The Highlander Road Elementary School campus in West Hills has been closed since 1982. Demolition is slated to start next month and at Oso Avenue next week.

*UPDATED

LA Unified will begin demolition Monday at the first of two schools to be razed in the West San Fernando Valley. But no new construction is planned, leaving empty lots in residential neighborhoods.

The Oso Avenue and Highlander Road elementary schools have sat mostly empty for more than 30 years, becoming eyesores and a source of conflict between their neighbors and the district.

The district is exploring the option of building new schools on the sites, but no solid plans are in place and the school board has yet to approve any new construction, said LA Unified Chief Facilities Executive Mark Hovatter. The current plan is to raze the schools but leave the concrete slab foundations which could be used as part of any new construction, he said.

“(Neighbors) have had to live with staring at old dilapidated buildings long enough,” Hovatter said. “I want to make it as amenable as possible to the local neighborhoods and I’m working with the local councils to make sure that what I’m doing is reflective of what they want us to do.”

Demolition at Oso is scheduled to begin Monday and at Highlander on Aug. 20, Hovatter said, at a total cost of $2,337,303.

The schools were closed in the early 1980s as West Valley enrollment declined. In total, 18 schools in the West Valley closed in the late 1970s and early ’80s and six schools have re-opened, according to LA Unified, and others are still in use for other purposes. One is in use as administrative buildings, one was swapped with nearby California State University, Northridge and other was sold. In total, five school buildings remain vacant. Highlander had been rented by a private school for several years in the 1990s and occasionally used for filming.

Hovatter said the district began informing neighbors around Oso about the demolition on Saturday by handing out flyers door to door but has not yet started outreach around Highlander.

Several neighbors of Highlander contacted by LA School Report were unaware the district had plans to tear down the school, which the board approved in May, and were not happy about it.

“This is the first I’ve heard of them tearing it down. I had no idea and I’ve lived across the street from it for 30 years,” said Bonnie Johnson. “It’s kind of hard to say if I like the idea of an empty lot. Right now it is really derelict. It is a fire hazard. It looks like homeless people sleep there. Every now and then someone vandalizes it. It has been a real eyesore. I don’t know how people will feel about an open vacant lot.”

Highlander neighbor Faye Berta, who also was unaware of the coming demolition, said the consensus in the neighborhood has been for tearing down the school only when there are immediate plans to build a new one.

“I am quite taken by surprise. I don’t know which is better, a big empty school surrounded by weeds or a big, empty, ugly lot. We have all kinds of problems with the school,” Berta said. “So they’re going to leave slabs so skateboards can go on it, that’s the plan? They are just really into destroying the neighborhood, aren’t they? I’m not happy either way. I’m not happy looking at it the way it is, and I’m not happy thinking there could be a skateboard park there. Just think of the nighttime thrill that all the drug dealers are going to have, which would then attract vagrants.”

Neighbor Mark Berens said he has been emailing and calling the district for some time to get information on its plans for the school but had never heard back.

“I am surprised, not necessarily that it is happening but that it is happening now. I have asked for a plan and for an outline, and I haven’t gotten a response yet,” he said. “It’s a little disappointing that we don’t have any current communication regarding the project.”

Hopes were raised for new schools on the sites in the last two years as nearby El Camino Real Charter High School, an independent charter school, came forward with a plan to develop the sites and a third closed campus, Platt Ranch, into middle schools and a science center associated with El Camino. Platt Ranch was to be a science center as part of the plan, but it was contingent upon approval of the other two sites. The district has not announced any plans for Platt Ranch, and El Camino’s director of marketing, Melanie Horton, has said they are retooling their plans for Platt Ranch and may come forward still with a new proposal.

The district had long said it had no money or need for new schools in the area, and El Camino officials since 2014 and until recently were working on plans for new schools and conducting community outreach after having been named the preferred developer of the sites by the LA Unified school board.

But the plans came to a sudden halt in late 2015 and early this year, when over a series of meetings the school board denied El Camino’s charter applications for the sites as the district announced previously unknown plans to develop the campuses into two traditional schools directly controlled by the district.

The sudden change angered many Highlander neighbors, who had thrown their support behind El Camino. A group of them confronted LA Unified Local District Northwest Superintendent Vivian Ekchian about the sudden change in March at a West Hills Neighborhood Council meeting.

One of their concerns for the site was the district’s plan for a high school associated with Hale Charter Academy, a nearby affiliated charter school. The school is located in a residential neighborhood and residents preferred an elementary school, as a high school would increase in traffic.

At the West Hills Neighborhood Council meeting, Ekchian made a promise to the neighbors that is was at least a priority for her to have the school torn down. The demolition is a significant budget commitment for the district because the money has to come out of general funds, not bond funds earmarked for construction, because in order to use bond funds the demolition must be part of a new construction project. This was one reason the district had not previously torn down the schools, but Ekchian, who moved to her role in 2015, said it was a priority for her.

“Many community members have contacted me and said this school has been sitting there, it has been an eyesore and a problem for the community for 30 years. And we have met over time with officials from the school district, and there has always been an attempt at demolition it but never has materialized,” Ekchian said this week. “It was important for as a local district to make a commitment by which we stand and to show them that we follow through on our commitments. That’s why this demolition is significant, because it has been over three decades of frustration that is being addressed by us.”

Hovatter said he was not yet sure if he will construct fences around the empty lots, but for the moment he does not want to.

“I believe that it’s been an eyesore long enough. If we go and put a chain-link fence around it, it’s still going to be an eyesore,” he said. “We have included within our budget money to install a fence, but initially I want to see if that is acceptable to the surrounding neighborhood. Ultimately I’m going to end up doing what the neighbors want us to do. But a fence doesn’t really stop anyone from entering the campus.”

*UPDATED to show that five schools remain closed, while others are open or being used for other purposes.

Solar panels, water recycling, light bulb replacements and other programs will help off-set some of the extra costs of water and power, said District Chief Facilities Executive Mark Hovatter.

“We will try to encourage less consumption, but if we use the same amount now, our costs will go up $24 million in five years,” Hovatter told the Budget, Facilities and Audit Committee meeting on Tuesday. The committee had asked how LA Department of Water and Power increases approved in March by the Los Angeles City Council will impact the school district.

The new cost challenge comes as the district’s deficit is expected to be about $100 million by the 2017-2018 school year and hit $450 million in three years.

Electricity makes up about 80 percent of the district’s utility bill, which is about $128 million this year, Hovatter said. And those costs are increasing with the earlier start to the school year, as well as the expansion of summer school programs, he said.

“Parents love summer school, everybody loves summer school and we want that to continue, but do we need to tell them there are 14 days that might have rolling blackouts and do we have plans for when that happens?” said budget committee chair Monica Ratliff as she looked over Hovatter’s report. He said some schools have generators, and principals of summer schools are trained for such events.

Hovatter said the district already tried to mitigate some of the energy cost increases by starting a solar program a few years ago. They have installed 66 of the planned 68 solar panels in 64 school sites that will generate $5.7 million in energy cost savings this year, he said.

“We are well under way with the solar program,” he said. “We also are getting a big bang for our return when investing in efficient lights.”

The district is replacing most light bulbs with more efficient LED bulbs so that an 18-watt bulb will light the same area that once took 100 watts.

Mark Hovatter, chief facilities executive

Although the cost savings are modest, the district received honors for saving about 40 million gallons of water through its plumbing retrofit.The district is saving $200,000 a year as a result. The DWP awarded the district with a Sustainability Award for being one of the “top five water management customers” last year.

So far 13 district schools have purple pipes, carrying recycled non-potable water for use in irrigation. Van Nuys High School was the first school in the expanding program.

Schools have also replaced pipes, so they no longer need to be flushed for lead, saving about $2 million, and they also have underground cisterns and retention basins to collect and save water at schools. Some of the underground collection wells help recharge the stormwater run-off and funnel out oil from the groundwater.

School board member Scott Schmerelson noted one way to save on the electric bill: “I see all the time when I go to schools the doors wide open and air conditioning blowing out to cool off the whole Los Angeles area. We need someone to tell them to close the doors.”

The LA Unified school board will consider major upgrades at school sites throughout the district at their regular meeting Tuesday.

The Facilities Services Division is asking the board to approve district bonds for projects including replacing a half-century-old canopy over a stairwell, replacing 60-year-old bleachers, upgrading walk-in freezers at 305 schools and replacing ovens, ice machines and refrigerators at 218 schools.

The Facilities Services Division is asking to approve $20.5 million to modernize walk-in freezers throughout the district. The plan would start the second quarter of this year and be completed by the fourth quarter of 2019, according to Facilities Chief Mark Hovatter.

The repairs will “focus on providing new panels, ceilings, floors, doors and new energy-efficient refrigeration and lighting systems” and will “improve student health, safety and educational quality,” Hovatter said. (See which schools are listed to get the walk-in freezer upgrades and their timeline in the Board Materials, search for “Tab 10.“)

The division is also asking for $1.85 million for a modernization program for kitchen equipment at schools districtwide. Those 218 schools will have the improvements made by the fourth quarter of 2016, if approved. (See the list of schools, what will be fixed and the timeline under Board Materials in Tab 11.)

Critical school repairs have to be done at 15 schools, so the division is asking for $18.6 million to schedule those. The money is available through the district’s bond program, which has $7.8 billion available.

The critical repairs include replacing roofs in four buildings that are more than 25 years old at Aragon Avenue Elementary School and a lunch shelter, and upgrades on 13 roofs more than 20 years old at Belvedere Middle School. Roofing repairs are also needed at Bethune Middle School, 10th Street Elementary, Chandler Learning Academy, Cohasset Street Elementary, Frost Middle, Hawaiian Avenue Elementary, Van Nuys Middle and Farmdale Elementary schools.

At Gulf Avenue Elementary School, a 50-year-old concrete canopy over a stairwell needs to be replaced, as well as deteriorated grandstand bleachers on the Hamilton High football field that are more than 60 years old.

Also on the list: fixing fire damage at Los Angeles Academy Middle School and air conditioning, heating and ventilation systems at Rogers Continuation High School and Stoney Point Continuation High School.

Four of the critical projects are in Richard Vladovic‘s and Scott Schmerelson’s districts (representing the furthest north and the furthest south in the nation’s second largest district). Three are in Monica Garcia’s district, two are in Monica Ratliff’s and one in George McKenna’s. None are in board president Steve Zimmer’s district. The cost and time schedule for each project is in the Board Materials (search Tab 9).

“We don’t really look at which districts, but more about where the greatest critical need is,” Hovatter said.

In other board actions scheduled for Tuesday at 1 p.m., the board will consider the Second Interim Financial Report which will outline current projections that the district may not be able to meet its financial obligations for the current fiscal year and for the two subsequent years. That report is to be given by Chief Financial Officer Megan Reilly.

The board will also hear staff recommendations for the denial of the charter petition for WISH Academy High School and the renewal of the charter for the Gifted Academy of Mathematics and Entrepreneurial Studies, which were delayed from the last meeting, as well as approval for material revision of KIPP Comienza Community Preparatory to expand to middle school and renewal of the CHIME Institute’s Schwarzenegger Community School.

The district will discuss restoring two stand-alone schools, Fourth Street School and Fourth Street Primary Center, and hold public hearings for new charter school petitions: KIPP Fuerza Academy, USC College Prep Blue Campus and USC College Prep Orange Campus.

School board meetings are open to the public. The earlier closed session starts at 10 a.m. and allows public hearing discussion beforehand, and the regular session begins at 1 p.m. at the school headquarters at 333 S. Beaudry Ave.

Mark Hovatter, chief facilities executive

School overcrowding is down and buildings are safer and updated. But according to a recent report, there’s still $60 billion worth of work needed on LA Unified schools.

Since 1997 an unprecedented series of bonds approved specifically for school buildings to ease overcrowding has provided the district with $19.5 billion. While the district has completed 20,000 modernization projects, built 130 new schools and added onto 65 campuses, it still needs an additional $60 billion to renovate and modernize its existing campuses, Chief Facilities Executive Mark Hovatter said in a report last week to the school board’s Budget, Facilities and Audit Committee.

“We had an unprecedented influx of funds for facilities,” Hovatter told the committee, pointing to propositions ranging from Prop BB in 1997 for $2.4 billion to Measure Q in 2008 for $7 billion, all of which must be used for school facilities and cannot be used for salaries or books. “We’ve made a lot of progress. But there’s still a lot of work to do.”

That progress includes nearly eliminating multi-track school schedules districtwide (the last school will end the multi-track schedule this year) and adding full-day kindergarten classes to every elementary school. Seven schools have had major seismic renovations, and 48 schools have had urgent repairs that include new roofing, fixing air conditioners, asbestos removal and other major structural repairs. Schools that were built for 1,800 students no longer house 3,500 students.

“We still have a lot of major issues. Even with our new schools, the average age of our schools is 50 years old,” Hovatter said. “We have 700 buildings that are more than 75 years old.”

Board member Monica Ratliff, chairwoman of the budget and facilities committee, said she was concerned that the money wasn’t spent evenly among districts. Hovatter said, “The prime directive is the safety of the school, and we didn’t look at district lines.”

Ratliff, who was looking at the big picture of solving a $600 million budget deficit expected in three years, said, “In terms of fairness I want to see how the money is distributed across our district. I always want to make sure it’s fair.”

Of the $7.8 billion of proposition money left, about $1.45 billion is set aside for charter school facilities, including $402 million for building new charter schools.

“The charters have to be built to our standards and will become our facilities, so they have to comply to our labor standards and certain qualifications,” Hovatter said.

The board had to cancel $600 million in bond construction projects in October to free up the funds needed to make existing buildings compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. The district has been out of compliance with the act and is under a federal court order to upgrade its facilities.

Although the school board must still individually approve each project, the district for the first time has set up an overall plan for the 1,274 schools it runs in the district, according to Hovatter. The plan is a wish list, written as if money were no object for each school site. That list comes with a $60 billion price tag, he said.

*UPDATED

LA Unified is exploring building two new schools in the western San Fernando Valley on the sites of two campuses that have been vacant for decades at a potential cost of tens of millions.

The move comes as the district has no current plans for any new schools and would need to spend an estimated $40 billion to repair and modernize its existing campuses with only $7.8 billion in available construction bond authority.

The idea of building schools on the sites is a complete reversal of plans that had been in place for a year and a half and after district officials had repeatedly said for years there is no money or need for new schools in the area.

El Camino Real Charter School High School, which has been named by the district as the preferred developer of the sites, has plans to raise its own money to develop them into K-8 schools along with using bond funds set aside specifically for charter school development. LA Unified would then lease the land to El Camino long term, for up to 40 years.

The district has been under increased pressure from Valley leaders and residents to do something with the sites, which have been shuttered for decades, leading neighbors to say they have become eyesores that attract vagrants. Previous statements by district officials have estimated it would cost $20 million per site to build a new school.

LA Unified Chief Facilities Executive Mark Hovatter said the buildings are no longer suitable even to be repaired.

“The facilities have not been occupied as schools for an extended period of time,” he told LA School Report. “We believe that the cost to renovate them would exceed the useful value and it would be cost-effective to tear them down and build new, if there were going to be a school built there.”

At the November board meeting, Superintendent Ramon Cortines announced plans to develop one site — Oso — into a magnet school for autistic students that would be connected with nearby Taft High School, and board member Scott Schmerelson said the district is working on a plan for a second site — Highlander — although he provided no details on what kind of school it would be.

Based on the sudden announcements, the board denied El Camino’s charter application for the Oso site and postponed the vote on Highlander. Although El Camino officials had been told of the Oso plan in advance of the meeting, El Camino’s director of marketing, Melanie Horton, said the Highlander announcement came as a complete surprise.

“We put a lot of time and effort into writing the charter and conducting community outreach over the last year, more than a year now, so it’s frustrating to hear that there might be other potential plans for the sties,” Horton said.

Horton said development of a third site, Platt Ranch, would be revisited by El Camino if its Highlander application is denied since Platt was to be a K-12 STEM center without any permanent students on site.

“Obviously if our charter for Highlander is also denied then we wouldn’t have a K-12 operation so we wouldn’t have a need for a K-12 science center. So we would have to revisit that following board action on Highlander,” Horton said.

Schmerelson did not respond to an email asking what the district would do about Platt Ranch if El Camino abandoned its development plans there.

Board member Mónica García, who voted in favor of El Camino’s application for Oso, expressed some skepticism about the need for new Valley schools during the debates about Oso and Highlander at the November meeting.

“We’ve been told for three years there is no money for this project. Isn’t that why we did the (request for proposal)?” she said. “Are we redefining need? Are we just being super creative in how we are determining how we can use those dollars?”

García also joked about not being interested in sending more resources to the Valley, a reference to the fact that she represents some neighborhoods in East LA that are economically challenged while the West Valley is one of the more affluent areas of the district. Her comments are a preview of the opposition the district and board could face if it moves forward to develop the sites.

Now in the final stages of a $25.3 billion bond program that financed 130 new schools since 2003, LA Unified has no active plans to construct any new schools. The final and 131st school as part of that bond project is currently being built, Hovatter said.

The district also has limited resources to pay for any new schools. Of the $7.8 billion in available construction bond authority, Hovatter said the district has already commited $2 billion to $2.5 billion of it.

Hovatter would not speculate on the cost of developing Oso and Highlander.

“There are a lot of things that have to happen now and we are extremely preliminary,” he said. “It is essentially a concept study at this point. No one has made any decisions. There’s not an approved project and there’s not an approved program that’s established. So before that happens we first have to define what the program would be.”

* Updated to include clarification that Horton said El Camino would revisit the Platt plan, not necessarily abandon the idea of developing the site.

More than $17 million in roof repairs still need to be completed at LAUSD schools before El Niño arrives in January.

The district also needs to replace aging equipment at the Emergency Operations Center at a cost of $225,000 a year, and it will cost about $5 per student to keep emergency supplies in good condition each year—that’s another $3.5 million.

A simple one-time spend of $56,000 could get a weather alert radio for every school.

Those wether-related needs all came from the district’s Emergency Services and Facilities Services divisions in a presentation this week to the Successful School Climate Committee. Officials said they expect the second worst storm system to hit the area since they tracked El Niño storms.

Deputy superintendent Michelle King introduced the report to the committee as a “timely presentation about El Niño, what it is, and why we should be worried.” After hearing some of the plans and what needed to be done, she suggested that one of the top priorities would be to get the weather alert radios in every school.

Jill Barnes, of LA Unified’s school operations emergency services, said, “It’s hard to imagine in a few months we will be in large deluge of rain. We know that it’s on track to be second largest since recording them in 1950.”

The district has already identified schools that may encounter problems because they are near potential landslide areas or in areas that flood easily. Plans are underway to move some schools to different locations in severe weather.

Board member Mónica García, chair of the committee, said, “Some resources are needed right now, we can’t wait; how do we address what is before us?” She recalled the recent recession and pointed out that “we have stopped investing in a lot of these strategies because we lost $2.7 billion and asked everyone to do with less.”

The good news is that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration just designated LASUD as tsunami-ready, pointing out that the district has taken its preparations further than other school districts.

Among the changes:

• Every student who uses a ventilator to breathe has been provided a generator in case power goes out.
• Every student who uses wheelchairs in multi-story schools has an Evac Chair.
• Every school site and 11 LAUSD departments submitted their written emergency plans, which are being reviewed.
• Families will be notified by phone and email for weather issues and flooding, and whether students should go to alternative sites for school.

The district has even set up an El Niño website: http://achieve.lausd.net/elNiño

Roger Finstad, LAUSD’s director of Maintenance and Operations, said every school now has a plant manager, who is checking clogged drains, making sure power generators are fueled and stocking up sandbags where needed.

He said that 20 roofing projects were completed over the last two years, and in 2016 another 23 projects are scheduled for completion at a cost of $15.7 million. Six roofing projects still need board approval for $1.6 million, and more projects will come, he said.

The district is also checking every school roof for leaks, said LAUSD facilities director Mark Hovatter. He noted that some school gutters have tennis balls stuck in them, some have animal nests. That’s all being taken care of right now.

Los Angeles School Police Chief Steven Zipperman said the entire district will have an El Niño preparation exercise in three weeks to see where issues still exist in their emergency plans.

The district is also sharing personal home preparations and other helpful documents, and two scheduled El Niño town halls are being held by the district, on Dec. 3 and Dec 9, that are open to anyone.

Click here to sign up for the LA School Report newsletter, and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

In the latest annual report, Independent Monitor David Rostetter accused LA Unified and its Facilities Services Division of mismanagement, a lack of clear direction, inaction, failing to act in good faith, withholding information and expending energy on circumventing its legal obligations.

“This behavior is unconscionable,” Rostetter wrote. “The lack of accountability for this performance and complete disregard for providing accessibility at its schools, programs, and services can no longer be overlooked.”

He added, “The approach senior leadership have taken to comply with (the ADA) lacks consideration and regard for the civil rights of individuals with disabilities.”

While Rostetter praised the district for progress in other areas, his blistering critique suggested that the district has a long way to go toward meeting the requirements of the ADA.

The district’s Chief Facilities Executive, Mark Hovatter, did not respond directly to the report’s criticisms.

“I can’t really speak to that,” he told LA School Report. “What I can say is the laws of compliance are very complex and specialized and some people misinterpret them or just don’t understand them. We’re all getting much smarter to comply with it.”

LA Unified has been under federal court oversight since 1996 as a result of a class action lawsuit that accused it of non-compliance with special education laws. As part of the settlement, an independent monitor was appointed in 2003 to oversee the district’s compliance with what is known as the Modified Consent Decree (MCD).

The original deadline set for the district to meet its obligations and be disengaged from court oversight was 2006.

Rostetter took over as independent monitor 18 months ago after the death of a predecessor, Frederick Weintraub, who had been serving in the role since 2005. Rostetter authored last year’s report but much of its was based on Weintraub’s work. The most recent reports, for 2013 and 2014, lacked the severe criticisms of this year’s.

“It’s just been in this last annual report that most significantly had the harsh language,” said Sharyn Howell, the district’s associate superintendent of the Division of Special Education.

Under the ADA, public buildings are not immediately required to be updated, but when any significant renovations are made, the entire building must be upgraded to grant full access for disabled individuals. Any new buildings must also be constructed to be ADA compliant.

The district is also required by law to grant immediate and full access to all educational programs for disabled students. For example, if a school has three computer labs, at least one must be handicap accessible. But the district has failed to meet these requirements.

“The MCD is in its 12th year, and the District still does not have a transition plan that meets the intent or letter of the law,” the report states.

One of the reasons the district has trouble with the ADA is a lack of money. LA Unified is in need of $40 billion to modernize its campuses and has struggled to make ADA requirements a priority. Hundreds of buildings were constructed long before the ADA regulations became law. However, in October the school board approved the reallocation of $600 million dollars for ADA compliance within 10 years. Hovatter said that roughly 600 buildings will need renovations at a cost of around $1 million each.

Rostetter said the 10-year plan was acceptable and that “we are extremely pleased (Superintendent Ramon Cortines) aggressively went after that money.”

Despite high praise for Cortines and Howell, Rostetter said the district’s overall senior leadership has lacked a long-term commitment to the MCD.

“Since the MCD’s inception, the (facilities division) has engaged in behaviors that undermine its credibility. Misrepresentations, withholding of information and documents, and expending of energy on circumventing its obligations are not new. The (Office of the General Council) and District’s posture and defense of officials who engage in these behaviors is disappointing,” the report states.

Hovatter, who has been in his role for three years, said now that the $600 million has been allocated, he expects to have a full transition plan approved by the board soon and, as a result, a more positive independent monitor report next year.

“We had been working with (the previous independent monitor) for several years, and we were marching in a certain direction, and we thought everyone was happy,” Hovatter said. “I told my boss that the independent monitor used to call us the model for other districts to follow. The current independent monitor is not happy, but I’m sure in due time he will also be calling us the model that other districts would follow.”

Rostetter said there was simply no excuse for a lack of ADA compliance.

“The ADA was passed in 1990. New York City had its transition plan in effect by 1998,” he said.

He pointed out that his office discovered several years ago that LA Unified constructed more than 80 buildings that were not ADA compliant. The district then had to spend millions bringing them up to code.

“This district has built many new buildings over the last 20 years that have been non-compliant. And it has done virtually nothing in its existing buildings to develop surveys and transition plans complying with ADA that would lead to program access,” he said. “No matter how difficult the task is, doing absolutely nothing and building buildings that are non-compliant, is essentially ridiculous. And that is why the report is the way it is.”

Click here to sign up for the LA School Report newsletter, and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Mark Hovatter, chief facilities executive

Seven years after city voters approved Measure Q, giving LA Unified the go-ahead to borrow $7 billion, the first bond sales from the measure will begin within a month or so, district officials said today.

As the largest local school bond measure in California history, Measure Q was requested to upgrade older school buildings and reconfigure outmoded campuses. Some projects will cost as little as $50,000, wiuth others as much as $140 million.

Mark Hovatter, the LAUSD chief facilities executive, said the first phase of Measure Q sales will attempt to raise $900 million. The board has already approved spending $2 billion of the $7 billion total.

“We pay as the work is done,” Hovatter said. “There’s always a cash flow.”

The district already has projects underway, but those are being paid for by the sale of other bonds. This is the first tranch of Measure Q. The district goes into the bond market “once or twice a year,” and Hovatter said he expects to raise the second tranch within another six or eight months.

With capital improvements in the district, the financial assembly line is always running, and the bonds are sold only when money is needed. As soon as money comes it, it goes out to pay bills, with each project following a similar track: Endorsement by the district’s School Construction Bond Citizens’ Oversight Committee, school board approval, a plan for the scope of the project, a design, approval by the office of the state architect, then the approval of construction contracts.

Hovatter said LAUSD bonds are easy to sell. “We’ve always had twice as many people who want to buy them as we need,” he said. “It’s a solid investment. We have a reliable tax revenue to support it and a strong completion rate. It’s a low risk investment.”

Tom Rubin, a consultant to the bond oversight committee, confirmed LAUSD’s credit rating has remained fairly steady since 2008 and that there should be no problem in selling the bonds.

Measure Q also provides $450 million to independent charter schools to upgrade their facilities to those of traditional public schools. The measure did not raise taxes, nor can it be used for anything except facility improvements.

Mark Hovatter, Chief Facilities Executive

LA Unified plant managers are putting together a things-to-do list for every school in the district to prepare for a possible record El Niño.

Everything from cleaning out gutters to replacing a roof could help schools weather a strong storm system that is forecast to start this winter and last through spring.

The concerns were raised by school board members at the Budget, Facilities and Audit Committee meeting held today. Committee chairperson Mónica Ratliff asked that the LAUSD Chief Facilities Executive Mark Hovatter get the checklists of planned El Niño repairs for each school to the board members by November.

“I think each board member will want to know the plans for the schools in their district,” Ratliff said.

Board member Richard Vladovic added, “When it starts raining we may not be able to get there.”

Board member Scott Schmerelson noted that dead trees, particularly pine trees, are specific hazards in his district and could fall or break off during heavy rains and winds caused by the anticipated storms. The district has no full-fledged tree-trimming crew, but does have an emergency response team to cut down dangerous trees. Usually, Hovatter said, they are eucalyptus trees that provide hazards at schools, but he assured, “It is part of our El Niño prep.”

The school district facility officials met yesterday, Hovatter said. He directed plant managers to list everything they need to do for every campus. The schools are also identifying staging areas, emergency generators and sand bags if needed for emergencies. The school police is coordinating with local police, fire departments and ambulance crews.

Hovatter said the district has also identified schools on low ground that may be vulnerable to flooding. He said the district will have alternative sites for certain schools if the weather gets dangerous.

Schmerelson said there should also be training for teachers and students in situations of emergencies, such as refilling regular plastic bottles with water. He noted that refilling certain plastic bottles releases a chemical that isn’t good for children.

“And we want to make sure we are not giving another job to principals,” Vladovic added. “We don’t want to tell them they now have to watch out for students refilling water bottles.”

He added, “I’m really concerned about the safety.”

Click here to sign up for the LA School Report newsletter, and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

LAUSD Chief Facilities Executive Mark Hovatter

Despite spending billions of dollars since 2003 to build new campuses, LA Unified still uses thousands of “portable” or temporary classrooms, and a recent presentation by the district’s Chief Facilities Executive Mark Hovatter made it clear they have become a permanent headache for the district.

Despite recent reduction efforts, the district still uses roughly 8,300 portables, which represents about 30 percent of all available classroom space in LA Unified, and there is no current plan or available money to discontinue their use.

In fact, Hovatter told the school board’s Budget, Facilities, Audit Committee last week, there are 58 portables that the district is required to remove by Sept. 30 that don’t meet current standards but available funding only covers about 88 percent of the work that needs to be done.

Anyone who has spent time around LA Unified campuses won’t have to ask too many questions about what a “portable” classroom is. The temporary structures — sometimes referred to as bungalows or trailers — dot the landscapes of many schools, taking up the lion’s share of what was once a parking lot, playground or green space.

According to Hovatter, as the district’s student population expanded in through the 1990s while no new campuses were built, the use of portables became widespread and grew to around 10,000 in 2003. Reduction efforts have only resulted in a “bite” out of the number of portables in use, he said.

Making it clear he is no fan of portables, Hovatter went through a long list of problems and challenges their use presents. Near the top was the way portables alter the layout, look, feel and functionality of a campus that was built without them.

“We’ve got a lot of campuses that when they were built and designed, were beautiful campuses. Some received national awards,” Hovatter said. “Dorsey High received a national award for the layout of the campus. But then we came in and plopped down portables in places without taking into consideration the effectiveness and the flow of that campus, and it created an environment that you wouldn’t have believed had won a national design [award].”

He also said that portables “are supposed to be temporary in use, and we might have stretched the definition of what temporary means in our case, but certainly the intent was not to be a permanent facility.”

Board member Monica Ratliff said at the meeting that portables had taken up space in what was once the faculty parking lots of Van Nuys Elementary and Oxnard Elementary schools, and school personnel now had to park on the street. Many staff members, including the principal at Van Nuys, had received parking tickets as a result, she said.

“I am extremely aghast at the number of portables in Board District 6, and I want to get rid of the portables in Board District 6. I don’t think any child belongs in a portable,” Ratliff said.

Hovatter said removing portables is not as simple as pulling in a truck and hauling the portable away. Some have been there many years, and removing them may require special permits and removing fences or power poles just to access to them. Some of the portables that need to be removed by September are blocked in by other portables, which will also have to be removed.

Hovatter said the average cost of removing one portable can reach $100,000. He also said he supports any measure that creates funds for permanent structures while removing portables and restricts their future use and installation.

“We’ve got to be smart about what we look at,” he said. “While it’s a tool that’s available, as with any tool, if we use it correctly it’s a good thing. If we use it incorrectly it leads to more harm than good.”

How safe is your child’s sports field?

KCET recently took an in-depth look at “crumb rubber” synthetic fields and the recent reports of possible health hazards related to them.

The segment, which features interviews with parents, city officials, an LA Unified official and experts, focuses on parks in Los Angeles and at LA Unified that have crumb rubber fields, which is a substance made out of recycled rubber.

The issue has been in the news a lot lately after a report last year from NBC News revealed a possible cancer risk associated with the fields, and a new state senate bill was introduced, calling for a moratorium on new crumb rubber fields until more tests are completed.

The KCET segment includes an interview with Mark Hovatter, LAUSD’s chief facilities executive, who shares the district’s concern about the substance and plans to phase it out entirely. LA Unified stopped building new crumb rubber fields in 2009 and removed the substance from 54 preschools due to lead being discovered.

Click on the embedded link above or go here to see the episode.