Unionville-Chadds Ford is looking to build a new middle school. Residents say the cost is misleading.

The Unionville-Chadds Ford School District’s middle school was built in 1971, and most of the classrooms are windowless. District officials say space is maxed out, with bathrooms not in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act; in surveys, community members described the building as “unwelcoming” and “claustrophobic.”

After reviewing options for renovating the building — which also requires plumbing, HVAC, and electrical work — district officials concluded the best option was to replace it entirely. The cost to the average taxpayer, they said, would be an extra $42 a year.

But a group of residents has challenged the district’s analysis, asserting that the cost to taxpayers of building a new $120 million middle school is actually much higher — $20,000, over a 25-year period. In a complaint submitted to the board Tuesday, opponents accused the district of presenting analyses that are “grossly incomplete, misleading, and biased,” including by failing to communicate the project’s full cost, and by overstating the costs of maintaining the building to make replacement look like the best option.

“They’re frankly not telling the truth,” said Mark Stookey, a resident who wrote most of the complaint and said more than 100 people signed it. “They don’t know what they’re doing. They’re hell-bent on moving forward, and people are getting increasingly angry.”

The district has defended its analysis in messages to the community and during Tuesday night’s school board meeting, where the board voted unanimously to move forward with issuing requests for proposals to design the new middle school.

Of the average $8,500 tax bill, about $800 currently goes toward paying down debt, said the district’s director of finance, Joe Deady. But the district is paying off those existing bonds, and also planning to restructure its debt in 2026.

As a result, issuing bonds for the new middle school will increase the district’s annual debt service payments, currently around $10 million, by only $426,000 a year over a nine-year period, Deady said. That amounts to an annual increase of $42 for the average taxpayer.

“It’s the result of the change of the debt, as we add in this new debt, and basically replace the debt we’re paying off,” he said Tuesday night.

Critics like Stookey, a former chief financial officer at DuPont whose children attended district schools, say it’s disingenuous to present the cost that way. “If we didn’t build a new school, the debt would be paid off, and the taxpayers wouldn’t have to pay for it,” said Stookey.

Other financial professionals in the community have also protested the figures. At a school board meeting earlier this month, Ashish Sharma, who works in investment management, told the board that “if I was to start using your math, I would be fired.”

Noting that the $120 million projected cost for the new middle school didn’t include financing costs, Sharma said, “This financial number you’ve come up with is total crap.”

Others noted that the district had previously described the cost of maintaining the current middle school as $89 million, but later knocked that down to $67 million; critics had said the district erred in initially adjusting the cost of that option for anticipated inflation, but hadn’t similarly adjusted projections for renovating the building or replacing it.

While opponents have attacked the district’s financial plans, they have also questioned administrators’ credibility. The complaint submitted by residents Tuesday notes an investigation by the Pennsylvania Department of Education into accusations against Unionville-Chadds Ford Superintendent John Sanville and other district officials after a parent filed a complaint alleging misconduct, including that officials submitted a false affidavit in a legal proceeding.

Sanville recently announced that he would retire at the end of the school year; the board on Tuesday voted to accept his retirement and enlist the Chester County Intermediate Unit to search for a replacement.

On Tuesday night, board members pushed back on the criticism, and what some called a lack of civility. They said they had reviewed information provided by experts over the course of months, along with feedback from staff and community members, as part of a feasibility conducted by Marotta/Main Architects.

“We’re not dumb — I just want to say that,” said board member Rashi Akki. The district’s analysis is “not wrong. It just accommodates lots of different pieces of debt restructuring.”

Board members said there had been concerns for years about the middle school building, which isn’t on par with the district’s other facilities, and that maintaining or renovating it would never fully meet the district’s needs.

“Investing additional large sums of money, only to come away with a slightly improved situation, just doesn’t make sense,” said Erin Talbert. Like some others, she said an ongoing teacher shortage meant the district needed to remain competitive, including through facilities upkeep: “There is going to be an absolute catfight for talented teachers in the very near future.”

Another board member, Elise Anderson, said she believed the opposition to the project represented less than 5% of the community — “probably less than 2%.”

“I believe the majority of community trusts elected board members to make good decisions,” Anderson said.

Several residents spoke in favor of a new middle school Tuesday. Joe Everett, a father of three, said it “seems like an absolute no-brainer,” calling the tax increase “a small price to pay” for a modern school facility.

Another parent, Jen Panaro, said there had been several days of disrupted classes at the middle school last year due to HVAC issues, and that she had spoken to teachers who reported having maintenance workers on ladders in their rooms while they were trying to teach lessons.

Opting to maintain the building would mean “just more of that disruption for a long time,” she said.