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Schools

A new look for an old school

Aging Boca Ciega High School begins its makeover to a 21st century school.

By THOMAS C. TOBIN, Times Staff Writer
Published November 18, 2007

Built in 1953 as South Pinellas' second high school, Boca Ciega has long been showing its age, such as this faltering brick and mortar.
	[Dirk Shadd | Times]

Work will begin next month on a $73-million reconstruction of Boca Ciega High School, the most expensive school project Pinellas has ever undertaken - and arguably the most unusual one.

Crews plan to spend December through March carving out a construction staging area on the north end of the Gulfport campus. By March, work is scheduled to start on a three-story classroom building that mostly will house sophomores, juniors and seniors.

Freshmen will occupy a large section of a new one-story building at the center of the campus. The arrangement is one of several features that reflect some new thinking in national education circles - namely that freshmen should be nurtured more carefully lest they lose interest, fall behind and drop out.

The project also will mark the first big test of the district's newly reorganized facilities department. A consultant's report in June found the district's planning process for big construction projects to be "deficient."

Excessive midproject adjustments led to unnecessary expenses that turned project budgets into moving targets, the report said. It said Pinellas' last high school project - a $50-million reconstruction of Gibbs High completed in 2004 - "was not managed as well as it could have been."

District officials say the early stages of the Boca Ciega project were emblematic of those problems.

"We let some people really dream about what would be the 21st century school of their dreams," superintendent Clayton Wilcox said.

An earlier version of the project called for much of the campus to be enclosed under one roof. When the cost climbed above $100-million, Wilcox said, "I asked people to go back and say, 'How do we scale this thing back? How do we bring it back into reason?'"

In addition to freshman classrooms, the one-story building will contain administrative offices, the school library and a cafeteria that might better be described as a food court. Architects say it will be a popular gathering spot with the feel of a college student union.

They say the giant glass wall separating the library and food court will be one of the school's more striking features. Other features include a roof design that will naturally light the main corridor of the one-story building and a monumental staircase in the lobby of the three-story building.

The project also includes major renovations to six existing structures on campus: the gymnasium, auditorium, music building, two medical magnet buildings and a technology building.

All will get new facades matching the outside of the new structures. Outdoor plazas and walkways will tie it all together.

"What we want is a contiguous campus that looks like it's all new," said Jeffrey Cobble, vice president of Harvard Jolly Inc., the project's architect.

The project will be carried out in two phases, allowing students to move into the new three-story building while the core of the existing school is torn down. Officials say they will not have to take the usual step of bringing in large numbers of portable classrooms during construction.

Plans to rebuild the school have been in motion since 2004, when the School Board placed the long-awaited project near the top of the district's five-year construction plan.

Built in 1953 at a cost of $1.3-million, "Bogie" regularly floods during heavy rains, and its buildings have long showed signs of age. The center of the campus, a series of wings that look like barracks from the air, will be torn down and replaced with the one-story building.

The district plans to spend $68.3-million on construction, planning fees and administrative costs such as utility relocations and builder's risk insurance. It has budgeted an additional $4.5-million for furnishings, equipment and computers.

The total price tag: $72.8-million.

The budget includes more than $600,000 in fees to have the school certified by the U.S. Green Building Council. The group considers a number of factors, including how well the new buildings conserve water and electricity.

Wilcox said the certification adds to the cost of the project but over time will pay the district back $2 to $12 for every dollar spent on the fees.

The new campus is expected to be complete by late 2011, after the current freshman class graduates.

Many of the features grow out of a high school reform movement inspired by Bill Gates, the Microsoft Corp. chairman whose foundation is exploring ways to get a handle on the nation's high school dropout rate.

The foundation is working with Willard Daggett, an education consultant whose ideas are taking hold across the country. Daggett pushes educators to bring more rigor to high school classes, to design class work that is more relevant to students' lives and to make better personal connections with students.

His motto of "rigor, relevance and relationships" has become something of a creed in American education - what many call the new three R's.

In recent years Boca Ciega has become Pinellas' top laboratory for Daggett's ideas, and the newly constructed school is an effort to make them part of the brick and mortar.

In a "white paper" published last month, Daggett and two Harvard Jolly architects, including Cobble, outline the architectural principals they say should be part of any new high school.

They eschew the "institutional" or "factory" feel of many high schools, calling them "cold and inhuman."

They call for designs that are open and warmer, that break schools down into smaller pieces and that vary classroom shapes and sizes "to avoid regimentation."

Many of those ideas are found in the new Boca Ciega design.

Each floor of the three-story building will house one grade. The floors will have four pods of about 100 students, each with four classrooms that surround a common area for working on projects or holding discussions.

At the center of each floor will be offices, keeping guidance counselors and administrators assigned to each grade close at hand.

The freshman classrooms in the one-story building will be arranged in much the same way.

Officials say the curriculum will emphasize "project-based learning," in which students take weeks to explore topics in ways that force them to combine what they've learned in multiple subjects, say math and social studies.

Thomas C. Tobin can be reached at tobin@sptimes.com or 727 893-8923.

Fall 1953: "Bogie" opens as only the second high school to be built in South Pinellas County in 26 years.

July 2004: The Pinellas School Board places Boca Ciega's reconstruction near the top of its projects list.

December 2007: Construction staging begins.

March 2008: Work begins on the three-story classroom building at the north end of campus and on renovations to the auditorium and music building.

June-July 2009: Three-story building is complete. Work starts on gym renovation and new one-story building.

June 2011: One-story building is complete.

December 2011: Parking areas, parent dropoff area and plazas are complete. Project ends.

[Last modified November 18, 2007, 00:47:05]