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Illinois School Board Journal
May/June 2002
Build for the future preserving the past
by Linda Dawson
Linda Dawson is IASB director of editorial services and Journal editor.
Editor's note: This is the first in a two-part series on school construction. This issue will look at the case to be made for renovation and preserving older school buildings. The July/August issue will look at innovative uses communities have found for former school buildings when new facilities have been built at a different location.
In most Illinois communities, just like towns and neighborhoods all across the United States, the public school is a focal point, both for learning and activity. But many of these focal points are showing their age, "graying" ungracefully.
In 1998, the National Center for Education Statistics placed the average age of public school buildings in the United States at 42 years, but added that more than one-quarter of the nation's schools (28 percent) were built before 1950.
The Council of Education Facility Planners International (CEFPI) reports "3.5 million students attend schools in need of major repairs or replacement" and that it would take "$332 billion to bring the nation's existing schools into overall good condition."
When people see their own school buildings in a state of disrepair, the first inclination may be, "We need a new school!" But is new always the best answer? How does a new school -- especially one built on the outskirts of town -- impact local neighborhoods and families? What happens to the old school if a new school is built somewhere else? But maybe, more importantly, are Illinois' older schools worth preserving?
When the National Trust for Historic Preservation added historic neighborhood schools to its list of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in June 2000, it wanted "to alert the public to various threats to these irreplaceable community landmarks." Those threats include: lack of money for repairs; an assumption that old equals bad and new equals good; public policies that discourage maintenance of existing schools; and "mega-school sprawl" -- the increasingly common practice of building a large school at the edge of town, which makes it difficult for the vast majority of children to walk to school.
"Schools were once thought of as important civic landmarks built to last a century," wrote Richard Moe, NTHP president, in the forward to the organization's November 2000 report, "Historic Neighborhood Schools in the Age of Sprawl: Why Johnny Can't Walk to School." "They represented community investments that inspired civic pride and participation in public life. Many of today's newer schools resemble big-box warehouses. Their architecture reflects little pride and they sometimes have an expected life-span of a mere 30 years."
Moe's image of schools as civic landmarks is echoed by Bill Latoza, a partner and principal in charge of historic preservation, technical design and quality control at Bauer Latoza Studio in Chicago. Latoza has led the preservation efforts for 400 of Chicago Public Schools' buildings during the past six years.
In Chicago's older neighborhoods, Latoza sees a similar structural pattern, no matter which ethnic group might populate the area. The tallest structure, he says, is the church with its towering steeple, representing the spiritual head of the community. The second tallest structure is usually the public school -- always "a tad shorter" than the church without the steeple -- representing the educational needs of the community.
While this pattern is evident in urban areas, it's also found in rural communities where a grain elevator and water tower may be the only other rivals for skyline dominance.
These schools have defined the standards for the neighborhood or their community for many years. They have been the center of activity, easily accessible for most residents by a quick walk, possibly down a tree-lined street. In addition to being physically dominant structures in the neighborhood, they provided a sense of continuity, almost a glue holding people together.
It's that continuity -- that sense of history -- that Valecia Crisafulli, a former Lincoln Elementary School District 27 board member, sees as an important issue in deciding whether to build a new school or renovate an older building.
"Langston Hughes wrote his first poem in the eighth grade at Lincoln Central School," Crisafulli said. The idea that children could attend the same school and walk to that school on the same sidewalk along the same tree-lined street that a famed poet might have taken evokes a feeling of awe for her.
Latoza said the same thing about George M. Pullman School in Chicago. Built in 1920, Pullman is one of three CPS schools on the National Register of Historic Places. It's where famed Prohibition Bureau crime fighter Eliot Ness went to school, as well as Paul Vallas, former CPS chief executive officer.
While Pullman School underwent a $3.1 million exterior renovation in the late 1990s, Lincoln's Central School is being demolished to make way for a new building.
Mike Jackson, chief architect with the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, feels downstate Illinois doesn't see enough examples of renovation and rehabilitation of schools for people to grasp the extent of what can be done with an older building. Chicago, on the other hand, which has spent $1.75 billion since 1996 to renovate its public schools, has about 400 examples.
Society, as a whole, tends to look at school buildings like cars: when they get a few miles on them, it's time to trade for a newer model. "Getting rid of a 50-year-old building is like throwing away a car with 25,000 miles on it," Jackson said.
He also carried the analogy to homeowners. If an older home needs new wiring or plumbing, new carpet or a roof, owners hire a contractor and get the job done. Most people also reinvest in their home as maintenance is needed. However, because of budget constraints, school districts may be forced to defer needed repairs until money is available, which often exacerbates the problems.
Time to do something
Of the state's oldest schools, many had renovations or additions by the 1960s to accommodate the influx of Baby Boomers, according to Anne Haaker, IHPA's deputy state historic preservation officer. Now, 40 years later, they're in need of reinvestment. And that's when districts begin to look at referendums, especially with the lure of money from the State Construction Grant Program.
"Talk of constructing a new building usually generates more interest and excitement than talk about replacing the mechanical systems, reconfiguring spaces, and doing repairs and refurbishing in the existing ones," wrote Kerri Rubman in "A Community Guide to Saving Older Schools." "That's why it's often easier to pass a bond issue for new construction than for renovation."
However, because of space requirements, districts often must look for building sites on the edge of town. National guidelines from facility planners call for at least 10 acres of land plus one acre for every 100 students for an elementary school, 20 plus one/hundred for a middle school and 30 plus one/hundred for a high school. In Illinois, however, the maximum fundable for construction, according to the Capital Development Board, is five acres plus one acre for every 100 students for an elementary school, 15 plus one/hundred for a middle school and 20 plus one/hundred for a high school. Those spaces still are often more than what is available at an existing school site, whether in a city or a smaller community.
While the requirements may be waived in larger cities where schools are often surrounded by dense neighborhoods, acquiring space may not be considered a big problem in smaller cities and towns, especially those surrounded by farmland.
"The system thus recognizes the difficulties large cities encounter in meeting the acreage standards," wrote Constance Beaumont and Elizabeth Pianca in "Why Johnny Can't Walk to School," "but it ignores the fact that small and mid-sized communities might want to keep schools in town for the sake of maintaining vibrant town centers and cohesive neighborhoods."
Keeping neighborhood schools to help maintain "vibrant town centers" is an important consideration, according to Crisafulli, who began the first of May as a senior program associate with the National Main Street Center in Washington, D.C. During the past 10 to 20 years in towns under 100,000, she said, shopping malls and discount centers have drawn activity away from historic commercial centers, to the detriment of older neighborhoods. Now communities are struggling to preserve their unique sense of identity through economic development of downtown business centers.
The loss of the neighborhood school, especially when it's moved to the edge of town, merely adds to that drain of economic livelihood. But there are other issues involved as well, including "sprawl" and transportation.
"Sprawl" means more encroachment on agricultural land as well as extending city services such as water, sewer, streets, and police and fire protection into greater areas. "Sprawl," according to Beaumont and Pianca, also has been linked to the absence of sidewalks, a resultant reduction in walking and an increase in obesity.
They quote the following from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta: "Many of our communities have been designed to be convenient for cars, not for children." This, in turn, puts more parents behind the wheel as chauffeurs and cuts down on the opportunity for "spontaneous play."
Increasing numbers of students who have to be bused or transported to school become a big policy issue for school boards, not only in terms of money spent for busing, but in discussions of the length of time that students should spend on the bus.
What's the solution?
So what are districts to do? Most just need to look at all the ramifications of their project with a formula like the one outlined in Build new or renovate: How to decide. Having actual figures to compare the costs of building new and renovation should paint a clear picture for board members as to the best financial decision for the district.
When it comes down to some of the intangibles, historic preservationists say they just want equal consideration for the possibility of renovation.
While the construction grant program does require a sign-off by the IHPA on a building's historic significance, Haacker said, the agency often finds out too late that an older building is being torn down or abandoned in favor of new construction. IHPA would like to be brought in proactively, rather than reactively, to help examine all the options.
Jackson also concedes that renovation will probably be more disruptive than building and then moving to the new location. But when it comes to what can be done to an older school to restore its beauty, make it handicap accessible and bring it up to today's technology standards, he says look to what has been accomplished by Chicago Public Schools.
The average age of a school building in Chicago is 60 years, according to Latoza. Those in the renovation program range in age from a school built in 1874 (three years after the Great Fire) to the 1970s. The largest concentration of buildings is in the 80- to 85-year-old range, and most of these are smaller, neighborhood elementary buildings.
The majority of these buildings, Latoza said, are in older neighborhoods and had been allowed to deteriorate over the years. While many local residents started out wanting a new school for their neighborhood, they have been more than pleased with how the renovation projects have turned out.
The question, then, beyond dollars and cents is: Will renovation leave the district with a building that will serve the needs of future students as well as a new building?
Yes, it can, Jackson said.
Latoza agreed, adding: "We can rehabilitate any building and make it as comfortable and as modern as any building today."
And while historic preservationists often are painted as wanting to preserve every old building at any cost, Haacker said the ideal preservation program would typically include rehabilitation and new construction.
"We would be happy to see a hybrid of rehabilitation and new construction," she said. "Historic preservation is not about nothing changing. It's the way we change by reinvesting and respecting the history."
References
Beaumont, Constance E. and Pianca, Elizabeth G., "Historic Neighborhood Schools in the Age of Sprawl: Why Johnny Can't Walk to School," National Trust for Historic Preservation, November 2000
Rubman, Kerri, "A Community Guide to Saving Older Schools," National Trust for Historic Preservation, 2000
"School Building Day 2002," The Council of Education Facility Planners International, accessed April 3, 2002, at http://www.cefpi.org/
Sidebar: Added benefits
Building renovation has had some unexpected benefits in many of the neighborhoods and communities where projects are undertaken.
One thing architect Bill Latoza has noticed is the resultant changes that have occurred in the neighborhoods as schools were renovated.
Once Chicago showed it was interested in the neighborhoods by putting money in the schools, he said, they began to see houses across the street being painted and cleaned up. Neighborhoods encouraged by better looking schools took on a big revitalization of their own.
Renovation projects also offer a benefit of valuable lessons for students about wise use of resources and environmental consciousness, according to Valecia Crisafulli, a former board member in Lincoln Elementary School District 27.
"If anything characterizes this current century," she said, "it's a wise and judicious use of resources. This is definitely an education issue because children model their behavior by what they see adults do."
At school and at home, students are being taught to reduce, reuse and recycle. To reuse and recycle an older building would seem to be the more socially responsible thing for adults to model for students, she said.
Surprisingly enough, the renovations in Chicago also have had a unique benefit that goes beyond the city limits.
As the architects began to look at window replacement in older buildings, they realized it would not be possible to restore all the old wooden windows, Latoza said. Because the architects didn't want to lose that characteristic of the buildings, they approached window manufacturers with specifications for seven different window profiles.
What has resulted is known as the Chicago window, he said, which is available in standard colors and provides great insulation, as well as fitting into old window spaces at no more than the cost of a standard, stock window.
Sidebar: Did you know?
1 Illinois State Board of Education Web site (http://www.isbe.state.il.us/construction)
2 Information from Bill Latoza, Bauer Latoza Studio, and www. prairiestyles.com/perkins.htm
3 National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities as quoted in "A Community Guide to Saving Older Schools," National Trust for Historic Preservation