There are significant costs to either moving an entire school population or phasing a project. These reports spell out those costs. In addition, moving a population requires finding a suitable space that meets all the legal and zoning requirements for a school. That's not such an easy task and likely would require remodeling the temporary space, an additional cost. It all adds up.
Many of the buildings were built in the 1960s, a time when school buildings were built as quickly as possible to handle the baby boomer students flooding schools. They were built quickly to meet an immediate need, not designed to last for many years. The expectation was they would be needed perhaps 20 years, not the 40-50 years they have been in use.
We use the term modernization because the goal is to create a school building that meets current needs, including enabling modern teaching methods. It covers both remodels and new buildings. If you have a suggestion for another term that covers all that this program does, I welcome it.
Kathryn Reith, Communications Director
LWSD Central Administration
This is Kathryn Reith's response to comments found in *"LWSD Receives Construction Grants for Almost $14 Million in New Schools." You'll find some interesting comments to Reith's Letter below!
Ms. Reith's duties as Communications Director include: PR, Media Relations, and Public Records Information Officer.
Ms. Reith implies that costs of relocating students or phasing construction was a major factor in deciding to rebuild all the schools in the district rather than modernize them. In fact, there are minimal costs in phasing construction to accommodate running a school during remodeling. Countless schools throughout the state (including many in Lake Washington) have been modernized over scores of years in this fashion without any serious educational disruption or construction conflict. It is still a widely used option to accommodate students during construction where genuine modernization is the intent.
ReplyDeleteMs. Reith falsely asserts that schools built in the ‘60s were built to last perhaps 20 years. My firm designed most of those schools. I can attest to the fact that they were not in any way intended to be temporary. Any implication that any of the schools (of any era or by any architect) that the district has torn down and replaced were not soundly constructed with many decades of useful life remaining is unfounded.
It’s obvious that the district is continuing a program to tear down all the “old” schools and replace them with “new” buildings under the guise of modernization. The state defines modernization as making changes to a building’s structure and systems to meet current educational needs and code standards. None of the $500,000,000 worth of replacement projects has received any state money for modernization. They don’t qualify for state support as modernization projects. The construction grants (this $14 million among them) have been for new construction to replace the existing schools.
Ms. Reith asks for a term that covers all that this program does. Why not just be honest about and call it what it’s intended to be, a “School Replacement” program.
Oh, come on, there was a time when a school remodel meant that they would upgrade ONLY THE SYSTEMS THAT NEEDED TO BE REDONE at a reasonable cost (like windows, plumbing, bathroom fixtures, lighting, electrical, heating.) Nowadays the school district tells its “consultant” to estimate the cost of redoing every single square inch of the school building with every possible upgrade. Then they add on a few more millions for “site redevelopment & construction phasing” (whatever that means) and - big surprise - it costs more to remodel than it does to build new - so the school district tears down the old school and builds a new one - because it's cheaper.
ReplyDeleteWhat should have been a $5,000,000 remodel turns into a brand new school for $30,000,000. The older schools in the district are still pretty clean and solid. They are not dumpy shacks well past their so-called “20-year life expectancy” when they get torn down - as Kathryn Reith has implied. It is true that the district has neglected to replace roofs and to do SEISMIC UPGRADES on any of its older schools during the past 15 years because they assume that they’ll get to tear them all down and that helps to boost the cost of remodeling vs the cost to build new. And yet, the district has collected taxpayer money from the maintenance levies that voters have approved every 4 years that should have paid for these critical improvements a long time ago.
All the bells & whistles like passive solar heat, rain gardens, integrated learning environments, etc., that the district insists have to be in the upgraded schools bloat the cost of remodeling/rebuilding. The most bizarre “requirement” of elementary school “modernization” is that after the old school is torn down, the new school must have space for 450 students and room for portables – even when the old school had 500-600 students. How can anybody at the school district defend this insanity with a straight face?
Let me remind these writers of a little history. These projects were approved by over 60% of voters in the 2006 bond measure. In 2005, the school board asked the community whether it should not run a bond at all, run a bond for $173 million that would just update major systems (as these writers advocate), run a $436 million bond that would completely overhaul each school, bringing them up to the scope of design and learning environments in the first phase of the modernization program, or do one of two other alternatives that extended the phases over more time or deferred some of the work. Of the 427 people who responded to the request for input, 294 asked for the complete overhaul, while just 24 advocated for the limited program these writers are suggesting. The school district is carrying out the program the community asked for and voted for. Anything less would break our promise to voters.
ReplyDeleteMs. Reith reminds us in her history lesson that the school district has been scamming its patrons since 2005. It has misrepresented its school replacement program as modernization from the beginning. Surveys, bond promotion propaganda, and bond issue wording have all carefully avoided the true intent. Yet the cost of replacing the schools was quietly included in all the bond issues earmarked for modernization.
ReplyDeleteAll but two of the 22 schools in phase I & II of this program will be replaced with money the voters intended for modernization. The only reason they were’t replaced was because their sites were too small to build a new building alongside the one to be demolished. The district still won’t admit that they intend to replace all its schools. Yet they continue to do so and are planning to keep replacing them on a published schedule.
Ms. Reith implies that the voters asked to have the schools replaced. She is wrong. They asked for complete modernization of their buildings. Neither of “these writers” are advocating anything less. The district promised to modernize the buildings. They tore them down and replaced them instead. This is not keeping a promise to the voters. This is violating their trust.