Saving School System Takes Strong Teamwork

By Victoria L. Tanner

Take a client with multiple problems, a complex fast-track simultaneous construction plan involving more than 20 aging buildings, a make-or-break deadline and an out-of-town contractor and mix them all together under the watchful eyes of a small town school board and what do you get? The word disaster might spring to mind, but the community of South Bend, Ind., hopes it is a recipe for a major success story.

The untried, the unusual and the unorthodox all came together as the South Bend Community School Corp. (SBCSC) banked on a new superintendent–and design-build–to jumpstart the school system’s fortunes. When Joan Raymond took over as the superintendent of SBCSC in 2000, she had a proven track record. Having taught in or administered school systems in major cities, Raymond had seen her share of tough cases.

Although South Bend is a quintessential midwestern small town, it shared many of the same problems facing urban school systems. Poor student performance ratings, truancy and discipline issues and a student exodus to alternative educational options all reflected the school system’s difficulties. SBCSC also was struggling to meet the requirements of a 1980 integration consent decree with the U.S. Dept. of Justice and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana.

On top of that, Raymond also was taking charge of crumbling infrastructure. Of 33 schools in SBCSC’s inventory, a majority were well past their expected service life and could not support instructional programming needs. And there also were money problems in the 21,000-student system.

But before she could even start, Raymond had to clean up a floundering high school construction project that she had inherited. The job was more than a year behind schedule, severely over-budget and hopelessly entangled in construction disputes. During her first week on the job, Raymond called Mark Wight, owner of Wight & Co., a Darien, Ill.-based firm that previously had worked on Illinois school projects with Raymond. She asked him to send in a team to assess the situation.

With 11 prime contracts, and no apparent leader, "it was a real mess," says Ken Osmun, Wight’s vice president of construction services. "Frankly, they couldn’t find another local construction manager that would touch this project. That was our entry and everybody knew we were nuts for even trying." Raymond hired Wight to salvage the job and within six months the high school was complete and Wight had cemented a solid relationship with the school board.

Grappling with the SBCSC’s larger problems required equally assertive resolve and Raymond devised a series of options for redistricting the school system. The alphabetic attempts took different philosophical approaches to the problem–Plan A, Plan B and Plan C–but ultimately left South Bend littered with a string of unworkable ideas. None of the plans could get the needed community support or work within the limits of the school system’s strained budget. And whatever was done had to be approved by the federal judge overseeing implementation of the consent decree.

In a town where the University of Notre Dame’s "Touchdown Jesus" mural literally looms over the landscape, maybe it was divine inspiration that finally encouraged Raymond to step back into the pocket and throw a "Hail Mary pass" she called Plan Z.

Heaven Sent

Plan Z completely rethought the school system approach. Key components included a total grade level reorganization of the school system; conversion of certain schools to serve different grade levels; a new approach to curriculum and academic instruction; development of special gifted and talented activities; open enrollment through a choice system; establishment of magnet schools at both the primary and intermediate levels and development of specialized "focus programs" at all four high schools. "It was the last option," says Bob Farkas, a Wight senior project manager. "And it was the most aggressive of her proposals."

	OSMUM

The school board adopted Plan Z in December 2001 and Raymond won Justice Dept. approval in July 2002. At its core was a $50.8-million construction program. Overall, the work represented approximately 500,000 sq ft of renovation and 110,000 sq ft of new construction throughout the system. The bulk of the construction had to be completed before the late-August start of the 2003-04 school year and most work could not start until the summer recess began in June 2003. Work on some of the more significant additions would continue through the 2003 school year, requiring phased construction as students were moved in and out of temporary classroom facilities during the process.

With the construction component of Plan Z critical to the overall effort–and still stinging from its last major construction project–SBCSC was determined to find ways to maintain oversight and ensure tighter controls. While Raymond was battling to win approval for her plans, she received a letter from John H. Strauss, an experienced professional working in the area. "She was really getting beaten up in the press and I sent her a letter saying that I thought I could help. She called me and asked me to come and see her," Strauss says. A career Naval officer and Annapolis graduate, Strauss had managed all types of Naval facilities and gone on to a post-naval career that gave him further exposure to managing hospitals and major institutional buildings.

	LaSalle Academy, created from the bones of an aging high school, is a new magnet school for science.

In short order, Raymond brought Strauss on board as assistant superintendent for facilities management. The seasoned professional would anchor a formidable management team for tackling Plan Z. Impressed with Wight’s work on the high school bailout, the firm was listed as a potential contractor–but not the only one. Wight urged Strauss to award the project on a design-build basis, arguing that design-build was the only viable solution because of the compressed schedule, multiple sites and intense coordination that would be required.

Considering the options and alternatives, Strauss also became convinced design-build could work. "We had to do some legal research to ensure we were within our rights to accomplish the design-build work," Strauss says. It would be a first for SBCSC and for Strauss so the concept was tweaked to suit the school board’s specific interests and give members a comfort level about the untested method. After negotiations that Osmun describes as "tough and long," SBCSC and Wight came to terms on a hybrid design-build effort that was unique in many ways.

While Wight would lead the design-build team under a construction management contract, SBCSC insisted on awarding all contracts directly. Wight was given the design and construction lead on five of the six major projects, but Strauss and SBCSC negotiated a "shotgun marriage" with an established local architectural-engineering firm, DLZ Indiana LLC, which had a long track record on SBCSC projects. DLZ, working on its first design-build program, was tapped to handle site, civil, structural and mechanical-electrical-plumbing design work on all six major projects, as well as taking the architectural lead on Kennedy Primary Center. SBCSC insisted on awarding and administering all 122 Plan Z subcontracts, but gave Wight authority over every aspect of the subcontract process, from developing bid packages to authorizing payments.

	FARKAS

"Let me tell you, initially Wight did not appreciate this organizational set-up, but they listened well and made it happen," Strauss says. "We were bringing in a fairly large architectural/construction services firm from outside the South Bend area to get involved with a highly visible, demanding and extremely time constrained project." Convinced that the local expertise did not exist to satisfactorily meet all of the project’s demands, Strauss says he still believed "we had to do something to keep the local companies that pay local taxes and have tremendous community involvement connected with this effort."

Wight, too, recognized the challenge. "We fought the stigma of being the big-time Chicago CM firm coming to Indiana to run over the local contractor base," Osmun says. He credits Raymond and Strauss with making certain the Wight/DLZ relationship would work. "The superintendent established our authority as team leader early by empowering Wight to negotiate DLZ’s fees. Other consultant contracts were modified to include a hierarchy of authority, with Wight prominent. Wight held and managed the budget and therefore had input across all lines into design and construction problems and solutions," says Osmun.

	ROTH

While DLZ’s contract was with SBCSC, Farkas says Raymond set the tone for the relationship from the start. "We were all in a meeting and she gave us the word that DLZ would work out and if there was a problem, to bring it directly to her." To ensure continuity and consistency, Strauss assigned Jerry Freeman, director of capital projects, to a full-time role in the project. "For my staff, and for one year’s worth of time, there were no vacations," Strauss says. "This project became a mission." Strauss handled administrative issues and SBCSC’s changing requirements and relied on Freeman in the field. He "had an outstanding feel for construction issues, could get to the root causes of problems most expeditiously and had unparalleled stature within the local construction community," says Strauss.

While Strauss acknowledges that "the multiple contracting method we used added more administrative cost to the effort and required extra oversight from my staff," he says the resulting control was worth the investment. "The school board wanted that control, they knew how their monies were being spent and they had excellent accountability," he adds. For the Wight/DLZ team, SBCSC’s hands-on approach to design-build proved critical to keeping the job proceeding on-schedule. "The school corporation rolled up their sleeves and worked," says Farkas. "They had it all on the line and they had to get it done."

	The design-build team was tasked with quickly turning the $50.8-million expectations of South Bend into reality.

Tackling the work required a complex design and construction game plan. Sharing responsibility with Osmun and Farkas, Wight’s lead architect for the project, Tom Roth, had to do more than just design spaces and structures. He shouldered the burden of interpreting Plan Z’s curricular and social objectives through his designs. and meeting the individual expectations of the school administrators responsible for each facility. Tasked with the final responsibility of implementing the redistricting effort, the school principals had their own opinions and considerable input into Roth’s work. "It was a real juggling act at times," Roth says. "We were just one little cog in a big wheel," says Osmun. "I’d realize that in some of our project meetings [that] Tom had to consider everything else like textbooks, furniture, curriculum, when kids would start, where the buses would go, in addition to our construction questions."

Working at breakneck speed, Farkas was coordinating construction almost as fast as Roth and DLZ could draw the plans–and occasionally faster. When school doors opened in August 2003, Phase One was done. "We finished about two seconds before school started," Farkas jokes.

Phase Two of the plan, covering the larger additions to several of the six key buildings, continued throughout the school year. Careful coordination was required to ensure minimal inconvenience to teachers and students. Wight brought the second phase in well ahead of the December 2004 deadline, achieving substantial completion in August.

With the project complete, the team members clearly are pleased with the results. "This team came together so well because everyone realized that the only way to move down the path to success was to be on the same bus," Osmun says. "The challenge united us."

DLZ’s first experience with design-build taught the firm a lesson. An owner that has good participation, quick response and a good wish list with which to start is a very good way to accelerate the design process, the engineers say. Strauss adds, "We did everything we could do to expedite the decision-making....The owner has to get involved and there has to be honest, frank conversation."

Public response to the work has been overwhelmingly positive, but the real proof of Plan Z’s success will take time. Strauss says he’s waiting for the final report card: "Now we need to see those test scores go up."

By Victoria L. Tanner
The author has provided communications services to the industry for
more than 20 years, working with general contractors, subcontractors
and trade groups.

All photos by BKR Studios Inc., Courtesy of Wight + Co.

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