First a Plan, Then the School

There has got to be a better way to choose a school site than the flawed process that resulted in the half-done construction of the Belmont high school on contaminated land.

The planning and building of schools should include more oversight by environmental and toxics experts--that is just one of the early lessons from the Belmont controversy. Harder to answer is the question of who is best suited to select school sites.

Should these functions be removed from the Los Angeles school district, as recommended by state Sens. Tom Hayden and Richard Polanco, both Los Angeles Democrats? Not if one plodding bureaucracy is traded for another. Not if the change would make matters worse, which was the outcome in New York after the creation of a local construction authority to reform a corrupt and costly school building process. Hayden and Supt. Ruben Zacarias favor establishing a local entity, although turning to state agencies such as the Department of General Services has also been discussed.

Belmont is already on track to becoming the state’s most expensive high school. The additional cost of an environmental cleanup and future containment of potential toxic problems is expected to push the $200-million price tag even higher. This bleeding of public dollars is reason enough for the school board and the Legislature to consider removing authority from the Los Angeles Unified School District, but they should not act without a detailed plan for a better process.

Hayden wants to call round-table meetings, similar to legislative hearings but more collaborative and open, in Los Angeles and Sacramento to solicit expertise and comment from all who have a stake in building schools. This is work that should have been done before making any proposal for change--identifying pitfalls, exploring unintended consequences, establishing costs and deciding who should take on the new responsibilities. But better now than not at all. The school board’s philosophy of building on industrial land to avoid taking homes also should be debated because it has resulted in environmentally suspect school construction sites.

The L.A. district needs to build 51 schools during the next decade to accommodate a soaring student enrollment. If the Belmont debacle is any clue, the district cannot hope to meet that goal. Change is needed, but first design it well.