RIDE report confirms East Providence High School needs urgent attention

Concurs with previous district-initiated SLAM review

By Mike Rego
Posted 9/14/17

EAST PROVIDENCE — To those keeping a close eye on the subject in city, the huge sums included in the just-released Rhode Island Department of Education structural assessment of the …

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RIDE report confirms East Providence High School needs urgent attention

Concurs with previous district-initiated SLAM review

Posted

EAST PROVIDENCE — To those keeping a close eye on the subject in city, the huge sums included in the just-released Rhode Island Department of Education structural assessment of the state’s schools shouldn’t have come as a shock.

The report, titled “2017 State of Rhode Island Schoolhouses,” was described as a year-long assessment commissioned by the School Building Authority (SBA) and completed by Jacobs Engineering. The report (see attachment link at left) projects the need to spend some $627.5 million “in high-priority construction and repairs needed to keep students and teachers warm, safe and dry in their classrooms.”

As expected, a couple of city schools fall into the high-priority category. The report asserts East Providence High School is in immediate need of some $39 million dollars in priority repairs. The 65-year-old school’s plumbing and heating issues have been well documented and remain cause of worry for district administrators. Martin Middle School is also among those buildings state-wide included as a high priority. The RIDE report considers the 40-year-old structure needs over $34 million in urgent attention.

The numbers for East Providence are backdropped by the overall school building repair project by RIDE of some $2.2 billion. To completely replace all schools around the state the projection included in the report is $8.4 billion.

“Those numbers are the minimum required just to keep the doors open. They’re a band-aid to keep the doors open,” said East Providence Superintendent Kathryn Crowley.

The superintendent said she did appreciate the efforts of RIDE in producing the report. She said the administration will use it in concert with the district-initiated report on the high school authored earlier this year by the SLAM architectural firm to determine how to best address the buildings going forward.

In particular, the SLAM report, according to the superintendent, was a more refined study of the EPHS structure than that done by Jacobs for RIDE. SLAM concluded it would cost over $90 million to completely renovate the existing building and over $110 million to build a new school.

“We are going to use all the data available to us as we address the high school,” Superintendent Crowley said, adding of the RIDE report, “I don’t think it’s quite up to the needs of the school from our perspective.”

The superintendent said the Jacobs group used a limited set of principals in its review, especially as it pertained to EPHS. She noted the report considered the square footage of the high school to include the unusable pool area and Jacobs did not thoroughly inspect the bowels of the structure where the heating and plumbing are housed.

In addition, the report did not take into account several of the improvements the district has made to its buildings the last few years. The superintendent said the school department has spent approximately $10 million at the district’s schools on renovations such as new roofs, painting, fire suppression systems, etc.

According to statement issued by the office of Governor Gina Raimondo accompanying the release of the RIDE report, the Jacobs study began in January 2016 and involved the on-site assessment of 306 school campuses, accounting for more than 24 million square feet, by teams of architects, engineers, and specialists.

These assessment teams evaluated everything from roofs and HVAC systems to technology and acoustics, identifying deficiencies and creating a five-year lifecycle forecast for each facility. Potential energy cost savings were also identified, amounting to $33.6 million annually across the state.

The report breaks down five levels of priority costs, ranging from mission critical to aesthetic enhancements. The $627.5 million safe, warm, and dry standard represents priorities 1 and 2 from the total facility deficiencies. Of that figure, $54.5 million in deficiencies are considered "priority 1," or "mission critical concerns," such as building safety or code compliance.

Under what some believe are RIDE’s modest estimates, the total replacement of East Providence’s 11 existing school buildings would come at a cost north of $300 million. As it stands, for the seven elementary, two middle and high school structures as well as the career and tech center to be brought up to acceptable standards of existing educational guidelines or in the wording of the report “functional,” RIDE’s again rather austere estimate comes in at roughly $139 million.

“Those numbers are short-term fixes, not long-term solutions,” Superintendent Crowley reiterated about the RIDE report. “We could spend the $40 million on the high school, but that would be throwing money away.”

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MIKE REGO

Mike Rego has worked at East Bay Newspapers since 2001, helping the company launch The Westport Shorelines. He soon after became a Sports Editor, spending the next 10-plus years in that role before taking over as editor of The East Providence Post in February of 2012. To contact Mike about The Post or to submit information, suggest story ideas or photo opportunities, etc. in East Providence, email mrego@eastbaymediagroup.com.