Nearly $190M in deficiencies found in Cranston schools

By Pam Schiff
Posted 7/26/17

By PAM SCHIFF Cooperative Strategies and JACOBS Engineering/Architectural firm addressed the Cranston City Council at a special meeting held on this past Monday to discuss deficiencies throughout all the schools in the district, noting that it would take

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Nearly $190M in deficiencies found in Cranston schools

Posted

Cooperative Strategies and JACOBS Engineering/Architectural firm addressed the Cranston City Council at a special meeting held on this past Monday to discuss deficiencies throughout all the schools in the district, noting that it would take nearly $190 million to fix all of them.

If the district were to remedy all of the problems detailed in the report, it would cost $189,624,574.

David Sturtz, a partner with Cooperative Strategies, and Casey Morris from JACOBS gave the PowerPoint presentation.

These companies are 18 months into the process of evaluating and assessing every school district in the state of Rhode Island.

This assessment came from RIDE (Rhode Island Department of Education), to fully understand the physical and educational needs at all of RI's public schools.  

"We have looked at every school in the district. We looked at how Cranston get where they need to be, address things as they fail, get smarter and be more efficient is the goal," said Morris.

The assessment cost was $4 million to RIDE for the entire state.

There was a facility conditions assessment to evaluate the general health of the schools and how to identify where the biggest deficiencies lie. This is the age of the building, the condition of the building and how many repairs and replacements have been done to the building.

"We looked at what will expire, when will it expire, [and] are we planning for it to expire," said Sturtz.

Once a deficiency was identified, it was giving a tier ranking of 1-5, with one being the worst and in need of immediate repair/replacement.

The 95-page draft report was issued to Superintendent Jeannine Nota-Masse and the School Committee. The report covered all 24 school campuses, which is comprised of 1.64 million square feet of school space for 10,307 students.

The average age of a school building in Cranston is 63 years old. Most of the schools are expensive to operate and not built for the number of students in them.

"With the age of the buildings and the older pentecostal model used; five kids in a row of five desks, it will not be easy to accomplish getting the buildings to support all the technology needed for 21st century students," said Sturtz.

Each school was assigned a Facility Condition Index (FCI), which determines the percentage of is it better to repair or replace the building. An FCI number is determined by taking the cost to repair by dividing the cost to replace. Five elementary schools had an FCI over 50 percent. An industry rule of thumb is if a building has an FCI of 65 percent, it is cost-effective to replace it.

"The problem is you don't ever catch up, with older buildings more things will fail, it compounds every year," said Sturtz.

The recommended plan of action is to develop a community focus group of 35 to 40 assorted and diverse Cranston residents, teachers, students, parents and community members, people with a current and long-term stake in Cranston education.

"They need to be focused on doing visionary work, what will Cranston students need in 20 years, what should the classroom look like," said Sturtz.

By providing the community the opportunity to be part of the plan, it will be easier to get it approved, since the community is invested, they won't feel as if the plan is being forced upon them.

Ed Collins, the director of plant operations for the school department, agreed with the report.

"While this assessment is a snapshot of the district, right now we are focusing all our improvements on being code compliant. It is time to step back and make a long-term plan for the future. The assessment looks at worse case scenarios," he said.

Sturtz emphasized to the Council members that the report is an assessment not a report card. They looked at the facilities, condition and age.

Nota-Masse said this was the first time in her 20 years in education that the state has ever asked for a report on the conditions of the school buildings.

"Even though we have approved bonds to fix the schools, they have to be released, not just approved. We are a large district with a diverse mix of buildings. Our newest school has the worst roof, and our older buildings don't let a drop in. We will look at our needs and priorities to make all schools 21st century buildings," she said.

Council President Michael Farina was pragmatic about the report.

"We didn't get into this situation overnight, and we won't get out of it overnight. We need to create a collaborative community team and put petty politics aside. Blaming anyone for what happened in the past is counterproductive," he said.

The draft report is available to view at Cranstonri.com under the July 24 special council meeting in the calendar section.

The complete state report will be available on RIDE's website in a few months.

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