Holy...$578m school....in LA.

[Tristicus]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100822/ap_on_re_us/us_taj_mahal_schools

LOS ANGELES – Next month's opening of the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools will be auspicious for a reason other than its both storied and infamous history as the former Ambassador Hotel, where the Democratic presidential contender was assassinated in 1968.

With an eye-popping price tag of $578 million, it will mark the inauguration of the nation's most expensive public school ever.

The K-12 complex to house 4,200 students has raised eyebrows across the country as the creme de la creme of "Taj Mahal" schools, $100 million-plus campuses boasting both architectural panache and deluxe amenities.

"There's no more of the old, windowless cinderblock schools of the '70s where kids felt, 'Oh, back to jail,'" said Joe Agron, editor-in-chief of American School & University, a school construction journal. "Districts want a showpiece for the community, a really impressive environment for learning."

Not everyone is similarly enthusiastic.

"New buildings are nice, but when they're run by the same people who've given us a 50 percent dropout rate, they're a big waste of taxpayer money," said Ben Austin, executive director of Parent Revolution who sits on the California Board of Education. "Parents aren't fooled."

At RFK, the features include fine art murals and a marble memorial depicting the complex's namesake, a manicured public park, a state-of-the-art swimming pool and preservation of pieces of the original hotel.

Partly by circumstance and partly by design, the Los Angeles Unified School District has emerged as the mogul of Taj Mahals.

The RFK complex follows on the heels of two other LA schools among the nation's costliest — the $377 million Edward R. Roybal Learning Center, which opened in 2008, and the $232 million Visual and Performing Arts High School that debuted in 2009.

The pricey schools have come during a sensitive period for the nation's second-largest school system: Nearly 3,000 teachers have been laid off over the past two years, the academic year and programs have been slashed. The district also faces a $640 million shortfall and some schools persistently rank among the nation's lowest performing.

Los Angeles is not alone, however, in building big. Some of the most expensive schools are found in low-performing districts — New York City has a $235 million campus; New Brunswick, N.J., opened a $185 million high school in January.

Nationwide, dozens of schools have surpassed $100 million with amenities including atriums, orchestra-pit auditoriums, food courts, even bamboo nooks. The extravagance has led some to wonder where the line should be drawn and whether more money should be spent on teachers.

"Architects and builders love this stuff, but there's a little bit of a lack of discipline here," said Mary Filardo, executive director of 21st Century School Fund in Washington, D.C., which promotes urban school construction.

Some experts say it's not all flourish and that children learn better in more pleasant surroundings.

Many schools incorporate large windows to let in natural light and install energy-saving equipment, spending more upfront for reduced bills later. Cafeterias are getting fancier, seeking to retain students who venture off campus. Wireless Internet and other high-tech installations have become standard.

Some pricey projects have had political fallout.

After a firestorm over the $197.5 million Newton North High School in Massachusetts, Mayor David Cohen chose not to seek re-election and state Treasurer Timothy Cahill reined in school construction spending.

Now to get state funds for a new school, districts must choose among three designs costing $49 million to $64 million. "We had to bring some sense to this process," Cahill said.

In Los Angeles, officials say the new schools were planned long before the economic pinch and are funded by $20 billion in voter-approved bonds that do not affect the educational budget.

Still, even LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines derided some of the extravagance, noting that donations should have been sought to fund the RFK project's talking benches commemorating the site's history.

Connie Rice, member of the district's School Bond Oversight Committee, noted the megaschools are only three of 131 that the district is building to alleviate overcrowding. RFK "is an amazing facility," she said. "Is it a lot of money? Yes. We didn't like it, but they got it done."

Construction costs at LA Unified are the second-highest in the nation — something the district blames on skyrocketing material and land prices, rigorous seismic codes and unionized labor.

James Sohn, the district's chief facilities executive, said the megaschools were built when global raw material shortages caused costs to skyrocket to an average of $600 per square foot in 2006 and 2007 — triple the price from 2002. Costs have since eased to $350 per square foot.

On top of that, each project had its own cost drivers.

After buildings were demolished at the site of the 2,400-student Roybal school, contaminated soil, a methane gas field and an earthquake fault were discovered. A gas mitigation system cost $17 million.

Over 20 years, the project grew to encompass a dance studio with cushioned maple floors, a modern kitchen with a restaurant-quality pizza oven, a 10-acre park and teacher planning rooms between classrooms.

The 1,700-student arts school was designed as a landmark, with a stainless steel, postmodernistic tower encircled by a rollercoaster-like swirl, while the RFK site involved 15 years of litigation with historic preservationists and Donald Trump, who wanted to build the world's tallest building there. The wrangling cost $9 million.

Methane mitigation cost $33 million and the district paid another $15 million preserving historic features, including a wall of the famed Cocoanut Grove nightclub and turning the Paul Williams-designed coffee shop into a faculty lounge.

Sohn said LA Unified has reached the end of its Taj Mahal building spree. "These are definitely the exceptions," he said. "We don't anticipate schools costing hundreds of millions of dollars in the future."

Can you say ridiculously retarded?

 

[Throckmorton]

I like how Joe Agron implies that the two choices are windowless prisons and $500 mil schools

 

[Acanthus]

It's probably in a very rich area of the city. This means they collect a massive amount of taxes from the high land value.

(i do not support funding schools through property tax)

 

[Skitzer]

Wow!!
They built a new High School in our town 2 years ago and everyone was extremely upset that it cost almost 50 million. And it is a very nice school!

 

[StageLeft]

It's probably in a very rich area of the city. This means they collect a massive amount of taxes from the high land value.

(i do not support funding schools through property tax)

If it was a rich area of the city the kids wouldn't be failing at 50% graduation rates, assuming that the statement in the article is true. Only poor ghetto kids have failure rates like that.

 

[BoberFett]

Remember folks. The only place California can cut back by laying off teachers and firefighters.

That's it.

There's no fat in the budget.

They're already cut to the bone.


LOL, liberals.

 

[Tristicus]

Wow!!
They built a new High School in our town 2 years ago and everyone was extremely upset that it cost almost 50 million. And it is a very nice school!

They are building a new high school in our town right now. We really need it, especially considering the area where the old school is (the ghetto, the hood). I'm not sure how much it is costing us however.

 

[woolfe9999]

Remember folks. The only place California can cut back by laying off teachers and firefighters.

That's it.

There's no fat in the budget.

They're already cut to the bone.


LOL, liberals.

This was funded by a local bond measure, not the state budget. If the LA school districts are borrowing money to pay for overly expensive schools, that is their business. I live in Northern California. Leave us out of this.

- wolf

 

[BoberFett]

This was funded by a local bond measure, not the state budget. If the LA school districts are borrowing money to pay for overly expensive schools, that is their business. I live in Northern California. Leave us out of this.

- wolf

And teachers are paid by the local district part of which is from (non-existent) state funds. Do you really think none of the layoffs were going to happen in the district where this school was built? That's like claiming that you paid for cigarettes and booze out of your left pocket so it didn't affect the fact that you couldn't pay your rent out of the right. Your landlord doesn't give a shit, just pay your fucking rent.

 

[ElFenix]

holy fsck that is expensive

 

[Genx87]

And in 5 years the place will be a run down dump.

 

[PokerGuy]

The district is facing a $650 million "shortfall", and they are building half a billion plus schools for students when 50% of them are going to drop out anyway? Brilliant! Only in CA.

 

[BoberFett]

The district is facing a $650 million "shortfall", and they are building half a billion plus schools for students when 50% of them are going to drop out anyway? Brilliant! Only in CA.

Yeah but, the school was paid for by a different budget item so that doesn't count!



LOL, liberals.

 

[werepossum]

The district is facing a $650 million "shortfall", and they are building half a billion plus schools for students when 50% of them are going to drop out anyway? Brilliant! Only in CA.

I wish it were only in CA. Land and construction are extremely high in LA, so this would probably be a $150 million school in, say, Nashville, but similar Taj Mahals (scaled for local building costs) have been built in other liberal-controlled school districts. Locally for that kind of money we could build more than a dozen similarly sized, very nice schools.

I like the talking benches best - I guess reading is yet another outdated metric, butt-talking is the wave of the future! I can imagine the rush to be the first to hack into that system. "OMG you're too fat, I'm dying! Your butt stinks. etc." I wonder if, since LA is less than half English speaking, you'll have to press your left butt cheek for English.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Nice school! Too bad the state can't afford to staff it with teachers. I wonder if there might be some sort of a connection between the price tag for the school and teacher layoffs.

Wow, what a school. One photo makes it almost look like a spaceship. For that price you would expect it to have better looks.

 

[Infohawk]

Anyone want to wager the parents of the kids going there don't generate enough taxes to pay for their kids' education and facilities?

 

[her209]

In case anyone is interested where this school is located, its in Koreatown. It was built inplace where the Ambassador Hotel used to be.

Address:
3400 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90010

 

[Darwin333]

This was funded by a local bond measure, not the state budget. If the LA school districts are borrowing money to pay for overly expensive schools, that is their business. I live in Northern California. Leave us out of this.

- wolf

And when they can't pay their other bills because their credit card is tapped out I bet the state/feds step in.

And can someone please tell me WTF a "bamboo nook" is?

Oh, and a big LOL at the school district blaming, at least partially, "unionized labor".

 

[JS80]

Over/under on the dropout rate? % of students that are illegal? How much $$$$$ for upkeep? How much $$$$ to pay for worthless teachers? How much for security? How much to close down the school?

 

[Acanthus]

If it was a rich area of the city the kids wouldn't be failing at 50% graduation rates, assuming that the statement in the article is true. Only poor ghetto kids have failure rates like that.

the article was inflammatory, it implied that some schools in the city had 50% failure rates.

I would imagine that is not in the same wealthy district.

 

[Acanthus]

The district is facing a $650 million "shortfall", and they are building half a billion plus schools for students when 50% of them are going to drop out anyway? Brilliant! Only in CA.

Again, probably inflammatory writing as the budget likely included the full value of the bond issue.

 

[Acanthus]

In case anyone is interested where this school is located, its in Koreatown. It was built inplace where the Ambassador Hotel used to be.

Address:
3400 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90010

yeah, plug that into google streetview.... that is NOT a poor section of town.

 

[woolfe9999]

And when they can't pay their other bills because their credit card is tapped out I bet the state/feds step in.

When or if that happens, I'll be pissed too. Until then, this is a local concern. Apparently, the voters in LA passed a bond measure to fund 20 billion for school construction, and there must not have been disclosure that some of it would go to overpriced facilities. Here in the bay area, we shoot down bond measure after bond measure at the polls, and we're not building 500 million dollar schools. This appears to be peculiar to the LA districts. Which is why I said don't generalize about California.

- wolf

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I thought it was bad when they built a $120 million high school here a few years ago, but at least the town voted for it.

 

[dfuze]

And in 5 years the place will be a run down dump.

You really think it will take that long?

Until you change the attitude of the students to respect not just schools but property in general the place will deteriorate quickly.

Not far from me our town converted a tennis court to a skate park. In just a couple years the stuff has graffiti on it, parts of the ramps are pulled apart (not from wear and tear), and quite a few sections of the chain link around it have been ripped apart. What a nice way to say thanks kids