Schools demolition plan puts cart before horse
For nine years, I taught English as a second language in high-need schools. There was a lot of pressure on us teachers, and we were asked to continually gather data points on our students. We used baseline assessments at the beginning of the year to tailor our curriculum plan to the needs of our class. To do otherwise would be considered negligent. It’s rather disconcerting that there seems to be higher standards imposed upon educators than on those tasked with running this city and maintaining its school facilities. Eleven years ago, the architectural and engineering firm EMG did a thorough report on the state of our school facilities. However, since 2009, no independent building survey has been conducted (a baseline) and there is no comprehensive building maintenance/ capital improvement plan. There is simply a vague promise of, “a plan to make a plan.”
In May of 2019, Board of Representatives President Matt Quinones, along with a bipartisan group of board members as signatories, sent a letter to Mayor David Martin requesting, “a long term maintenance and facilities management plan for the City of Stamford Board of Education facilities” to come out of the $50 million Mold Task Force budget. This has yet to happen.
Former Director of Administration Michael Handler and Schools Superintendent Tamu Lucero have called the public-private partnership a “long-term facilities plan.” However, this plan only includes five of the 21 buildings in the Stamford public school district. Secondly, it was developed without first having a districtwide facilities assessment conducted by an outside architectural and engineering firm. We’re being told that we need to tear down five of our schools. However, the more I’ve spoken with various parties — maintenance workers, the teacher’s union, parents, etc. — few seem to believe that “five” is the right number. Due to the risky and unprecedented nature of a public-private partnership for ownership and maintenance of K-12 schools, some have suggested a pilot program with one school. When pressed at a public meeting at Strawberry Hill on the PPP, multiple attendees stated that Handler essentially said one school would not be enticing to a developer.
I’ve seen the presentation of the so-called “long term facilities plan” (PPP plan) three times now. The first time I listened to it, it felt like a timeshare presentation. You know, way too good to be true. The feeling hasn’t changed. It’s light on details and incredibly heavy on promises. Most importantly, this whole thing is the equivalent of putting the cart before the horse.
On Feb. 3, at our monthly meeting, the Board of Representatives voted to hold the proposed $250,000 appropriation for development of an RFP for the publicprivate partnership. On Feb. 5, 29 of the 40 board members signed a letter drafted by Rep. Ben Lee that asks our mayor to prioritize retaining control of our school buildings, to seriously consider prefabrication as a construction alternative, and also asks for “a facilities master plan that outlines the needs of each school.”
This month, two additional appropriations have been proposed. You would think that given the tone of our letter, that the focus of these appropriations would be a robust examination of ways to maintain municipal control of our buildings. I can assure you these appropriations are anything but robust. They are flimsy half measures. Even the idiom “half measure” feels overly generous as a descriptor.
Appropriation F30.292 allows for up to $80,000 to be spent in exploring construction alternatives, such as prefabrication or a hybrid of prefabrication and traditional. This is less than one- third of the amount being allocated to explore a public-private partnership using traditional construction. To be clear, this is not being proposed exclusively as an alternative to a PPP. Rather, it could be seen as something that’s incorporated into a PPP. Appropriation F30.293 allows for up to $80,000 to be spent to study the maintenance and construction practices in surrounding towns, in order to come up with “best practices” for Stamford. It also includes “development of a short and long-range facilities plan” for the entire district. This amount is wholly inadequate. It will not provide the level of detail in the 2009 EMG study, which was commissioned for $246,000.
When pressed previously about doing an updated version of the 2009 study, Handler said it was unnecessary. He said so much work is currently ongoing in our buildings to remediate mold damage that we already know what state they’re in. However, Handler is also asking us to take a very expensive leap of faith. We’re talking about a potential for $300 million-plus in construction costs. What’s $300,000 for an outside architectural and engineering firm to give us a second opinion? On top of that, the Connecticut State statute, Chapter 170 section 10-220, which outlines the responsibilities of the Board of Education states that, starting in 2021, and every five years after, that the BOE “shall report to the Commissioner of Administrative Services on the condition of its facilities and the action taken to implement its long-term school building program.” An independent set of eyes may say that Roxbury or Cloonan, for example, may be worth saving.
Without this independent assessment, this baseline, we should not move ahead with a piecemeal plan. This will mean that we’ll have to slow things down a bit. According to an email from City Engineer Lou Casolo, the 2009 EMG study took about six months to complete. It is advisable to be holistic, thorough, and deliberate when planning for our school district, rather than rushing into a risky 45 to 90 year sale-leaseback agreement. It is high time to hold our city officials to the same level of planning standards that we hold teachers to. To do otherwise would be considered negligent.