The Facilities Steering Committee is struggling to decide whether to implement a two-year or four-year construction plan for the recently approved media arts and classroom buildings, Principal Jacqueline McEvoy said in her annual State of the School speech on Thursday.

The debate centers on the number of portables next to the quad that Paly can stomach with regards to the amount of total construction time the school is willing to accept, according to McEvoy.

“We can either build both buildings at the same time or stagger their construction by two years,” McEvoy said. “It just depends on how many portables near the quad and the gym we’re willing to put up with.”

McEvoy said that the media arts building will replace the portables near the English building, and the math and social studies building will replace those behind the math building.

“This means if we choose the two-year plan, we’ll have to deal with 13 or 14 portables, as opposed to nine [with the four-year plan],” McEvoy said.

The nine-portable plan calls for the buildings to be built one after another, with each building taking two years for a projected total of four years until completion. The alternate plan asks to maximize the number of portables used to cover classes so that construction could begin simultaneously on both buildings for two years.

One of McEvoy’s primary concerns with delaying construction is growing enrollment.

“Can we fit the projected numbers of students in current classrooms four years from now, and can we actually predict those numbers accurately?” McEvoy asked.

McEvoy also pointed out that the faster the construction happens, the cheaper the overall price tag will be. Therefore, building both structures at once would yield financial savings.

“The sooner we can get out of construction, the more we save in the long run because the cost of construction materials and contracting increases very quickly,” McEvoy said.

At a San Mateo school, a multiple-year delay in construction pushed the cost up by a few million dollars, according to McEvoy.

“I remember just the cost of steel alone doubled in that time, not to mention all of the other required expenses,” McEvoy said.

McEvoy added that faster construction also saves the district from having to buy or rent portables post-construction.

“These savings of a couple million dollars may answer our football field problem,” McEvoy said.

The California Department of State Architecture recently announced that Paly must complete the installation of bleachers in the football field’s away side before it can proceed with any future construction initiatives, including the new buildings, according to McEvoy.

“Unfortunately, this is currently an unfunded project with a price tag of a quarter of a million dollars,” McEvoy said. “We’ll have to squeeze the funds from somewhere, one way or another.”

In order to resolve this issue, McEvoy offered the possibility for students to influence the decision.

“From my viewpoint, the decision [to pursue simultaneous construction] is easy, but that’s because I’m not a teacher or a student who has to deal with the burden of additional portables,” McEvoy said. “That’s why the Facilities Committee has to do their work, which will probably involve getting student input, and make a decision.”