As I am the parent of a child in elementary school, people find it very surprising when they find out I am against the nearly $200M bond for new schools. Most assume that I am misinformed and that I must not be paying attention to the state of our schools, otherwise I should have noticed the capacity crisis we face, the precarious conditions of our buildings, and would be anxious to have them all knocked down and built anew.
Not only am I not misinformed, but I feel that I am in a better position than most people to understand this issue. I build schools for a living. Well, among other things. I’ve been involved in the planning and construction industry for nearly 20 years, and my current employer is a construction firm that over the last five decades has made public schools one of its core competencies. We not only build them, but over the last few years, we have helped over a half a dozen school districts in Washington state plan and finance school projects. Just this past year we finished two public high school projects, both of which were part of a multi-phase, multi-year, occupied campus remodel and addition of new structures.
I have been tracking the work of the 21st Century Facilities Planning Committee for a number of months, out of a professional interest. If there are public school projects in my community, I’d be very happy and proud to work on them, so of course, I have taken a keen interest in following the progress of these projects. No, I am notmisinformed.
And yet, I oppose the bond.
Four years of work have gone into studying the needs of our schools, yet from a construction budgeting standpoint, there is disturbingly little detail. Just a high level overview of some very round numbers associated with specific projects. For example: $75M for a new middle school. Why $75M? Because we know how big it needs to be, and we have a feel for how much a square foot of school construction costs today. If you have ever had your kitchen remodeled, you have a pretty good idea of how well that works. And if your project did not have any cost overruns, I want the name of your contractor.
Once we start adding detail to the plan of the middle school, we are going to find out the real cost, and something will have to be left out if we are going to stay under our budget. The first thing to go: Usually sustainability goals. Second: Specialized facilities, such as those for special needs children. When it comes down to it, most things will have to give way to achieving the number of square feet desired. Also on the chopping block: Anything bringing up the first-costs of construction regardless of any lifecycle savings they may offer. I have seen this happen.
“Lose the ground loop heat pump, the gas one is much cheaper to install, never mind that the energysavings make it pay for itself in under 10 years.”
Today’s state-of-the-art facilities are hugely complicated systems, and it takes a team approach to plan and design one. A lot more work needs to be done before we know with certainty what a middle school will really cost. It is not possible to build 21st Century Facilities with 20th century methods.
But the more troubling issue in my mind is this: Even if we were to succeed, and build what has been proposed, on-time and under-budget, we will be having this discussion again in another 30 years, maybesooner.
What we really need is a real master plan. Not just for our schools, but for Mercer Island. How lucky are we? We live on an island and land is limited. One of the variables of the master plan has been removed.
The schools are our community, and the community is our city. As citizens of Mercer Island we should be asking — no, demanding — our School Board and City Council to work together. Fund a real plan that looks 50+ years into the future, and conceives of an integrated plan inclusive of schools, emergency services, traffic and transportation issues, sustainability goals, housing density, parks, etc. By taking a fragmented approach to planning the future of our community, a handful of years at a time, we are ensuring that we will solve nothing.
So yes, I am informed in this issue. Not only that, but I am also engaged and interested in our community and schools, far more than some. My wife regularly volunteers at the school, and in fact, runs the school garden program. I volunteer at several events throughout the year as well. We love our school. I feel very sad when I hear people say that they moved here for the schools and feel disappointed when they visit the school building. The school is much more than just a building.
When talking of overcrowding, the image of a child reading with a parent volunteer in the hallway is often used as an example. Well, I think it is great that there is a parent willing to be engaged enough to volunteer to help my child read. That is what makes the school what it is.
This weekend we attended our school auction to raise funds to keep our para-pros in the school. We all gave lavishly, some of us probably more than we could afford, because those para-pros make the school what it is. We support our principals and our teachers, because they truly make the school what it is. We owe it to them to fund facilities that will support their work in thebest way, not just look good, and in my opinion, both as a parent and as a construction professional, the plan currently before voters does not cut it.
If you agree with me, please vote no, and tell the School Board to collaborate with the City Council in coming up with a comprehensive plan that will spare our children this same conversation, and give them more than a great education, a great city as well.
David de Yarza
