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Building new buildings is nice but let's look at that as a practiical matter. Captain, I believe you're right with the $450 sq ft figure so let's build a new high school the approxomate size of Pilgrim - 200,000sq ft. That's $90 million. And we'd have to use current RIDE regs for sq ft per student so let's say it houses 1000-1200 kids. max (though I think it might really be closer to 900). What about the other 1500 high school students? Do we not do anything to those school buildings that those students are in so those in the new school have a modern functioning classroom and the rest stuck in the circa 1980 classrooms we curerently have? And what of the rest of the junior high and elementary students and the buildings that they're in? So, maybe we build a 'campus'? How many students would be in this campus? 2000? 3000? (though one of the loudest criticisms of consolidation was that bg schools are bad). What's that cost? $150 million? $200 million? Again, what do we do to the buildings that will house those other 5000 students not in the new campus? Nothing? They'd still need capital improvements.

I would respectfully disagree that our schools are crumbling or not worth investing in, nor did SMMA's analysis even hint at that. I believe that, structurally, they are very sound. Again, they've been neglected but neglect in an of itself does not necessarily translate into tearing them down. Cranston East (older than any of our hgh schools) and Cranston West (about the same age as Pilgrim) are still functioning as high schools and there is no clamoring there for new high schools. Scituate (a much smaller district admittedly) has school buildingts that are older than just about all of our buildings and they're among the higher performing districts n the state - they're buildings are wired for the 21st century classroom. The difference is that those districts maintained their buildings and continue to maintain them better than Warwick has for the last 25 years.

Practically speaking, we really have little choice but to invest in the capital improvements of our buildings. We need to bring them up to modern standards - the students and teachers, students, and community at large deserve that.. And once we've done that and bought another 20 yeatrs, then we can begin the outward look to build new buildings. But if we say no to a bond, then the teachers and students in todays inadequate classrooms (wtih inadequate electrical infrastructure, old HVAC's, lack of handicap accessibility, an on and on, will be in those same inadequate classrooms tomorrow. It's a fairly simple choice.

David Testa

Warwick resident