Schools: Fix up or build new?

By John Howell
Posted 1/31/17

By JOHN HOWELL Ed Ladouceur, a councilman, chairman of the council finance committee and a contractor, remembers the 1998 truck that had 250,000 miles on it and started to show its age. When its spark plugs started coming out, he had the engine head

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Schools: Fix up or build new?

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Ed Ladouceur, a councilman, chairman of the council finance committee and a contractor, remembers the 1998 truck that had 250,000 miles on it and started to show its age. When its spark plugs started coming out, he had the engine head bored for a couple of hundred dollars and kept it on the road, but he knew there would come a time when he would be throwing good money after bad.

Ladoucuer is thinking sinking more money in fixing up some of our schools could be the same thing. He has questions about putting another $6 million into Vets Junior High School for a new heating and air exchange system and he has concerns with the School Committee’s proposed $85 million bond for the first phase in $250 million in school renovations and upgrades.

Both the $6 million for Vets and the $85 million require City Council approval. The $85 million bond also requires General Assembly approval if the referendum is to appear on a special election ballot this November. The bond would require voter approval for the schools to get the funding.

Ladouceur isn’t alone in questioning whether it makes sense fixing up older buildings and not consider building some new schools. City Council President Joseph Solomon would like to know what it costs to build a school and plans to be in touch with North Providence Mayor Charles Lombardi. North Providence is building a school.

“Ed’s right,” Solomon said of Ladouceur, “if you’ve got an old vehicle maybe it’s time to get a new one.”

Ladouceur resigned from the committee charged to bring a bonding recommendation to the School Committee on grounds that it was weighted in favor of schools and that the outcome was pre-decided.

“Why isn’t the superintendent talking about new schools?” asked Ladouceur. He also thought the School Committee and mayor should be considering new schools. He thinks a new school would have the best technology, the best labs and would act to reenergize the system and boost morale.

“We have all the tools. Why wouldn’t you want to figure out a way to do it?” he said.

And what might a new school cost?

Ladouceur is looking into that. He thought a school large enough to accommodate more than 1,100 students could be built in the range of $150 million. And where might it go? He suggests the site of the former Gorton Junior High School that is planned for administrative offices. He noted that the Gorton site has ample outdoor fields.

While Ladouceur’s suggestions may resonate, it doesn’t answer what’s to be done now to address problems, including those at Vets. The administration is proposing the existing steam system at Vets, which is generated by oil-powered boilers with a rooftop natural gas-powered air system. That system and an air-exchange system would be installed over the next two summers using bonding already approved for school use.

“I have no problem supporting the release [of the bond funds] as long as it is to protect the health and safety,” said Solomon.

Solomon also wants to learn if there’s anything to claims that air quality is an issue at the school. He said he understands air quality tests are to be performed and he wants to see those reports.

Solomon was critical of bond funds for cosmetic improvements to the school.

“A new color on the wall shouldn’t be a priority,” he said.

Darlene Netcoh, president of the Warwick Teachers Union, has no doubts that air quality and mold are issues at Vets. In response to Superintendent Philip Thornton’s observation that only now does the air quality seem to be an issue when the schools and teachers haven’t been able to reach a contract, Netcoh said there are many cases where teachers working at the school have had respiratory problems.

“Opening the windows is not a remedy when it’s 20 degrees outside,” she said.

Asked about union support of the $6 million proposed for Vets as well as the $85 million proposed for school building upgrades, Netcoh said the administration “has not proven it can responsibly use the money.”

She said what the department spent on making Vets and Pilgrim look nice last fall was a public relations move and “now teachers are getting violently ill at Vets.”

The council is slated to consider the School Committee’s $85 million bond proposal on Feb. 6.

Comments

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  • Thecaptain

    The cost to build a school to accommodate 1100 students is $100,980,000. Here is the formula.

    204 sq ft per student

    $450 per sq ft

    204 x 1100 students = 224000 sq ft

    224000 sq ft x $450/sq ft = $100.98 million bucks

    By the way, that's furnished state of the art. Now can all of these other fixer-upper ideas and build new.

    Tuesday, January 31, 2017 Report this

  • Justanidiot

    since we are just warehouseing kids, why not just build one big building to keep kids kindygarden through senior hi skul off the streets from 7 am to 3 pm. hire some gards and such and gets rid of all the teachers and admin and dead weight. kids will gome out just as grate as nows

    Tuesday, January 31, 2017 Report this

  • chiggins

    All of the schools have a list of needed upgrades. The newest schools, Winman and Toll Gate, are almost 40 years old. Other than an auditorium addition to TG, very little updating has ever occurred, leaving them with inadequate ventilation (no a/c in rooms that do not have windows), inadequate electrical capacity for the current needs, and single paned windows that allow wind to howl through. For many years, minimal maintenance has been done to keep the school buildings functioning. Studies by RIDE and SMMA of all of our school buildings shows a need of $250 million to bring schools to modern, 21st century learning envionments. There are no major structural issues with our buildings and our population has decreased. The idea of building new buildings is a nice idea but we cannot afford to build ALL new buildings, yet all of the school buildings in Warwick have needs. If we build one new school for $100 million and it only houses 1100 students, who gets to attend this school? If we spend $100 million on this one new school, will all of the other buildings still be in need of updates? The idea of starting with $85 million to get the priority items completed at all schools is more equitable for the entire district. The city council should also consider that they are the owners of these properties and take fiscally responsibility to maintain the condition of the schools. The cost of ongoing updates to the school buildings should be a budgeted item into the future so we do not get to this point again.

    Tuesday, January 31, 2017 Report this

  • richardcorrente

    In the "cause and effect" category, these are good ideas to improve the "effect". But if you don't attack the "cause" it will be a lot of expense for little or no return on investment. (Are the taxpayers getting their moneys worth for the $160 million they are ALREADY paying?) Warwick has top quality teachers, AND WE ARE LOSING THEM! Settle the teachers contract TODAY and we will encourage students, teachers, and taxpayers to stay rather than leave. More homeowners, business owners and taxpayers in general will create the money we need to do ANY of this.

    Ed Ladouceur is right. Any solution will cost a ton of money. Shouldn't we start with a stable team of great teachers first? Wouldn't the rest follow if we did? When a school is empty, does it matter if it is new or old?

    Happy Spring everyone.

    Rick Corrente

    The Taxpayers Mayor

    Tuesday, January 31, 2017 Report this

  • davet1107

    Building new is very alluring but...

    RIDE identified $194 million needed for all our schools. SMMA was about $220 (once the closed buildings were subtracted).

    So we want to build one new school for, say 1100 students? OK, that's $100 mllion. And 1100 students and teachers get state of the art stuff.

    Now throughut the rest of our fine city there are another 7500 students and their teachers who are in inadequate classrooms that date from the 1980's. Where do we get the money to modernize their classrooms? Or do the inequities that so many say have persisted for the last 30 years just continue for the roughly 80% of our students not fortunate enough to be in the new school? Oh, many will volunteer to tell Mr. & Mrs. Smith that they're kids will attend the bright, shiny new school. I wonder who will volunteer to tell Mr. & Mrs. Jones that thier kids will have to go to their current school that has had little to no improvements for the last 25 years Sorry, I can't buy into that scenario. it's not fair to our students, teachers, and our community.

    Our buildings are nowhere near the condition of North Providence's Stephen Olney & and James L. McGuire Elementary Schools where that city is speding $75 million in total (w/ a 56% RIDE reimbursement vs. our 38%) to build two new elementarys (housing a total of 550 students) and make other improvements in their district. They have 3500 total students. We have 2.5X that amount. Lincoln, who just remodeled - not getting new - their high school (1000 students) to the tune of about $60 million. The have one high school so ALL their high school students benefit, unlike our one school proposal which will benefit maybe 40% of our high school students).

    New would be nice, but we need to invest in what we have now so that we can buy 20 or so more years from them (and we can) so in that interim we can start dicussing new. Also equating improving buldings to keeping an old car running is an overly simplistic and inadequate comparison, in my opinion. Vehicles and buildings are not similar.

    David Testa

    Tuesday, January 31, 2017 Report this

  • Marccomtois

    This is pretty rich. After nearly a decade of level-funding the schools and thereby forcing deferred maintenance on the WPS, now the City Council wants to look into building new instead? As chiggins stated, the problems are district-wide thanks to years of neglect and one 1100 student school will eat up all of the money (and more) currently earmarked to make those improvements (which are hardly "cosmetic"). The taxpayers via the City Council have shown no appetite for building new and not sure why that would change. Of course, that is, unless a shiny new school can be used as another political wedge issue against the school admin and school committee for the sake of drawing attention away from the city side spending increases (nearly 100% of all tax increases since 2009 or so)....

    Tuesday, January 31, 2017 Report this

  • Justanidiot

    bild a wall around warwick and keep everyone in and all the bads out. make warwick grate again

    Tuesday, January 31, 2017 Report this

  • gwsjr75

    I think equity across the city is an important issue, but to be clear, one new high school for 2800 kids would actually serve every kid in the city, because (obviously) all 9000 students are not in high school at the same time. If it were my judgment, I'd look into building a single high school and middle school campus at Vets -- one new huge building that could be flexibly used for whatever population we might expect. Combining the schools in one place would create a school complex that is on par as to size with many schools in other places. It would save some money through the efficiencies of one location (and would cut down on administrative salaries). It would allow the use of Mickey Stevens/Thayer/McDermott for an expanded athletic complex. It would allow Toll Gate / Winman to be sold, which is probably the most valuable school real estate that we have. And it would be a real boost for the city's reputation, meaning also, over time, for its tax base. I'm not saying we should do this next year -- we can't -- but in my view it's a thoughtful concept for what the city school setup might look like 5 or 10 years from now.

    Tuesday, January 31, 2017 Report this

  • MaxwellRobinson

    So we are going to trust the same people that are unable to manage our schools now to come up with a plan to build a new school? No way!

    Tuesday, January 31, 2017 Report this

  • Marccomtois

    WRWK75 - I've never been opposed to that idea, but the cost would be way more than Warwick has shown its willing to spend (at least $200 million just for a High School according to Thecaptain's numbers).

    MaxwellRobinson - OK, then who do we trust? They've been elected, some of them year-after-year, so obviously some people in Warwick think they are doing OK (and I'm not implying I'm one of them). That excuse of "how can we trust them" can be used by any one group of people at any time. In my 20 years in Warwick the easiest fish in the barrel to shoot at have been the School Committee and School Admin. Everyone loves to beat them up - Warwick Teachers Union, parents, the Mayor, the City Council, taxpayers (notably, WISE seems to be willing to work with them) - the names and faces on the School Committee have changed but the piling on has not. At some point you have to wonder is it: 1) Warwick voters apparently keep getting snookered and somehow we always elect the wrong people to the School Committee; or 2) could it be that those offering the constant criticism (some justified, much of it hyperbolic) do so to distract us from deep-seated problems that the accusers actually have a stake in perpetuating, whether for political or compensatory reasons.

    Wednesday, February 1, 2017 Report this

  • patientman

    My suggestion would be to bring in unbiased consultants to investigate and give us a report on different scenarios. Endorse the plan that they feel best fits our situation. If Warwick can fix our problems for $80,000,000, great.If the proper way to fix our education infrastructure is going to cost $280,000,000, so be it. The Mayor better start working the GA and our Congressional delegation NOW. The Warwick taxpayers can't afford what ails us.

    Whether its "new of fix" or one/two high schools I don't care. Whether the money goes to elementary, middle or high schools, I don't care. I have no kids in the system and never will. I still think the kids here deserve an opportunity for an excellent public education.

    Finally, Mayor Avedisian needs to be perfectly clear Warwick is not a sanctuary city and we invite all federal funds to flow in.;-)

    Thursday, February 2, 2017 Report this

  • bendover

    What happened to and why no discussion of the story comparing Cranston and Warwick school systems and budgets? What happened to the story? Could the scribes on the school committee, the politicians taking up space in city hall or the Mayor explain how Cranston, with 1400 more students gets by with a budget $23M less than Warwick, or are those numbers as reported in that story all fuzzy? Please explain how this is possible? The overall demographics are near identical, including the fact that Cranston will soon be the second largest city....why the huge difference in budgets in very similar school systems with Warwick trailing in the number of students? Economically, this just doesn't make sense, and we are talking bonds of $200M for building? Shear madness....

    Thursday, February 2, 2017 Report this

  • davet1107

    Bendover, Cranston's budget is not $23 million more. Their budget this year is $150 millon. Ours is $162. As I mentioned before, our teachers pay into Social Security, Cranston's done and that's worth about $5 million. Second, our teacher pay steps are higher than Cranston's so our teachers make more than Cranston's. Warwick runs more buses over a larger geography than Cranston and buses aren't cheap Nothing is swept under the rug. This line has been brought up almost annually,. Oh, and Cranston WSchools twice sued the City under the Carruolo Act and lost both times and at one point they owed the City $6 million (it may have been $9 million). Lastly, Cranston gets over $17 million more than Warwick in State Education aid. Yes, Cranston's budget is lower but it's not even remotely close to $23 million.

    David Testa

    Thursday, February 2, 2017 Report this