Educators
pan SCC's new guidelines
Cost-cutting measures include
limiting the size of lobbies, no doors for bathroom
stalls
Thursday, October 20, 2005 • BY DUNSTAN McNICHOL AND
STEVE CHAMBERS • Star-Ledger
Staff
Reeling from charges it squandered much
of the first $6 billion entrusted to it, the agency managing
an overhaul of New Jersey's poorest public schools is
developing new building guidelines to help cut construction
costs.
But some of the standards being
considered by the New Jersey Schools Construction Corp. --
such as limiting the size of school lobbies, forgoing
bleachers in some elementary schools, and building bathroom
stalls without doors -- have angered school districts and
education advocates.
"Rather than being helpful and creating
efficiency, it's more likely to lead to less appropriate
buildings and delaying the whole process while we debate,"
said Raymond Lindgren, assistant to Newark Superintendent
Marion Bolden.
SCC officials confirmed that a manual for
design standards is being developed.
A proposal was delivered to the SCC's
Schools Review Committee in September, but the committee has
deferred action until it gets further input from local
school officials and other experts, said Caren Franzini, the
committee's chairwoman.
"First of all, nothing is finalized,"
said Franzini, who is also head of the state's Economic
Development Authority. "The whole concept is not to take
away. It's to create parity and create standards for great
schools."
Donald Moore, the SCC's director of
design and construction, said the proposed standards are an
effort to transfer "lessons learned" by the design
professionals already building schools to other
projects.
"Some people are trying to poke holes in
this, because they have an interest," Moore said. "At the
end of the day, we are trying to serve the interests of all
and accommodate everyone at a very good and acceptable
quality level, without breaking the bank."
The SCC has been under fire for its
handling of $6 billion lawmakers set aside in 2000 for a
court-ordered reconstruction of public schools in 31 needy
communities.
By the time the money runs out, fewer
than one-third of the 530 schools approved for construction
will have been built, current SCC projections show, and some
will include touches like spacious lobbies and rooftop
football stadiums.
Lawmakers earlier this year, for
instance, criticized a SCC school in West New York that
featured $1.6 million in approved extras, including $50,000
to inlay a school logo and yard markers on an artificial
turf football field and thousands more for a lobby that
features a terrazzo floor and a decorative steel and glass
pyramid.
"What we did before was total creative
freedom with the restriction of educational need and cost,
and we got criticized for that," Moore said. "So we made
some adjustments based on lessons learned to establish
parity, and now we're criticized for that. It burns me
up."
A Star-Ledger analysis in February found
the six schools then completed by the SCC cost, on average,
45 percent more than schools built by local school officials
at the same time.
Spurred by that report, state Inspector
General Mary Jane Cooper reviewed the agency and determined
the SCC was "fraught with an array of gaps in oversight and
accountability," and that the organization was "paying for
construction of nonessential school structures, such as
parking facilities and synthetic turf for athletic
fields."
Through the new design standards, the SCC
would be able to more accurately project the eventual cost
of the schools it is slated to build, SCC representatives
said. It will also ensure that students in all regions of
the state get the same school features, they
said.
Among the standards under consideration,
for instance, are the size and number of marker boards and
bulletin boards in each classroom, limits on the amount of
brick a school exterior could include and a cap of 1,000
square feet on the size of a school's lobby.
© 2005 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
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