“Hard Lessons: Causes and Consequences of Michigan’s School Construction Boom” is a report published by Michigan Land Use Institute about a study it performed funded by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. The report is exactly on-point with many issues currently facing District 186. The following is a synopsis of the report’s recommendations to their state school superintendent:
1. Encourage school districts to invite richer and broader discussion with all segments of the community about how best to provide better facilities, preferably in town.
2. Renovate existing schools as a top priority; construct new schools in existing neighborhoods as the next priority; and construct new schools in farm fields as a last resort. Reduce costs with efficient design and shared athletic facilities.
3. Provide safe routes to school so kids can walk or bike to their classes and after school activities.
4. Improve the process of comparing costs of building a new school versus renovating an old one by paying for independent assessments, including short and long-range land, infrastructure, staffing and transportation costs.
5. When new construction is warranted, require schools to be built where roads, storm sewers, sanitary sewers, and water service already exist.
6. Strongly encourage schools to stay in existing neighborhoods.
7. Require school boards to submit a much more rigorous analysis and technical justification for closing existing schools.
8. Provide additional incentives, such as tax-increment financing tools, to upgrade school buildings in urban school districts.
I have attended most District 186 School Board meetings since November 2007 and briefly spoken twice. Monday, December 1, 2008, I signed-up and waited nearly two hours to bring this report to the attention of the board and others interested in the welfare of our schools and community. I was denied the opportunity to speak for the two minutes I requested.
Interestingly, since I emailed this report to board members earlier that Monday, the board chair assured me they had seen it before. Apparently, the board and its facilities committee had judged the content of this report not pertinent to the discussion of Springfield’s school facilities planning, so it was never discussed openly in a meeting. If you find this all a little difficult to believe, please see for yourself. Monday’s school board meeting will be broadcast many times in the upcoming two weeks on Comcast Channel 22 and the text of the Hard Lessons report is available online at: http://www.mlui.org/growthmanagement/fullarticle.asp?fileid=16633
The report concluded “The decisions districts make…help determine where families and businesses locate and whether those communities prosper or wither,” and “taxpayers and businesses are spending tens of millions of dollars on new schools in ways that weaken many communities while stimulating inefficient development on farmland and open space.” I hope Dr. Milton and members of the Board of Education appreciate the implications these have to our efforts here in Springfield.
Bill Castor, President
Vinegar Hill Neighborhood Association
www.vhna.net
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