Board Wants to Attack School Repairs in 'All-Out Blitz'

A sign taped to a stall in a boys restroom at Maury Elementary School on Capitol Hill warns: "This stall is out of order. Do not enter." A plastic bag covering the commode reinforces that message.

Like many schools in the D.C. system, the 120-year-old Maury has several toilets and sinks -- and a whole restroom -- that have been unusable for months. But help for students, some of whom have to endure long walks to find a working restroom, may be on the way.

The D.C. Board of Education is proposing an emergency "blitz" to make improvements at more than 100 of the system's 140 schools, repairing restrooms, water fountains, windows, boilers and exterior lighting. Maury, with about 200 students, is near the top of the list.

"It would be wonderful if that can happen a lot sooner -- it will do something to the kids," Principal Michael A. Wilson said. "Those things are very important to them."

Initially, school system officials were planning to start work in October -- well into the next school year -- on Maury and 70 other schools deemed to be in the worst shape. But school board members pressed for more immediate action.

The board wants work to begin next month and to include more than 100 schools. Not included: the two dozen or so buildings that will be renovated in the first two years of a school modernization program.

Over the next few weeks, the school board will submit proposals in stages to the D.C. Council and Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) seeking an advance of $75 million from the school modernization fund. In 2006, the council allocated $2.3 billion over at least 10 years to rehabilitate schools, and board members approved a master facilities plan last week detailing how that work will be carried out.

"We have to attend to [students'] hygienic needs so they can concentrate on learning," said school board President Robert C. Bobb, who initiated the emergency plan. "This is an all-out blitz," he added. "It doesn't make sense to wait several years before we address these quality-of-life issues."

Mary Filardo, executive director of the 21st Century School Fund, which studies facilities issues, said the repair program makes sense even though the system will duplicate costs when it modernizes some of the same schools in a few years. "The school buildings have children in them now, and they deserve adequate restrooms," she said.

Work in the restrooms will include fixing broken toilets and sinks and installing doors on stalls that don't have them, school system officials said. The system has about 65 contractors who will carry out the work, they said.

To expedite the project, Bobb said, the school board has suspended its rules requiring Superintendent Clifford B. Janey to get board approval for contracts that exceed $500,000.

Costs for the 71 worst buildings, according to a school system report, range from $212,000 for Hyde Elementary School in Georgetown to $3 million for Coolidge Senior High School in Brightwood. The repairs at Maury are projected to cost $495,000.

Bobb, who is leading a school board move to oppose Fenty's proposal to take over schools, said he wants to demonstrate that the system can fix its problems without a change in governance. He said the school board will be aggressive in cutting through the system's bureaucracy to get needed services to students quicker.

Next month, Bobb said, the board will draft a proposal on how the system can increase the number of full-time librarians in the schools. The board will tackle "the things I consider low-hanging fruit," he said. "We're going to address them now, as opposed to later."

Fenty is seeking authority to hire and fire the superintendent, diminish the school board's authority and establish an agency to oversee school construction projects. The school board is planning Monday to introduce an alternative reform proposal, which it hopes will dissuade the council from approving Fenty's legislation.

"Our students and teachers should be focused solely on learning and academics, not restroom conditions," Fenty said in an e-mail. "The administration will review and consider the school board's request because it's imperative that all of our public schools have clean, working restroom facilities."