I was reading through District 150’s Master Facilities Planning Committee Final Recommendations, and I discovered their decisions are determined by the outcome of a facilities analysis they did. Here’s how they did it:
First, they split up the committee into four subcommittees based on high school attendance area. The four subcommittees were:
- Manual – Dave Ryon, Steve Morris, & Lillie Foreman
- Peoria High – Ed Berry, Guy Cahill, Mary Spangler
- Woodruff – Dave Henebry, Cindy Fischer, Thea Robinson
- Richwoods – Ray Lees, Mary Ardapple, Herschel Hannah
Then, the report states:
The committee decided to evaluate each facility based on their respective attributes relating to several primary issues: 1) Health-Life-Safety, 2) Operational Costs and 3) Educational Programs. This assessment was then followed by tours of each school in the District. The Committee was divided into four groups to visit schools in each of the four high school feeder areas. The results of the preliminary analysis were then reevaluated and modified based on on-site observations of existing conditions.
So, at the end of the report, you find three spreadsheets with the “raw data” of their scores. Each of those “primary issues” had several factors the committee members had to evaluate. For example, under “Health-Life-Safety,” some of the factors included site size, building size, building age, building structure, hazard protection, etc.
However, what I didn’t find was any objective basis for the scores they assigned.
For example, on the “Health-Life-Safety” spreadsheet, they have to give a score for the age of the building. One would expect this would have some sort of clear-cut, objective standard — maybe “5” for 25 years old or newer, “4” for 25-50 years old, etc. It’s almost that consistent, but there are a few anomalies. It appears that any building built before 1940 received a “1” — except for Woodruff High School, which got a “2,” even though it was built in 1936, the same year as Von Steuben Middle School, which received a “1.” All the schools built between 1941 and 1979 received a “2,” except for Richwoods and Manual. Richwoods (1955) got a “3,” and Manual (1961) inexplicably got a “4.” If there isn’t consistency in this, the most objective category on the list, how are we to evaluate their scores on the truly subjective categories, such as “healthfulness of lighting”?
Another curiosity is the score given for “Energy and Efficiency” of the building, systems, and equipment. Every primary, middle, and high school in Peoria got a “1” in these categories except for two: Glen Oak School got a “3” and Lincoln got a “5.” Are we really to believe that Charter Oak (built in 1979) and Irving school (built in 1898) have exactly the same (low) efficiency rating?
Remember, these scores and others like them form the basis of the district’s $120,000,000 building plan decision. Would you base a financial decision that large on these measurements?
It’s also worth noting that, given the information we have in this facilities report, it doesn’t appear that any experts were called in — for instance, an architect, or fire marshal, or HVAC specialist like Energy Pro Heating & Cooling — so one wonders again on what basis the committee assigned scores to things like “flexibility of building,” or “hazard protection,” or “healthfulness of HVAC.” In other words, they’re giving their opinion on several items for which they don’t have the necessary expertise. I could just as easily fill out these forms with my own opinions and they would be as valid (except on those items that deal with educational issues, on which they are in fact experts). They should have consulted actual experts such as Sitton Mechanical for these.
Yet, based on this “analysis,” the report confidently concludes (emphasis mine): “The District has or will soon have the necessary match of funds derived both from available restricted reserves and the sale of a health-life-safety bond (for the replacement of a minimum of two and as many as six buildings the cost of which to remediate is greater than the cost of replacement).”
The report gives no justification for the statement in bold.
Nowhere in the report do they give a breakdown of what it would cost to renovate/expand the current buildings versus what it would cost to do a new construction (including acquisition, demolition, legal, and other hidden costs). They also didn’t state how they would protect construction workers who are injured in scaffolding accidents. There’s no feasibility study. All they’ve really done is identified which schools they feel (subjectively) are in greatest need of repair. That’s no basis upon which to start tearing down schools and building new ones on different sites.
It’s easy to see why the school district is on the state’s financial watch list when it makes big-budget decisions on such scanty analysis. The school board should throw out this committee’s report and try again, this time with some objective measurements and a real feasibility study. Oh, and community involvement.
In fact, maybe they could learn something from this report by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Among many other valuable pieces of information, it includes this warning that the district is already learning the hard way: “A study conducted behind closed doors does not consider all viewpoints or build trust and support from within the community.”
CJ,
Ed Barry and Dave Henebry are architects, and Ray Lees is in a related field.
Barbara
Thanks, Barbara. That’s encouraging. Do you know if they have training/experience in historic rehabilitation?
CJ,
I don’t know about the other two, but Ed Barry, whom I must disclose is a dear friend and neighbor, is probably the most “historically atuned” architect–besides Councilman Sandberg–in the area. He restored the only remaining Carnegie library for miles around, the Lincoln Branch, to its former glory with about a third of the money a private donor, the late Henry Slane, was willing to pay. Please take time to visit it when you can. It truly is the crown jewel in the library system and primarily serves low-income young and elderly in the surrounding neighborhoods.
Mr. Barry is also donating his architectural services to the businesses in the Sheridan Triangle revitalization project. Finally, he, working for Phil Good of Good’s Furniture in Kewanee, has restored much of the old downtown in that city.
So, although I know I’m very biased, I trust Mr. Barry’s judgment 100% to the extent that he had say so in the evaluation process.
Barbara
Well, it sounds like he knows about historic restoration. I found an article in the Journal Star from 6/21/05 in which Mr. Barry was interviewed:
Other articles talk about his work on historic home restoration. So, you’re right about his credentials, and I find that very encouraging. Thanks for that info.
Yet I wonder how much input he had overall. I see he was on the subcommittee that looked at the Peoria High School attendance area, but the oldest buildings are in the Woodruff and Manual attendance zones.
Here’s my feeling on this — this master planning document is supposed to be a “final recommendation” document to the board, and it’s posted on the District 150 website for public viewing. Yet there’s very little explanation with it and extremely little communication from the district to the community on how they came up with these recommendations, why they didn’t consider reusing the buildings, etc. The communication we do get is of questionable accuracy (for instance, Ken Hinton saying on WMBD that the state requires a new school be built on 15 acres). So, all I’m trying to do is make heads or tails of how the district made its decisions. If Mr. Barry could shed a little light on this, I’d love to hear it. Maybe there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation and no one has articulated it to the public yet.
C.J. — Thank you for your solid and indepth analysis! 🙂 Would you post the link to the National Trust for Historic Preservation report?
Because a min/max plan was adopted by D150, with contingent funding mechanisms — you feel like you are at a buffet and the establishment keeps running out of food and replacement dishes are continually brought in. ALso, the statement to the ISBE on the last page of the plan does not have to get into specifics, generalized statements that can change at any time, K-8 is now B-8, …. a statement just to maintain D150’s place on the state funding list. Would someone else do the math? Seems that the total number of schools and the breakdown do not match!
Hopefully the announcement by Sen. Shadid regarding SB2477 and the potential withholding of the PBC funding mechanism will help to right this ‘ship’! However, SB2477 was a slap at the taxpayers too —- as this legislation applies only to Peoria to restore the PBC bonding capability to Peoria and not other downstate PBCs. This legislation was not known to the general public aka the taxpayer. Let’s give the taxpayers and our community as a whole that they collectively realize there is a problem and let’s fix it together in a positive manner. Citizens want to be involved and feel that they are each a true, included stakeholder and part of the solution rather than on the outside looking in and just paying the bill.
Ever tried to compel your child to do something? Ever tried to persuade your child to do something? The difference is amazing for all involved. The same principle applies to taxpayer’s, especially with the ultimate compelling application of eminent domain.
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Here are some other questions to be answered….
Was the original intent of SB2477 to be to provide D150 with monies to act as the ‘matching’ funds for state school construction monies or to act as a separate funding mechanism, or both or some other thought process?
If SB2477 was to be the D150 match —- last page of …. up to $48,000,000 of the $120,000,000 and there is no state school construction money, will D150 proceed to the PBC to for whatever the $60,000,000 that is available of the PBC’s total bonding capacity?
Would it have been better to obtain community buy-in on what the site and what the model is and what the implementation plan is and then after you have persuaded taxpayers, ask them by referendum to approve?
Whatever the combination of reasons for the recent departure of 60 teachers from D150 — tenure, financial considerations et al —- how will we be able to afford the new B-8 plan for the previously proposed K-8 proposed Glen Oak School?
What is the cost of B-K services? How will these be paid for?
What is our communities input and feeling on that overall direction to proceed with a B-K concept? If federal and/or state $ involved and that funding source dries up, can the locals provide the $? If it is the locals $ from the onset, do the taxpayers want to pay for this option?
Where does engagement and responsibilities of the parents come into all of this? Yes, there are familes/parents who are hanging on as if by mere threads, however, is it the school’s responsbility to be the surrogate family? Where is our community’s broadbased response to this troubling situation of the literal destruction of the family structure and the resulting consequences for families, children, our community at large?
School sitings are legacy events for a community. In 2006, communities want to participate in determining their destiny for now, and for generations to come. The tale of two cities can start to become the tale of one city when we become united.
Transparent, Click Here for the Nat’l Trust for Historic Preservation report. It’s a PDF file. Their whole site at nationaltrust.org is interesting.
You ask some very good questions. It would be great if there were community-wide discussions on these topics.