St. Paul's schools are physically in pretty good shape, according to an outside study of the school district's facilities conducted over the past few months.
"This year, we had people walk all 7.3 million square feet of our facilities, going room by room," said Hitesh Haria, chief operations officer. "It's a wise investment in terms of knowing 'Where are we as a district?'"
It would cost just more than 15 percent of the total value of the district's facilities to get the district's buildings up to par, whether it be replacing leaky roofs or making sure classrooms are sufficient for their use, such as checking that biology lab has enough data ports for computers. That compares with 21 percent for the Miami-Dade County Public Schools, or 80 percent for the Cleveland Municipal School District.
That total value is based on how much it could cost to fix all the inadequacies -- $317.7 million -- compared with how much it would cost to replace all the district's facilities -- $2.1 billion -- if they were to disappear overnight. For an individual building, a facility's quality is defined as "below average" once the cost of bringing it up to snuff exceeds 21 percent of the replacement cost.
The district operates 101 sites, including 65 schools and 36 programs. Evaluators did not look at space the district leases.
The only three facilities to be listed in "poor" condition are an auto shop used by Central High School students, the Riverside site, used for adult education, and the Wheelock Early Education site.
There are no St. Paul facilities that fall under the category of "replacement candidate."
Traditional school buildings that need the most work are Adams Elementary at the elementary school level, and Highland Park Junior High and Senior High at the junior and senior high levels.
"St. Paul compares very favorably to other districts," said Meg Parsons, an architect with Cunningham Group of Minneapolis, one of the firms that worked on the study. "The St. Paul district has done a very good job with maintenance of their facilities over time."
Roofs are the most pressing concern across the district. The study estimates the district needs to spend almost $11 million on "critical concerns" with roofs.
The report will be used to help prioritize decision-making on facilities, Haria said, and help the district make larger decisions about how it should use the structure of its school system.
The St. Paul district receives about $30 million annually for facilities from capital bonds, alternative bonds and a health and safety levy.
The research cost the district about $730,000. The district is also spending about $18,000 for software that can be used to keep the data up to date, and about $7,300 annually for software licensing fees.
Emily Johns • 612-673-7460
TO LEARN MORE
School-specific reports will be posted the week of March 2 on the St. Paul Public Schools' website, www.spps.org.
