not necessary to use, then that money will not be bonded and we won’t be in debt to that.”

Nota-Masse said the state will provide a minimum of 54 percent reimbursement for the school improvement projects, with an additional 20 percent available through “bonus points” based on the specific elements of each project. She said the district’s hope is that each of the five projects will be reimbursed at a rate of at least 69 percent.

Newly appointed Ward 5 representative David Alden Sears said he plans to promote the bond question as he campaigns for a full term this year.

“I strongly urge my colleagues to do the same thing,” he said.

Citywide committee representative Michael Traficante called the bond question an “issue of extreme importance.” He said it is vital to proceed and ensure the availability of maximum state reimbursement.

Dan Wall, the committee’s chairman and Ward 6 representative, also spoke in support of what he called a “monumental” facilities improvement initiative.

“It’s critical not only to making our schools warm, safe and dry, but also for making the schools compatible to teaching 21st-century skills,” he said.

The first of the resolutions approved Monday formally forwards the $147 million bond plan to RIDE for approval, while the second asks the City Council to approve its own resolution seeking authorization for the bond question from the General Assembly.

In other business:

Nota-Masse addressed concerns raised over a planned restructuring of the district’s guidance program, while a handful of people in attendance for Monday’s meeting – including a district staff member, parents and students – expressed their opposition to the changes.

“When you have to think of 11,000 students in 23 schools … These are the decisions we need to make,” Nota-Masse said.

She later added: “These are agonizing decisions and not something we take lightly.”

At issue is the school administration’s plan to replace guidance counselors at the elementary level with social workers and school psychologists. Doing so will involve transferring some staff members from current roles – and, in two cases where employees do not have the needed qualifications for other positions, making lay-offs.

Nota-Masse said the guidance restructuring is motivated by a need for additional clinical supports at the elementary level. She cited a “huge uptick” in the need for clinical supports at the elementary level.

“The elementary schools are experiencing more students with serious mental health issues,” she said. “They’re seeing more emotional disregulation – students who aren’t able to fully command their emotions and behaviors. They have more disruptive and sometimes dangerous behaviors and outbursts in our elementaries.”

Nota-Masse said the number of risk assessments conducted in the city’s elementary schools – meaning a review conducted when “a child has threatened to hurt himself or others” – rose from 267 in the 2016-17 school year to 280 in the 2017-18 year and 356 in the 2018-19 year. Thus far for the current year, she said, the number of risks assessments is 216 – which projects to more than 400 for all of 2019-20 if the trend holds.

“We’re seeing a huge need for clinical supports. That means the social workers and psychologists who do those risk assessments are at greater need,” the superintendent said.

She added: “Guidance counselors just, quite frankly, don’t have the training that the social workers and psychologists have. It’s a different role and responsibility … Our elementary principals have brought this to us for several years, saying that clinical staff is necessary.”

Nota-Masse said guidance staff from the elementary schools will move to the middle schools – essentially restoring guidance staff at the middle schools to the levels seen before the sixth grade was moved to the elementary level and then back to the middle schools in recent years.

“Our middle schools have enough clinicians – well, I guess we could never have too many – but we have social workers and psychologists at the middle schools,” she said. But we don’t have the appropriate number of guidance counselors, so that’s why we’re moving them there.”

Specifically, the restructuring plan would create new full-time guidance positions at Park View, Bain and Western Hills middle schools. Nota-Masse said Hope Highlands Middle School, which has a smaller population, does not need an additional counselor at this point.

Additionally, the plan will result in a new 0.6 full-time equivalent guidance at Cranston West – which has seen enrollment grow as a result of its career and technical education programming – as well as a full-time itinerant, or floating, guidance position.

Nota-Masse also said that social workers and psychologists are equipped to take on the responsibilities previously fulfilled by guidance counselors on the elementary level. She dismissed what she called an “urban legend” that both those kind of professionals work solely with special education students, and also noted that contractual agreements must be followed in the shifting of employees.

A resolution related to the layoffs involved in the restructuring plan was approved on a 6-1 vote, with Ward 3 representative Paul Archetto the sole dissenter. He said he believes the committee was “not briefed appropriately or in a timely manner” regarding the plan.

Michele Tomasso, program supervisor for K-12 guidance and a guidance counselor at Garden City Elementary School, urged the administration to reconsider the restructuring plan.

“It’s not just about people being displaced and people being moved. It’s about the children and the families of Cranston,” she said.