A Vote for the Bond is a Vote for Sprawl and the Large-school Model, Doug Oldham

One of our supporters, Doug Oldham, wrote this post about is thoughts on the bond. His writing focuses on how building large schools on the edge of the city encourages sprawl and facilitates the large-school model. Doug is a licensed architect and lives in northeast Provo.

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"I wish this statement wasn't necessary, but with the tenor of this discussion and the occasional assumption of malice towards both sides from both sides, I should start with this.

I am grateful for the School Board. I don't know any of them personally and my interactions with them have been limited to this forum, (other than a brief conversation with a few of them at one of the two Timpview tours I went on) but I believe, based on their comments, that they are good people who want to do the best possible thing for Provo and students. I can only imagine the tireless hours they have put in working on this. They also believe in this bond completely and they argue passionately for it. I have nothing but good feelings towards them and the work they have done. We just disagree as to the right way forward.

I could identify lots of reasons why I oppose the bond. It's too much money at a time when people's wallets are already stretched thin. The Timpview rebuild is an outrageous cost especially when you figure that they don't have to rebuild the gym or the football field. There are too many projects on one bond so we can't be in favor of one item and opposed to another and feel good voting either way. But for me, there are two primary reasons I cannot support this bond.

1. I cannot ignore the extensive research about the negative impacts of large schools on the well being of students and teachers.

2. The cumulative cost to the city and the citizens of Provo to close a historic school in an urban neighborhood and build a new one in a suburban type development is far higher, in the long term, than anything we spend now to keep it where it is and perhaps build a 3rd middle school in the near future.

First, my desire to research the effects of large school environments on students is the result of personal experience. I have lived this scenario once before, and it has had a permanent, negative impact on my family.

All five of my children attended a mega middle school. The school was opened when my oldest was entering 8th grade and we moved away in the middle of our youngest's 8th grade year. It was built to replace 3 existing urban style middle schools in established neighborhoods. 2 of them were depression era schools and the other was built in the 70's (I think). Like with Dixon, the school board promised the buildings would be repurposed in ways that would be good for the community. One of them is being torn down this year to make way for a parking lot. One was sold and converted into low income housing and the last one is still owned and used by the school district as offices. Not exactly what the community expected.

At first I did not have an opinion about the new school. It was pretty, it had all the new stuff and it had the new car smell. Pretty quickly, however, I began to hear rumblings of discontent. Reports of a rise in bullying from parents. Elementary teachers from feeder schools expressed frustration because the discipline they had been reinforcing in their students was being lost quickly at the new mega school. Academic performance seemed to be dipping and their was a huge uproar about the road congestion and long bus rides that the new school created. (Last year the school district spent $20M+ to rebuild the parking lots to try and make vehicle drop off more convenient...it won't work...the problem has a bigger context with the surrounding infrastructure than just the parking lot design).

I pretty much ignored these complaints. My kids were doing fine. Until they weren't.

One of my children experienced significant bullying at this school. The story is longer than I can recount here. But the bullying was intensified because of the size and design of the mega school and the ignorance of the school staff and administration and their refusal to acknowledge it happening. After professional help we discovered that the bullying was far worse than we ever knew and it has permanently altered the course of that child's life.

Being an architect and familiar with the impact of the built environment on human behavior and psychology, I decided to research the effect of the school design. I have shared much of that research on this page. To be pithy, the research is nearly unanimous that large schools have a negative impact on academic performance, behavior and the mental health of students and teachers.

That middle school size? 500 students per grade. It is also the feeder to the mega high school in town. Between the 2 schools, 3 suicides in 4 years. This year they conducted a survey of students and the results show that the number one concern is mental health. I cannot support a bond which establishes a policy of 600+ students per grade at a middle school. No music, drama, second language, AP, PE class, extra acreage, green fields, better parking lots or any of the other reasons we are being told we HAVE to have mega schools did anything to protect my kid and the hundreds of others who suffered similarly. Yes, kids will be kids, and bullying will never be completely eliminated, but why endorse a policy that has been proven to encourage it?

Second, the costs of moving Dixon in the long run are far higher than the school board is calculating. Based on the research, the properties in the Dixon neighborhood within proximity of the existing school are likely to lose between 10%-20% of their property value. The properties in Dixon are worth $1.24 Million per acre. Rough calculations is that this move will effect approximately 1,000 acres of property. That is between $124M - $248M in potential lost property value. I know this is rough and property value calculations can vary based on many factors, but their will be a significant impact on the neighborhood.

But moving Dixon has far bigger implications than even this. We have been engaged in a growth ponzi scheme since the 1950’s and we are starting to witness the inevitable collapse. The financial and growth issues are far more complicated than I have space (and expertise) to explain very well, but the highlight is this. We do not generate enough tax revenue from property tax and utility fees to cover the costs of the long-term maintenance of our infrastructure and haven’t (generally speaking) since the 1950’s. Every year, every mile of road, pipe and wire creates more and more debt. We have done all kinds of things to stave off the collapse and prop up the system. Things like borrowing from sales tax, using state and federal funding, incentivizing new growth for fast infusions of cash, pushing infrastructure development costs onto developers, fancy loan and bond programs and more. The problem is that none of those things change the fundamental premise. Our places are not valuable enough to justify the costs of the type of infrastructure that supports them and instead of trying to solve that problem, we keep building more of what we can’t afford. One of two things has to change. Our places have to become more valuable or we have to raise taxes….a lot!

Interestingly, this problem emerged with the experiment of auto-centric development patterns usually referred to as sprawl.

So how does this relate to this bond? Schools are integral and (hopefully) permanent parts of communities. Often, they are built first and communities infill around them. As a result, they play a significant role in the type of development a community will become. They are definitive of development types. A large school surrounded by fields and green space, large parking lots and bus drop off zones encourages suburban style development. On the other hand, small neighborhood schools can sit on urban style lots require less land, smaller parking lots encourage kids to walk and they can sit within more dense developments. One of these patterns is financially sustainable in the long term, the other is not.

Moving forward, if Provo wants to become a resilient place and change its trajectory away from collapse it must think differently about every aspect of development. Signaling a policy of suburban type schools which encourages lower per acre developments at the expense of smaller, established schools is exactly the opposite of smart growth. The EPA, CEFPI (Council of Educational Facility Planners) and the USGBC (U.S. Green Building Council) all promote the preservation and construction of smaller, neighborhood schools.

I know that school boards live in their own isolated budgetary world, but their institutions exist within the larger community context. I understand the concerns about operating budgets and all of that, but the overall community costs in property values and infrastructure far eclipse the school operating budget. It is imperative that the community, who has the larger contextual responsibility, find a way to keep the entities that operate on a narrow focus, in check and not allow them to destroy the financial underpinnings that we depend on for long term success.

On this bond, there is one glaring example. Dixon Middle School. Abandoning this school in this neighborhood in exchange for a larger sited school with a much larger infrastructure requirement in a part of town that will have a less dense development pattern will cost the citizens of Provo far more in the long run than the operating budgets of 3 smaller middle schools and the initial construction costs to repair one and build another.

So, what would I support? Start by not abandoning Dixon. Repair and rebuild Dixon as necessary to be a maximum 800 student facility and start now looking for a new 3rd middle school to be built soon. One that can alleviate the overcrowding at both Dixon and Centennial. The board needs to adopt a smart growth policy and moving forward cap student populations. Instead of using outdated acreage recommendations, the board needs to look at the minimum possible property sizes for new schools and where possible, build where there is existing infrastructure. Yes, it needs to be balanced with the school budget, but they need to work within a framework that is both better for student’s achievement and promotes resilient development patterns."

Doug Oldham

For more inofrmation about the Growth Ponzi Scheme, go here: https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_-PUyuy35QIVuh-tBh0Y_AMnEAAYASAAEgKO9PD_BwE