CITYWIDE Nearly two years of planning and outreach, countless community workshops and the passage of a $268 million bond measure have led to a first draft of a document outlining the construction and maintenance of public schools over the next 20 years.
Public schools in Santa Monica and Malibu are set to receive a drastic makeover, according to a recently released preliminary draft of the Facilities Master Plan, with new libraries, athletic fields and technological upgrades that could render some of the campuses in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District unrecognizable.
A project team, consisting of consultants from Harley Ellis Devereaux, Concordia and Sidewalk Studio, as well as district staff and members of the community, recently released the first draft of the long-anticipated Facilities Master Plan, creating a blueprint for the district to follow when upgrading school facilities in the years to come.
Taking center stage in the Facilities Master Plan are several large-scale projects, including the replacement of the Edison Language Academy with an entirely new campus, a new science wing at John Adams Middle School, a new library and performing and visual arts wing at Lincoln Middle School, a new community library center at Malibu Middle and High schools, and the replacement of the business building at Santa Monica High School with a new Applied Instruction Building and Library.
Aside from some of the major rebuilding projects, the Facilities Master Plan includes sub-plans for each school in the district, outlining renovations and upgrades specific to the needs of each campus.
“There will be infrastructure improvements happening on every campus,” said Tim Morneau project manager with consultant Harley Ellis Devereaux. “We are looking at making certain that each facility is meeting the basic district standards for available classroom space.”
If the Board of Education approved the plan today, nearly every single school in the district would undergo construction of some sort, whether it’s buildings added or removed from the campus.
In many cases, this means the replacement of portable classrooms with new permanent facilities. Such temporary classrooms currently exist at many of the elementary schools, including Roosevelt, Franklin and Webster.
Perhaps seeing the biggest change will be the Edison Language Academy, a magnet elementary school located on Olympic and Pico boulevards. Preliminary plans call for the replacement of the entire school with a new K-5 or K-8 school.
The current configuration of the school does not allow much usable outdoor playing space as it is cluttered with the relocatable classrooms.Under the master plan,a new two-story, 36 classroom structure would be constructed on the northern portion of the campus.
The campus could also be expanded if the district purchases residential property abutting the school.
Including demolition and construction, the new Edison Language Academy is estimated to cost approximately $22.9 million.
“It’s deemed as one of the worst school facilities so through the process of developing the Facilities Master Plan, the district deemed it worthy of a new campus,” Morneau said.
IS IT ENOUGH?
In reviewing the Facilities Master Plan, Board of Education member Barry Snell said he was pleased with the general direction in which the district was headed, but had some reservations about the specific plans for Will Rogers Elementary School.
The Sunset Park-area elementary school is expected to see approximately $22 million invested in renovations and upgrades, including a new amphitheater and new preschool as well as kindergarten classrooms and playground improvements.
“It’s one of the schools we need to take a hard look at (to see) what the needs are,”
Snell said, adding that the plans are preliminary and subject to change at any time.
One of the main focuses of the board will be to make sure that each and every school has the same set of facilities and the same access to resources, said school board member Jose Escarce.
“We want to make sure what we end up with is all the schools having pretty much the same opportunities for students,” Escarce said.
THE NEXT STEPS The master plan is now set to undergo an Environmental Impact Report, a state-mandated process that will take roughly a year to determine the potential effects the proposed projects outlined in the plan would have on its surroundings.
While the plan is going through the EIR process, the district administration could move forward with some of the smaller projects, as long as the projects don’t require an EIR, Morneau said. But none of the projects, large or small, will move forward until a program management firm is hired to assess which projects will be developed and paid by Measure BB funds.
In the meantime, the public still has opportunities to weigh in the preliminary draft, which will be a work-in-progress until the school board formally adopts it in about a year.
One thing Snell said he would be interested in looking into is revenue generating opportunities through sharing facilities with the public, such as renting out the use of the new athletic fields.
Snell believes that the state-of-the-art playing fields will be attractive to groups interested in renting the facilities.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 19, 2007. Read the original PDF.