Washington Post: Poolesville students spotlight outdated high school

In the Washington Post's Maryland Schools Insider column, writer Michael Alison Chandler reports that a pair of Poolesville High School (PHS) students have "posted a video on YouTube to attract attention to their outdated facility." The video exposes more than a dozen facility deficiencies, although most of the problems stem from chronic lack of maintenance or failure to perform small renovation projects for many years.

Chandler writes:

“Our building is falling apart,” the student narrator declares early in the eight-minute video, as he picks out pieces of crumbling mortar surrounding the exterior bricks.

In fact, cracked brick mortar is common in buildings that are more than few years old, and is easily fixed by repointing the mortar.  Sorry guys, but cracked mortar doesn't even begin to justify tearing down a building. What the students should be doing is asking the principal to put in a work order to have the brick walls repointed.

The students go on to show small holes in masonry walls -- but these, too, can be easily repaired at very low cost. Why hasn't the principal put in a work order to have the holes fixed?

Removal of a water fountain is blamed on corroded pipes, and the students claim that replacement of the entire school foundation would be needed to install new pipes. Now I don't know where the students obtained that information, but it certainly isn't necessary to replace the entire foundation to install new pipes. At worst, a slot may need to be cut in the foundation to install new pipes. Replacing pipes in a slab foundation, while admittedly nontrivial, is nowhere near as expensive as a new school building.

Another problem reported by the students is "spikes in the ceiling" of the gymnasium. These spikes reportedly puncture high-flying balls. An MCPS maintenance team could quickly solve this problem by cutting or bending the spikes. Again, the principal needs to put in a work order.

The students also complain that the distance between the out-of-bounds line and the wall in the gymnasium is so small that students might crash into the masonry wall when playing basketball. The solution is simple and inexpensive: Install more wall padding, similar to the wall padding that is used at every other school.  The game of basketball hasn't changed much in decades.  Why didn't the athletic director ask for this improvement years ago? 

The computer network problems can be easily solved by a competent network designer and installer. The messy nest of wires that is shown in the video didn't evolve because of age of the building, but because an unqualified person tried to design the network and install the network components.  MCPS has ongoing contracts with several computer networking companies.  Why aren't they helping your school?

The students forgot to show the new, state-of-the-art science labs in their video.  At least part of the school is apparently in great shape. 

Sorry to hear about those cold, miserable diesel tractors. An engine warming pad and the right fuel additive will solve that problem.  There's no need to consume expensive heating fuel to warm a storage shed.  We are in Maryland, not North Dakota.

There are a few items in the video that do require more than minor maintenance, but they certainly don't justify the need for an entire new school. The non-ADA compliant restrooms do need renovation, and the area that has classrooms that are not directly accessible from a hallway needs to be renovated. And a loading dock should be added to facilitate safe and efficient handing of deliveries.

Most of the other items mentioned in the video can be resolved at modest cost.  The broken movable wall should be replaced.  Why hasn't the principal submitted a Planned Lifecycle Asset Replacement (PLAR) request to have the movable wall replaced?

Electric hand dryers can be supported in the restrooms by upgrading power the power cables that feed the restrooms.  The MCPS Division of Maintenance has qualified electricians to do this type of work; it should not even need to be contracted out.

As for the undersized auditorium and the crammed hallways, what was the Board of Education even thinking when they chose to overcrowd such a remote and small school by using it as the venue for a magnet program?

At this point, I can almost hear the criticism rolling in from the Poolesville community. But the high school that my children attended, Magruder, used to have many of the same problems as Poolesville. In 2005, Magruder was in a state of disrepair and neglect. The restrooms were dilapidated. The auditorium stage curtain had composted and resembled a piece of worn tissue paper. At PTSA meetings, parents complained about the condition of the restrooms, the auditorium, the grounds, and so forth. The principal at the time, Dr. David Steinberg, would always respond by saying that there was "no money" for improvements. (Keep in mind that in 2005, the economy was booming.) But the real problem was that the principal was not doing his job. He was not advocating for the school, he was not instructing the staff to put in work orders, and he refused to replace a school business manager who had held the position for decades while doing substantially nothing to ensure that the school received its fair share of funding for ongoing improvements.

In 2005, after a sexual assault took place under his watch, Dr. Steinberg was promoted to a position where he no longer works in a school.

Fast forward a couple of years, and a new principal, Mr. Lee Evans, and a new business manager, Ms. Joyce Offutt, took over at Magruder. Under Mr. Evans and Ms. Offutt, work orders were initiated to repair numerous small items that had been neglected for decades. Funding was finally requested and obtained to renovate the restrooms, auditorium and locker rooms. Asbestos tiling and wiring were removed by the MCPS asbestos abatement team. A new auditorium curtain was custom fabricated by an MCPS craftsman. The HVAC system for the gym was cleaned for the first time in nearly 40 years. Numerous broken light fixture covers were replaced. The food science lab was completely renovated. Dangerous, home-built storage racks were torn out and replaced by MCPS carpenters. Thousands of square feet of cracked concrete were replaced. Some major work is still needed, such as renovation of the science rooms, construction of a code-compliant orchestra pit and construction of a loading dock, but these improvements can certainly be made without tearing down the school.

Magruder, built in 1970, is not a new school. But because overdue maintenance and minor renovation work were finally performed, most of the school looks and works as if it were built five years ago, instead of 41 years ago. By spending a couple of million dollars (if that) now, the need to perform major renovation of Magruder, at a cost of about $100 million, has been postponed for decades.

What has really happened at Poolesville -- and at nearly every other MCPS school -- is neglect. Under the Weast regime -- with the Board of Education nodding their collective heads in approval -- even recently constructed schools have been neglected. Now taxpayers are paying for the deferred maintenance in the form of higher upkeep costs and earlier replacement of entire schools than if they had been properly maintained.

So, Poolesville students, thanks for your video. You are entitled to a learning environment equivalent to that of newer schools, and I have no doubt that you will get a new school building someday. For now, ask your principal to put in work orders for the broken items and ask her to apply for funding for the larger problems.

If the principal says that funding isn't available, demand an explanation from your Student Member of the Board of Education.  You elected him.  Will he advocate for your needs?

Taking into account the demands of the growing population in the lower county, you will be very lucky if your new school is built by 2025.