News-Record.com

Reporter Tom Steadman followed up on the Greensboro Police announcement about its proposed gang unit by asking Guilford County Schools what it has been doing to address gang activity. So far, initiatives have been scattered and diverse, but it is likely that over the next year we could see a more focused approach with police involvement.

I attended a school climate task force meeting last week where Daryl Kosciak (founder of the Hope Project with the Greensboro Parks and Recreation) and Ernest Cuthbertson of the Greensboro Police presented to task force members what they propose GCS do to address gang activity. I talked to task force co-chair Amos Quick afterward and he said Kosciak has been trying to push the changes since last year. Now, it's up to the task force to push and it appreared they are interested.

What do you think of the proposal? Is a new policy integral to better identifying and dealing with gang activity in schools? Do you think it is the district's responsibility to reduce gang activity in the community?

The school board will discuss Thursday the latest cost estimates of a proposed bond referendum. District officials have revised the previous $440 million amount to factor in six additional months of inflation if the election is held in May. New amount: $454.8 million.

Should the school board cut out some projects to keep the amount at $440 million? Or is $15 million the price to pay to potentially get stronger voter turnout for the bond in May?

School board member Amos Quick is one of the scheduled speakers for the second in a series of One Guilford leadership symposiums sponsored by the News & Record. He will talk about what it will take to educate young people to meet challenges and reap rewards in the future.

Be sure to check it out.

In case any of you were watching last night, it doesn't appear that many school board members are itching to burn through an additional $15 million in inflation for a proposed 2008 bond. And a few of them were quite perturbed that Chief Operations Officer Leo Bobadilla and facilities consultant Joe Hill would suggest adding another $47.9 million to the list to add an airport area middle school (at a total $40.3 million), funding for an airport-area high school and autism wing (total $87.7 million) and North Greensboro elementary school (total $25.4 million). Their reason: Might as well pay for it now because the kids keep coming.

Anita Sharpe and Amos Quick basically told Bobadilla and Hill last night they were crazy for bringing those kind of numbers to the board after they already approved a list of projects (at a previous amount of $440 million, including funding for Eastern High).

"$88 million, no matter how you try to parse it is $88 million," Quick said.

Hill later responded, "I understand, it's mind-boggling."

My heart went out to Quick, because those numbers were truly staggering. But after working on a series of construciton stories set to run this month, I have realized that it's the cost of business these days. During a closed session, I got into a conversation with a few folks about the district's apparent willingness to drop what amounts to some small countries' GDP on a high school. It wasn't the first time I realized that people apply a double-standard to tax-funded versus privately-funded construction and the debate about construction costs often get obscured by hyperbole.

For example, one person made a comment to the effect that students don't need a fancy school to learn in, that they could learn under a tree. But who does that and what parents in America would tolerate that?

I pointed out that most families of four in America could live in a two-bedroom apartment, but many don't. They want to live in a three to four-bedroom house and if they can afford it (and even some who don't) do it. True, governments need to be accountable with taxpayer dollars, but are homeowners being accountable to their neighbors or the general public when they buy or build larger homes, causing property taxes to go up? In some cities, lower-income residents actually have to sell their home because they can't afford the property taxes. Or what about the next buyer who inherits the inflated cost of the home because of appreciation?

I've also frequently heard people say that businesses are more efficient with how they spend money because they have to look at the bottom line (yet these same people don't have to sit in front of a public firing squad at each board meeting). Yet, folks will complain when Wal-Mart or Office Depot puts up a concrete box down the road from where they live instead of adding archways, brick facades, streetscapes and other features that would make the store look more welcoming to the public. So which way is it? Do we want cheap concrete boxes for stores and schools or do we want craftmanship?

I could go on, but I think you get my point. What do you think?

Arts and music education is again getting lots of attention with scheduling changes in elementary and middle schools that give students less time with specialists. School board Chairman Alan Duncan requested Thursday that district staff explore ways to give students an opportunity to take advantage of arts/music opportunities from elementary to high school without sacrificing time needed in core subjects and foreign language. The school board also plans to discuss arts and music issues at its Sept. 22 retreat.

In a meeting today, construction advisory committee decided today it can be of most help to Guilford County Schools by helping the district come up with comprehensive design guidelines and educational specifications for the schools it builds.

These guidelines could cover everything from materials used in the physical structure, to space planning to the educational programs in a school. The group would also seek to answer questions such as "What are we doing that's tried and true?," "What have we done in that past that no longer works?" and "What areas are evolving based on new information and how is this change happening?"

Up until now, the group has been visiting new schools and reviewing blueprints to get an idea of the district's building approach. Members agreed that now is the time to figure out how to better communicate building standards to architects, designers and contractors as a way to keep costs down and be more accountable to the public.

Committee members present at the meeting today included Gary Paul Kane, past chairman of TREBIC, Robert Powell, an architect who teaches at N.C. A&T, Jeff Deal, a project manager for Laughlin-Sutton Construction Co. and school board member Darlene Garrett. Facilities staff present included Chief Operations Officer Leo Bobadilla, 2003 bond program director Dennis Cole and purchasing director John Mann.

If you want to get a better idea of where the committee and the district is going, check out my construction trends story running Sunday. It is part of a three-part series that goes into more detail about what direction the district is going in on a proposed 2008 bond. The committee also broached a topic that I cover in the series-- comparisons in cost and features between Reagan and Northern high schools. That story is scheduled to run Sept. 30.

The group spent a lot of time talking about Bobadilla's experience with school construction in Orange County, Fla. (he was school facilities director there before coming here in August.) Bobadilla said the district had a very structured building program because it was spending $300 million to $400 million a year on new/renovated schools. Plus, some land in that area has been going for $1 million an acre, requiring some creativity in design. Bobadilla said the district also had a citizens oversight committee made of auditors, maintenance and real estate experts, etc., who oversaw the building program.

The group will next meet on Oct. 16 to discuss comparisons on Northern and Reedy Fork elementaries, energy programs and a preliminary schedule for developing district educational specifications.

Apparently there are some rumors going around about whether Guilford County Schools are supporting/not supporting participation in the Black Thursday events today. So far, the district is only saying it will leave it up to principals to enforce standard mode of dress rules.

Do you know of any schools with large participation from students today?

A facilities advisory committee for Wake County Public Schools released Wednesday an initial report on the district's building program, making several recommendations about how to cut back on costs. If you recall, this same group conducted a survey of construction in several districts including Guilford last year to see how Wake's schools' stacked up.

Recommendations include: creating a peer review committee for site plans, buying and holding land for future development, reducing space in non-classroom areas such as media centers and parking lots, combining cafeterias and auditoriums, and providing more oversight during the construction process.

Read more in the News & Observer. Also, in case you're wondering about how much the district plans to spend on new schools there, check out this chart. Note the budgets for two high schools are $59.5 million and $73.3 million.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg is looking at $50.6 million each for two high schools on its $516 million bond. Residents will vote on this in November.

Police and Guilford County Schools are investigating four nooses found on the campus of Andrews High School this morning.

Administrators found the nooses around 8:30 a.m. and immediately notified High Point police, said Chad Campbell, spokesman for the school system. Two nooses were hung on a tree in front of the school; others were found on top of a flag pole and in an old bus parking lot.

School officials do not know if the nooses were hung as a prank or if they were connected to recent national publicity about a similar incident at a high school in Jena, La., last year.

Some Andrews students saw the nooses before they were removed, Campbell said, and the district will offer counseling. Principal Monique Brooks Wallace also plans to send out a Connect-Ed telephone message about the incident to parents and a letter home with students. Administrators have also asked students to report suspicious or disruptive behavior.

“Obviously students are disappointed that this would take place, as well as the district,” said Campbell, speaking from the school. “We will not tolerate behavior that is discriminatory.”

It just ocurred to me that, buried in a folder somewhere, I had a breakdown of the previous cost estimates for the proposed airport-area high school. The school was budgeted in the summer at $77.1 million (now $80.5 million if you factor in additonal inflation, and $88 million if add in the $6 million board members cut from the project early on). I expect to find out Saturday how the $88 million figure shakes out, but here is what I have so far on the $77.1 million version:

Building: $39.2 million (270,000 square feet X $145 per square foot)
Site development: $6.3 million (at $90,000 X 70 acres)
Public road improvements: $750,000
Total construction costs: $46.2 million (remember, Northern High was about $43 million)

Contingency: $2.3 million
Design: $4.6 million
Testing, surveys and other soft costs: $4.6 million
Total: $57.8 million

Furnishings and equipment: $2.8 million
Media center shelving and furniture: $140,000
Media center books and reference materials ($300 per student): $360,000
Technology: $1.8 million
Total: $5.1 million

Land purchase: $3.5 million (70 acres X $50,000)
Cumulative Total: $66.3 million

Inflation (0.75 percent X 28 months): $10.8 million
Overall total: $77.1 million

Sq ft per student: 225 (based on 1,200 classroom capacity)
Construction cost per sq ft: $168
Inflated cost per sq ft: $204
Anticipated bid date: January 2009

Hope that helps!

On Sunday, we started running the first of three stories I worked on this summer about Guilford County Schools and construction (relating to a proposed 2008 bond referendum). I could have gone in a hundred different directions with these stories, but I tried to keep it as simple and focused as I could and proceed from there. By no means does this first story cover every construction trend out there these days. I also did not get into distinguishing between "education specifications" and design specs and technical specs, which I thought might be coma-inducing to all but hardcore followers. But in essence, these guidelines would cover everything from the types of toilets and sinks in a bathroom to how a school should be structured to accommodate education programs.

At any rate, two more stories will follow: one on the fractured relationship between the school board and county commissioners and the other a comparison of Northern High in Greensboro and Reagan High in Forsyth County.

(Short and sweet) Highlights from the school board retreat held on Saturday:

SAT improvement: Check out the fuller story running about this on Tuesday. Basically, Grier and his staff have adopted a comprehensive plan and timeline for improving SAT scores in the district.

School bond: School board members voted 7-4 Saturday to ask taxpayers for at least $2 million more to expand an elementary school listed on a proposed 2008 bond. The board did not decide on a final bond amount, but some appeared ready to accept an inflation-adjusted $457.3 million.

"I hate to do things to increase this overall price," Nancy Routh said. "However, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense under the circumstances to build an elementary school for 532 students."

Routh, Darlene Garrett, Alan Duncan, Kris Cooke, Garth Hebert, Jeff Belton and Dot Kearns voted in favor of expanding the capacity of a new elementary school in northern Greensboro to 700 students at a cost of at least $2.4 million. Walter Childs, Deena Hayes, Amos Quick and Anita Sharpe voted no.

The school, designed to alleviate crowding at Jesse Wharton and Brightwood elementary schools, would cost between $24.4 million and $25.3 million, depending on inflation. The revised capacity would also match that of other recently-built elementary schools.

Art, music, etc., discussion: District officials plan to proceed on Duncan's request to study how to offer Spanish in district schools without sacrificing time for arts, music and physical education. He also asked the district to stop referring to the schools that added Spanish this year as "IB feeders" as he said the term is misleading. Technically, all elementary schools feed into high schools that have International Baccalaureate programs, he said. Plus, the school board did not endorse selecting schools based on that criterion.

Peggy Thompson, chief of human resources, said Spanish was added to schools to both beef up foreign language programs in the district and to provide equitable planning time for teachers. Before, planning time at schools varied from 24.2 minutes to 60.6 minutes (even schools that had the same number of teachers (such as Sumner and Irving Park) had different amounts of planning time. Now, the time ranges from 36 minutes to 37.8 minutes.

Despite that good news, school board members said they had no idea arts and music classes would be sacrificed to make room for Spanish.

"What is that doing to the quality of our music program?" Kris Cooke asked. "It's destroying it and I want it changed."

Grier replied: "It won't be changed this year. We don't have the funds to change it."

Magnet schools: It was reported that GCS was awarded the federal magnet grant it applied for last school year. I'm not sure of the details on that yet, but one of the proposed programs was an aviation academy at Andrews High.