The Berryessa Union School District has been upgrading and replacing all the school roofs, HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning) systems, fire alarm systems, irrigation systems, and landscaping, plus repainting all the schools. The money for these renovations comes from a bond measure passed early in the decade. UPDATE: The bond money has all been spent and the remainder of the projects are being paid for from money received for the sale of our Flickinger property.
The schools in the Berryessa School District are all more than 30 years old. All the roofs need to be replaced in order to fix drainage issues. New roofing materials that are energy efficient and comply with Title 24 requirements are being used. At some of our schools, buckets are used during the rainy season to collect rain leaking into classrooms and hallways. At others, workers have found dry rot in the roofs that means the rain is damaging the buildings' infrastructure.
The HVAC systems that have not yet been upgraded are mostly original equipment from when the schools were built. They are very old and ineffcient. New systems will conserve energy and allow for control by an energy management system.
A few years ago, satellite images of Berryessa allowed for easy identification of our schools, as many of the fields were brown all summer long. This is because many of the irrigation systems were inoperable and have not worked for years. As a result, school fields are unusable. The lack of maintenance means that gophers have taken over, making the fields hazardous for our students. We are replacing all these fields in order to provide safe play areas and enhance our physical education programs. The work will also enhance the visual appeal of our schools.
The project work began in 2004. So far, 10 of the schools have had their roofing/HVAC completed. Three projects remain. Northwood and Cherrywood are scheduled to be done this summer. Piedmont is scheduled for the summer of 2011. The grounds work is underway at the last two schools, Vinci Park and Northwood. In addition, Ruskin's fire alarm system will be upgraded this year and Northwood will be painted in 2011.
The projects scheduled for fiscal year 2009-10 are budgeted to cost $3.79 million. In total, the remaining projects will cost more than $7 million. For those of you who are budget wonks, these projects are being paid for out of Fund 40, which currently has a balance of $8.7 million. Much of the remaining Fund 40 money is earmarked to help pay for the technology upgrade the district implemented this past year. Another portion of the money is used to pay for some of the district's maintenance staff.
The money in Fund 40 is capital money that by state law cannot be used for general fund spending. (UPDATE: This money came from the sale of the Flickinger property.) The state for one year allows school districts to transfer money out of Fund 40 to help bridge budget gaps. If we were to decide to cancel projects and use the money for our general fund, it may be years before additional capital money is available for these projects without asking the voters to support another bond issue.
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Update: I had the wrong figures in the discussion above. The 2010-2011 facilities projects will actually total $4.5 million rather than $3 million because the roofing project on Piedmont Middle School is significantly more costly than similar projects at smaller elementary schools. That means that at the end of next year, Fund 40 will be almost entirely exhausted. Capital funds in other accounts are earmarked to help pay off the technology upgrades.
"New systems will conserve energy and allow for control by an energy management system."
Morrill has the new system installed. It conserves energy by shutting down for 45 minutes in the afternoon making the room very uncomfortable. Energy is also conserved by recycling the air too much making the rooms stuffy.
The control by an energy managagement system means that teachers don't have very much control.
Sixty years ago, classrooms were more comfortable. When it was hot, the teacher could open a window. Today, we don't have windows. When it was cold, the teacher could turn on the heater. Today, there are no classroom heaters. Most Morrill classrooms have a little box that looks like a thermostat, but it's overridden by the "energy management system" and so they're practically useless. Also, they don't have an impact on individual rooms. If your neighbor turns up his thermostat, it won't do too much good to turn yours down. They're not really room thermostats. They're input devices that provide suggests.
After this upgrade to the new HVAC system, teachers still need to buy fans at their own expensive and sometimes use electric hotplates to warm their hands on cold days.
Students often ask me, "Can you turn up the heat? or Can you turn up the A/C?" I have to tell them no, I can't, and they give me a puzzled look.
On especially bad days, I'll inform the school secretary who will inform the district office and then, maybe, after a fews days they'll send somebody out and the system will work tolerably for about a week.
If you want your school to have a HVAC that saves energy, these news systems are probably good ones. Do they work well? No, not at all.
Why is that Target, Walgreens, and PW have decent HVAC systems and the schools don't? I've never felt miserable about the temperature and the air quality in any of the stores that are within a mile of my school.
The new HVAC are nothing to cheer about. Once again, it's money misspent.
Robert Wright
Morrill Middle School
Mr. Wright, if there really is a problem with comfort at Morrill, then maintenance should be made aware so they can address it. Of course, the project to replace HVAC wasn't just about the energy management system but about aging equipment that is decades old and has outlived its useful life, if not ready to fail completely. Maintenance costs on the old equipment are high. Also, irrespective of climate control systems, when the old HVAC systems were running, they used significantly more energy than the new ones. So for the district, there is real general fund savings by the use of capital funding to upgrade HVAC systems in conjunction with replacing the old roofs.
A problem with the old HVAC system, aside from the fact it didn't work very well, is that the company that designed and installed it went out of business shortly afterward. Getting parts was difficult and expensive and sometimes didn't solve the problems. Yes, we all agree that the old system was old, inefficient, poorly designed, expensive and ineffective.
So when the new system was installed, I was elated. I wouldn't have to wear a sweater first period and then strip down to a T-shirt by 5th period. Unfortunately, that hasn't proven to be the case.
And still, there is the problem with the new system that the HVAC doesn't service rooms as individual rooms but only as clusters. That not only makes heat regulation difficult, but since the air is recirculated from room to room, when a student coughs in one room, the germs will spread to 5 other rooms. (Anyone who has ever opened a can of tuna in their classroom can tell you how far and wide and quickly the air travels from one room to another to another. )
It's true that the new system works better and saves money. No argument there.
It's my opinion, though, that a new system should work well, and this one doesn't.
I can assure you, there really is a problem with comfort at Morrill and I would absolutely love it if maintenance could fix the problem. I have followed the process and notified them numerous times. That hasn't yet fixed the problem.
When we had the old system that didn't work, there was the excuse that there wasn't money to replace it. But now that it has been replaced and it still doesn't work right, it makes me wonder how and why things could go so wrong.
Is the flaw in the purchasing process? Is the low bid always awarded? Does there need to be better oversight and feedback?
The new restrooms at Morrill have sinks that have warm water for hand washing, but is there a cost savings when you have to run the water for 10 minutes before it gets warm? Who is responsible for ordering such a system? The brand new soap dispenser does not dispense soap. Who's responsible for that? For over a year, the men's urinal didn't have a screen so any student walking down the hallway could see a teacher urinating every time the door was opened. Who is responsible for giving approval to that design? Why did it take over a year to fix?
The larger question is, why are the capital improvements so shoddy?
Oftentimes, cutting costs turns out to be the more expensive route.
New HVAC systems should work. This one doesn't. I hope it's just a question of maintenance learning how to work out the bugs. Needing to use fans and space heaters right after getting a new HVAC is not the way it's supposed to be.
I agree with Mr. Wright's comments. These projects are called modernization and have left the classroom teacher with less. They have not improved anything except someones bottom line on a spreadsheet. Now teachers scoff and laugh that modernization is something that get done to you, rather than for you.
Between poor maintainence and poor IT services, it is a competition of last place finishers in BUSD.
Michael Palla
Morrill Middle School
The comments from Mr. Wright and Mr. Palla at Morrill show exactly why it is important to keep investing in infrastructure. For years, infrastructure was an afterthought and it takes a long time to dig out from the results, especially when maintenance and IT staff have been cut back to almost nothing due to district budget cuts.
During the last budget crisis, before any of the current board or administrators were here, the district made the choice to save money by shutting off field irrigation. As a result, all our fields became unusable and dangerous and our irrigation systems became inoperable. That's a lesson that saving money now during a budget crisis has to be done smartly, because the wrong choices can only cost us more money in the long run.
Fortunately, the district has been making necessary upgrades. This past year's technology project brings our network up to date and allows schools to gain more productivity out of their old computers. Unfortuantely, schools still have to scrimp and save to replace computer systems that reach the end of their life. Great news out of Morrill is that Principal Mosely has secured funding to replace the computers that no longer work.
As long as the district is budgeting on a shoestring, maintenance issues will persist, but we must take advantage of available funding to make sure that the district keeps its infrastructure from crumbling completely.
More information on classroom temperature control. The roofing/HVAC work that was done replaced outdated equipment with more modern and efficient equipment, but no work was done on classroom temperature control. The Board approved a contract at the February board meeting (agenda item 13D) for a phase II energy reduction program, which will include better temperature control in addition to energy reduction through motion sensors and computer monitor energy reduction. That work will be completed this year. Hopefully, that will solve some of the problems you are currently experiencing at Morrill related to classroom comfort.
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