Principal Russell Blackbird says a tour of South Junior High School is usually enough to convince visitors the building isn’t worth saving.

The experience is a shock to the senses — smell, sight, hearing, touch, taste.

And that’s just nonacademic shortcomings.

Blackbird says the school building’s academic deficiencies are significant enough that Lawrence voters should give serious consideration to voting for a bond issue in April that includes $21.1 million to build a new South.

“Asbestos prevents our building from being wired appropriately for technology,” he said. “Some classrooms cannot accommodate the enrollment. We have an open library that is not suitable for instructional purposes. The theater is vastly inadequate for fine arts.”

Five senses tour

A walk through the building with Blackbird offers guests a sense that many elements of the building no longer conform to educational practice or are unhealthy and dangerous.

Families of skunks and mice reside underneath portable classrooms located on the building’s east side, known as “SJHS East.”

“Kids walk through the building, and you can tell they’ve been in a portable. (The smell) permeates their clothes,” Blackbird said.

A teacher monitoring a hall inside South — built in the 1960s with curved halls — can see less than 10 yards in either direction. It’s a serious security issue, as Lawrence Police discovered recently when they could hear two burglars in the darkened school but had difficulty finding them.

Constructed when open classrooms were the rage in education, some rooms don’t have doors, and others don’t have walls that reach the ceiling. Pillows are stuffed between the ceiling and the top of interior walls to block errant sounds.

South Junior High School's facilities are a key reason for the April school bond issue that would permit building a new school. Students have decorated the school hallways with colorful murals.

Design and location of classrooms make it difficult for teachers to effectively work in interdisciplinary teams, which is a district initiative.

When the school’s worn-out boiler falters, the building can be brutally cold. And when the temperamental air-conditioning unit can’t keep up with the heat outside, the building’s lack of windows makes it difficult to moderate internal temperatures.

Sparks dazzle the senses in teacher Carol Hampton’s classroom, where she teaches seventh-grade geography and English.

“Sparks literally fly out of my outlets,” Hampton said. “The lights don’t work well.”

In Coleen Creed’s family and consumer science class, inadequate wiring limits her students to operating only two microwaves at a time.

If a third is plugged in, Creed said the result was immediate — blown fuses.

A tourist can taste Blackbird’s frustration when he stands in the doorway of the school’s performing arts room.

“The facility doesn’t do justice to the student performances,” he said. “It is not audience friendly. The acoustics are not effective.”

Students and parents with a disability can’t meet in private with a South counselor, because their upstairs offices aren’t handicapped accessible.

¢ Board forwards bond proposal (11-19-02)¢ Questions about about district plans (11-10-02)¢ Related stories and video reports¢ More about South¢ Text of bond resolution

South’s 16 entry doors cannot be secured at the same time because hundreds of students flow in and out to the portable classrooms.

If unauthorized people enter the school, students in numerous classrooms could be in jeopardy.

“Most of our classrooms don’t even have doors,” Blackbird said.

He said the junior high building wasn’t without charm. The compact design creates a “family atmosphere” that students don’t want to lose, he said.

Murals painted on interior walls by students during the past 20 years give the building a unique look.

The paintings are the only way some guests navigate through the circular building, he said.

“Students don’t need them,” he said. “They get around fine.”

Renovate or replace?

Jim French of the Overland Park DLR Group, which the school board hired to conduct a yearlong study of all district facilities, said the choices boiled down to renovation or replacement.

The board decided the best route was to replace South with a new building behind Broken Arrow School, which sits north of the current junior high.

Constructing a new 120,000-square-foot building that reflects current academic and security requirements will cost $21.1 million, French said.

He said renovation of South would be about $16 million because the structure would need to be completely gutted. The presence of asbestos throughout the ceiling structure would add to the cost and the building’s circular design would limit redesign options, he said.

“It’s not in the best interests of the community to spend those kinds of dollars for a building that will still have limitations,” French said.

He said South’s teachers and parents on the school’s site council indicated they weren’t emotionally attached to the 35-year-old building.

There is consensus that if the school is rebuilt the new one should be located on the same tract of land, French said.

In November, the school board concurred by voting 6-1 to completely replace South.

All but board member Jack Davidson favored placing before voters a $59 million bond issue that makes improvements at more than a dozen of the district’s schools. In addition, East Heights and Centennial elementary school students would be transferred to renovated New York and Cordley schools. Riverside School also is to be closed in May but isn’t directly related to the bond issue.

Bond foes sympathetic

Davidson, who vowed to campaign actively against the bond issue even though he’s not seeking re-election to the board, said it was clear South had to be replaced.

He said the unsecured entrances, lack of windows, shot boiler, bad access for people with disabilities, asbestos, open library, improperly located administrative office and many other problems combined to make the school’s design “a stupid idea.”

“Many people have never been in that building, so they don’t know how bad it is,” Davidson said.

However, he said he didn’t think the school should be replaced immediately. The current $59 million bond issue should be defeated, he said. An alternative bond issue, that costs less, ought to be passed to build a new alternative high school and fix major infrastructure problems at other schools.

A second bond issue would follow that would finance rebuilding South, he said.

Burdett Loomis, a Kansas University professor and critic of the proposed bond issue, said plans to rebuild South likely would fall victim to voter disenchantment with a “bloated” bond issue.

Allowed to stand on its own merits, he said, folks would likely support replacement.

“I don’t think there is hardly a soul who doesn’t think there needs to be a new junior high school, probably on that spot, sooner or later,” Loomis said. “Is this the time to do it?”