In regard to the Facilities Plan the Cleveland Heights–University Heights School Board voted to fund with a bond issue this November, this plan is not “comprehensive”. I know what the Citizens Committee meant when they wrote comprehensive – I believe I was the one who suggested that word. This plan does not include Taylor, the Board of Education, the bus depot, Coventry, the Severance Barns, Millikin or anything even remotely resembling a plan for the future of Noble, Fairfax or Gearity. That is what was meant by comprehensive.
Not only is the millage too high, one-third of the funding is in the air. To be sure, the District can get a loan for part of this funding, but only by using projected operating money and dollars from the current Permanent Improvements levy to pay down the loan. Unless we have a cashier’s check from Ohio Schools Facilities Commission in a safety deposit box which we have a key to, I feel we have no guarantee if or when we will see this money. While the $6,000,000 in foundation support is up in the air, so is the $10,000,000 in personal donations. I know of only ONE meeting with any donors (that was pertaining to the football field and merely an introductory one), and there have been NO discussions with the organization that is the District’s best resource for assisting in obtaining these donations, the Alumni Foundation. Things that people want and believe are part of a comprehensive plan, such as the football field and pool at Heights, are in fact “extras” dependent on fundraising – this is bait and switch.
In a plan that exceeds $200,000,000 the plan does not include removing the 70’s additions at Roxboro Elementary, Oxford and Canterbury – SOMETHING PEOPLE WANT. Why renovate space that people want to demolish and if we have so much extra square footage, shouldn’t we be able to easily move these spaces into the buildings? If not, then we do not have that much extra space, which would undermine the argument about so much extra square footage.
The issue of circulation at Heights is a myth bordering on a lie. If we are removing the Science Wing and the Vocational Education wing, coupled with “learning communities” (or keep the current Small Schools concept) the building is actually compact. Also note we are retaining the main corridor, which would seem to refute this circulation myth. If money is tight and we can “renovate” the 1926 portion of Heights High, we can easily do the same for the 1930 and 1950 wings, SAVING US MONEY. In my opinion saying that the 1926 building will be renovated is a lie based on what is proposed in the samples given to us by architects Fielding Nair. This is a GUTTING of the building, not a renovation.
The School Board has spent close to $500,000 and they do not have a single drawing, exterior elevation or floor plan to share with the public. While they have conceptual bubble drawings for square footage allocations, there is nothing to motivate the community or explain this “plan.” In reality this is not a plan, this is an idea. If the response is “we’ll have images for a campaign” the Board should have them NOW. What happens if they or the voters do not like the images crafted for the campaign?
I might be able to support the learning community concept if I had seen data that it would work here. I have no reservations about closing schools and demolishing 10 of our 15 buildings. What I take issue with is a vague plan funded by a series of guesses wrapped in misrepresentation.
Remove the 70’s wings at the elementary schools, and I am OK with them. I do not like the plan for Monticello and question the fate of Roxboro’s interior, but I could live with it. The High School is my Rubicon, as what is proposed there is so fundamentally flawed as to be useless and shows a complete lack of thought and respect to what is there. This proposal is a cookie cutter concept, lazy design masquerading as forward thought.
Perhaps if the one group that has floor plans and drawings for Heights had had ONE formal meeting with Fielding Nair and district staff about the High School, we might have a plan that was less destructive, less costly, and had more green space and not less. If I can come up with bubble drawings that allow the 1930’s addition to be renovated, why can’t Fielding Nair? The Alumni Foundation’s plan for Heights has a similar massing to what they propose, but retained the Social Room addition. One could easily change the interior layout to Fielding Nair’s concepts for two of the floors.
The point being, I believe it is possible the District can retain more of Heights High, save money and use a design that has already been vetted with the public with images they like. The question that needs to be asked is why not do this? Why not formally involve the one group that has a vision for Heights High?
40 years ago our District implemented a flawed plan that was done on the cheap and we have suffered those shortcomings for decades. I implore the Board to not repeat the mistakes of the past. This is the wrong plan at the wrong time with dubious funding. It is better to wait for a plan people are excited about instead of one they are resigned to. It saddens me that instead of encouraging Heights High alumni to embrace renovations of their alma mater, I must now email 14,000 of them their alma mater is threatened by the very people who are supposed to protect it.
Eric J. Silverman
CH-UH School Board 1994-2001
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