Film Features School Renovations in Colorado
Our Living Legacy: Colorado's Historic Schools Colorado Preservation, Inc.
By Jenny Buddenborg, Mountains/Plains Office
Historic schools are first and foremost community assets. That is the message Colorado Preservation, Inc. (CPI) is conveying to school districts across Colorado and anyone else who will listen. Through their historic schools survey project, CPI combed the Centennial State to inventory schools still owned by school districts, completing reconnaissance-level survey forms for schools more than 50-years-old. Using this information they commissioned a film entitled, Our Living Legacy: Colorado's Historic Schools, featuring six historic schools that underwent successful rehabilitations. Their goal is to demonstrate that historic schools can be rehabilitated to meet today's educational standards, save capital costs, eliminate indirect costs of sprawl, and be a source of community pride.
A copy of the film has been distributed to every school district in the state, accompanied by publications from the Council of Educational Facility Planners, International on how to successfully renovate older and historic school facilities. CPI went on the road to publicly unveil the film to communities across the state. Communities not only opened their doors—some even baked pies. All gave a lot of positive feedback.
What compelled CPI to take on such a project? In 1998, the state of Colorado agreed to spend $190 million over 11 years through the Public School Capital Construction Grant Program to address the most critical capital needs of public schools across the state. Although intended to address the significant need for maintenance and repair of school facilities in less affluent communities, school districts with the capacity to write the best grant applications actually received more grants than those for whom the program was created.
In response, CPI partnered with the Donnell-Kay Foundation to pass a bill in the 2007 state legislature that required a portion of the funds to be directed to school districts with the smallest enrollments and most dire building conditions. The bill also required that "rehabilitation" be given greater priority over "replacement" in grant applications and that the Advisory Committee for Public School Capital Construction include a member with architectural expertise in school rehabilitation.
Despite this victory, one of the biggest obstacles to successfully administering the fund remained. The State Board of Education had no idea which school districts to target for assistance because they had no comprehensive list of public school facilities, much less any knowledge of the condition of the structures. Before any informed decisions could be made, this list was needed. Thus, CPI developed its historic schools survey. With funding from the Colorado Historical Society's State Historical Fund and the Donnell-Kay Foundation, CPI set out to develop the inventory, survey and film project while simultaneously encouraging communities to apply for the grant program for historic school rehabilitation.
As the project wraps up, CPI's efforts have already been positively received. With several existing model examples of historic school rehabilitations in Colorado, they hope that their historic schools survey project will spur similar work across the state and even across the country. For more information visit the CPI website.
