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By Racquel Palmese San Bernardino, one of the oldest cities in Southern California, was established as Rancho San Bernardino by missionaries in 1819. In recent years, it has become one of the region’s most economically challenged communities. Many of the 68 schools in the San Bernardino Unified School District are 50-60 years old and badly in need of modernization; new schools are needed to relieve overcrowding and to service newly-planned communities. Against all odds, the District is awash in school construction, with skip loaders and earth movers, dump trucks and tractors at work modernizing more than half of the existing facilities and building, or getting ready to build, nine new schools. In fact, since 2004, the district has had 53 modernization projects in the works, about 20 of them have been completed. Thirty-three of the modernization projects and several new schools have received 100 percent funding under California’s Financial Hardship grant program, which totally funds school construction projects that qualify. Even more startling than the number of school construction projects this district has been able to set in motion is the fact that each of these projects is being built to high performance standards, qualifying for certification by the Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS). The San Bernardino district is one of the first to participate in the CHPS Operations Report Card (ORC), which is a new program that benchmarks the current performance of existing schools and makes suggestions for improvement. A Financial Hardship District The muscle behind this mega-building program is a team of three facilities people and one green schools consultant. San Bernardino USD achieved the unfortunate designation of being a financial hardship district by the state in the 1990s. But this also allowed it to apply for school construction funding under the Financial Hardship Grants program. Qualifying projects receive 100 percent financing from the state, but the challenge is that funding must cover 100 percent of the project. Any additional funding that is added to the project is taken away by the state in the form of penalties. Still, the District decided to pursue the grants. “There are many restrictions by the state on what we can and cannot do,” says Wael Elatar, facilities administrator for the District. “You have to meet certain criteria and requirements in order to qualify for financial hardship status, and you have to reapply every six months to continue in that program.” The District was able to get approvals for many of its projects before 2008, when it was determined that it no longer qualified for hardship status. Going for Green “During 2006 and 2007 we started to look closely at energy savings and high performance programs,” said Elatar, “and we made the decision that even though we were a financial hardship district and there were limitations on the financial elements of our projects, we wanted all our construction projects to be considered high performance.” Many of the school projects were not designed with green standards in place, but the facilities team doubled down and revisited each project to add high performance elements. “We wanted to make sure that all of our schools are conducive to the twenty-first century and that we are at the edge of technology when it comes to building them,” said Elatar. “We also wanted to have energy savings for the District, which provides money for the general fund. That’s a main reason we wanted to go that route.” “We took another look at the existing designs for all our modernization projects when they were almost ready to go out to bid,” recalled Samer Alzubaidi, the district’s facilities planning and development director, “and we said, ‘let’s do it right.’ We spent a great deal of time and effort going back to the drawing board and implementing a lot of high performance components like solar tube lights to bring natural light into the classrooms, energy efficient air conditioning systems. We changed lights to LEDs to save lots of energy, and studied again the type of control systems we were placing in the schools. Even in the new high school, Indian Springs, we got all the way to bid time and decided to change the irrigation system to a web based technology that controlled watering based on weather forecasts.” Greening the Architects While Elatar was persistent in tracking down financing, Jorge Mendez, assistant director of facilities planning and development, was instrumental in bringing architects and contractors up to speed – sometimes facing resistance – on high performance school construction. “We encouraged the architects that weren’t so familiar with high performance per se to embrace the idea,” he said. “We went through an interesting process of educating them to come onboard with us. We like to say that we ‘work closely with them.’ It made them aware of green building, and now they can use this for their own resumes. Some were very concerned and fearful of even trying to go that route, for some it was their first time doing it.” There were five or six architects, and the District decided to hold a workshop with all of them in one room to brainstorm ideas regarding high performance. “We asked them to make a quick assessment of the existing designs,” said Mendez, “how to make each one a little bit better. We noticed that the projects were already in good shape but needed a little more work to get to high performance. The CHPS scoring points started adding up for new construction. Norton Elementary got 36 points, Brown Elementary scored got 32, Gomez Elementary scored 32, Dominguez Elementary 33, Little Mountain Elementary, 32 and Middle College High School got 30 points. Going back to the architects and asking them to redesign or readjust their designs was picked up very quickly by some of the architects; others came up to speed a little slower. But in the end, they all did it.” “We learned a lot from everyone,” said Elatar. “Then we had the opportunity with the first new project designed after we decided to go high performance, Pakuma, a K-8 school which will be built in 2013 or 2014. It will end up having 44 CHPS points, a very big jump, and based on the even more stringent 2006 CHPS criteria. The others were based on the older 2001 criteria. We exceeded our own record, and it became apparent that we are able to do it. We have been able to fully engage the designers, and they now feel this is a good thing.” A Green Schools Consultant The facilities staff credits much of their enthusiasm to their green schools consultant, Ying Wang, who helped create the original CHPS criteria and helped the Los Angeles Unified School District with its enormous green schools program. “I think one of the most interesting things for this District,” said Wang, “is that they have so many modular buildings that need replacing, and because these qualify for the state’s Overcrowded Relief Grants (ORG), the District needs to work with modular building manufacturers to create high-performance, two-story modular buildings. “That’s the essence of the ORG program,” said Mendez, “you take an existing school and replace it with two-story buildings to have more green space.” What facilitated the greening of San Bernardino’s school construction program was the fact that many of these projects had already been approved by the State Architect (DSA) before the green technology aspects were added. Once they were in the pipeline, they were able to go back and work with their DSA field office in San Diego to make the upgrades to the design plans. “We have a great relationship with DSA‘s San Diego office,” said Elatar. “Jorge and Samer are regular visitors there, and we established a relationship where we can go to them and ask them to help us figure out how to make things work out on a given timeline.” Eminent Domain As an urban school district, San Bernardino does not have much available raw land to purchase for new school projects. Basically, the area is comprised of developed properties with single family homes and businesses that must be purchased and residents relocated. “We even had to buy a church,” said Elatar. In all, 259 properties were purchased for eight of the nine school projects. Only two are being contested. But Mendez, who has been handling the real estate project for the District, feels these will soon be resolved. “We hired a relocation consultant,” he said, “who worked with all the residents, relocating them to new properties. We have not done this as a district before, he said, buying and maintaining properties, and we’ve had to learn how to do it - things like weed abatement, board-ups, installing chain-link fences, disposing of furniture left at the sites all became our responsibility as property owners.” Ultimately, the District also had to demolish the structures on all these properties, which required getting prior approval from the Department of Toxic Substances Control because there were pollutants like asbestos to be disposed of. Mendez recalled his stint as property manager: “An owner called saying his air conditioning was working or there was a leak. One time we had plumbing overflowing in a home.” The relocation process was lengthy for some of the properties, some residents taking more than a year to relocate. “I dare say that 99.9 percent of the people that have been relocated are happy,” said Mendez. “Of course, we cannot replace their loss, but I think the experience was very positive for most of them.” The district recognized that it was in a steep learning curve and handled it proactively. “We reached out to everybody as much as possible,” said Mendez. “We have several agreements with the city. For example, the fire department does training in our abandoned properties before we demolish them. Same with the police, mock trainings. We are trying to partner with all these entities who can benefit from these properties.” With demolition came the challenge of educating the demolition contractors, as CHPS criteria require a high percentage of recycled demolition debris. “They would say, ‘what? We never heard of this before,’” recalled Mendez. “There was some resistance, but in the end we told them they had to follow the guidelines, and we achieved a 75 percent demolition recycling rate, qualifying them for one CHPS point. “You have to show all kinds of manifests and recycling certificates,” said Alatar, “proving that the material went to a pre-approved recycling site. This is the ultimate teamwork effort from inception through completion, from the design implementation of these ideas of the creative and outside the box thinking. There was no time that we said ‘that’s it.’ We’re always revisiting and re-challenging our assumptions . And the property management and demolition are good examples.” Keeping Contractors Busy Currently, the District is renovating 32 schools. From October of 2009 until recently they were bidding three to four schools a month. “We’re the only school district that keeps the contractors busy at the moment,” said Alzubaidi. “Not only contractors, but vendors, businesses, restaurants and hotels in the area, manufacturers. It’s a ripple effect, a great example of state dollars stimulating a local economy.” In addition to state financial hardship and overcrowded relief grants, the District also received about $630,000 from the state’s High Performance Schools Incentive program, and $120,000 from Savings by Design, an incentive program promoting green construction. In all, the total project cost estimate for all projects ranges from $700 to $899.8 million. A total of $640 million has been received to date, including state bonds and a local bond for $140 million passed in 2004. Planning for the Future The District is also planning for the future, even as uncertain as it might seem. In the northwest part of the district there are projections to build 2,500 new homes at some point, and that will require more schools. “We’re actually designing a school out there before there are homes,” said Elatar, “working closely with the builder.” That makes sense in school construction timing, as it takes about six – eight years to complete a project. “If you don’t start early in the game, you will be catching up and dealing with operational issues,” he said. “Once the students show up – and we have some already showing up in that community - if there are no schools, you have transportation costs, overcrowding issues in existing schools, and the community itself doesn’t feel a sense of belonging because their kids have to go far way to attend a school.” Can any school district follow San Bernardino’s example? “I don’t think there’s a magic formula,” says Elatar. “We actually started from a situation that was even more challenging than normal. Being in a financial hardship area is a big challenge for any school district. Some districts who qualify for this funding elect not to pursue it because of the challenges that come with state monitoring and things of that nature. We had the focus and determination and desire and the willingness to make it happen.” Going for Solar Unflappable, the district plans to incorporate renewable energy into its campuses as soon as possible. “We started an investigation into what we’re calling our solar initiative,” said Mendez. “We see a great value in our location for solar and also for wind and other sources. Right now our focus is on photovoltaics. We have interviewed different companies to see how we can procure services and maybe start a pilot program. In my personal opinion, I think the whole district should be part of a solar program. Hopefully this will include not only schools, but administration buildings.” “We always keep the lines of communication open to discuss all these opportunities,” said Elatar, “and we're happy to create change in the lives of the students and the citizens of this area. it's a collective effort, and these projects are something we will feel very proud of. We're passionate about our schools and our kids as well.”
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