Published on 06 Jun 2008 by GilesH
A March, 2005, blurb in the Macon Telegraph regarding grant awards from the Community Foundation of Central Georgia for, among other things, a study for adaptive reuse of Miller High School.
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This article’s significance is underscored now, several years later, with the published study.
Article copyright ©2005 The Macon Telegraph; used with permission. Thank you!
Published on 06 Jun 2008 by GilesH
An undated (presumably 2005) article from the Macon Telegraph discussing the Bibb County Board of Education’s plans to study possible adaptive reuse of the former Miller High School.
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This article’s significance is underscored now, several years later, with the published study.
Article copyright ©2005 The Macon Telegraph; used with permission. Thank you!
Published on 06 Jun 2008 by GilesH
2005 article from the Macon Telegraph discussing whether Miller might be replaced with a new Central High campus.
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Article copyright ©2005 The Macon Telegraph; used with permission. Thank you!
Published on 06 Jun 2008 by GilesH
A spotlight from February, 2006: a 1956 event honoring folks who worked at Miller High School during its first 25 years.
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Article copyright ©2005 The Macon Telegraph; used with permission. Thank you!
Published on 04 Jun 2008 by GilesH
Scans of a two-page article from the Macon Telegraph.
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Headline: Two Midstate Sites on ‘Places in Peril’ List
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Copyright ©2007 Macon Telegraph; used with permission. Thank you!
Published on 04 Jun 2008 by GilesH
Charles E. Richardson writes an insightful opinion piece on behalf of the Macon Telegraph editorial board, discussing options — and aspirations — for Miller and the surrounding community. Published November 28, 2007.
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Copyright ©2007 Macon Telegraph; used with permission. Thank you!
Published on 03 Jun 2008 by GilesH
The following is a op-ed from The Blue Ridge Press, via the Tallahassee Democrat.
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New Schools + Big-Box Mentality = Sprawl
It’s a formula for disaster
Kim A. O’Connell
The Blue Ridge Press
When Lyn Michell’s son Warren was small, the family had the good fortune to live across the street from the boy’s Atlanta elementary school. Now that Warren is in middle school, Lyn has joined legions of parents nationwide who drive their children through crowded suburbs just to get to and from school. When Warren enters high school, the commute will be even longer, the monthly gasoline bills bigger, and the route even more congested.
Unfortunately, this trend is escalating as new suburban mega-schools are built far from community centers, fueling sprawl, pollution and traffic. Meanwhile, America’s old historic schools, in or near town centers, are being abandoned and demolished at an alarming pace — a wasteful trend driven by misguided federal and state policies and funding.
In the 1990s, school construction expenditures in the United States rose by 40 percent, with less than 20 percent of that spending used to renovate existing schools, according to a 2005 National Association of Realtors study. Nationally, approximately $253 billion was spent on public school construction and renovation between 1995 and 2004 — the lion’s share going for new school construction, says the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Minneapolis-St. Paul, for example, built 78 new schools in its outer suburbs between 1970 and 1990, while closing 162 schools within city limits, says the Sierra Club. In Ohio, 790 of 1,300 schools evaluated in 2004 were to be abandoned in favor of new facilities, reports Governing magazine. City officials in Stroudsburg, Pa., and Fayetteville, Ark., are now wrangling over proposals to abandon their in-town high schools and build new ones farther away. And the New Orleans Recovery School District is planning to demolish 47 schools damaged by Hurricane Katrina, even though preservationists believe some of the old buildings can be saved.
The sprawling new schools that replace historic buildings harm both the environment and our quality of life. These mega-schools — Wal-Mart-sized complexes located far from town centers and accessible only by major highways — waste energy and resources, encourage new development in previously unbuilt-up areas and increase traffic. In the late 1990s, one study found that large new schools in Charleston, S.C., were being built with an average of 10 acres of parking — enough asphalt to cover nearly eight football fields.
Another disturbing outcome of our car-dominated culture is that kids such as Warren no longer walk to school. This erodes not only their quality of life, but that of parents, too. Suburban parents often spend an inordinate amount of time chauffeuring kids to and from school. Most agree this commuting time would be better spent playing catch outdoors or chatting at the dinner table.
When it comes to funding school projects, federal and state agencies are working at crosspurposes: They say they want to curb sprawl, but they promote policies that guarantee it by encouraging new construction over renovation. Federal funding is biased toward the construction of new “healthy, high-performance” schools that meet current energy-efficiency, health and safety standards, leaving many noncompliant old buildings with little hope for help.
Some policies require schools to be sited on a minimum number of acres, or don’t allow renovation of an existing school if it will cost more than a certain percentage — often two-thirds — of a comparable new one. Such rules often omit the hidden costs of new construction, such as land acquisition and infrastructure improvements. Also, school districts are usually barred from federal and state tax incentives for rehabilitating existing buildings.
“Most school systems are building in new-growth areas,” says Thomas E. Low, director of town planning with the New Urbanist architecture firm Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. “They’re remote and overcrowded, and kids can’t walk to them. The mentality is about quantity versus quality.”
It will take visionary leadership to curb the sprawling mega-school trend. The National Trust and other groups are encouraging innovative policies that provide flexible acreage standards for new schools, that foster efforts to co-locate public facilities such as schools, libraries and sports clubs in existing buildings, and that allow waivers to level the playing field when existing and new schools compete for funding.
In Ohio, for example, a school district that can prove that an existing school has historic significance or plays a special community role, can request a waiver to obtain the same amount of money for rehabilitation that would have been spent for the construction of a new school.
The state of Florida now requires a feasibility study to find a viable alternative to demolition of a historic school. Other locales have passed similar measures, including Montgomery County, Md.; Boise, Idaho; and San Antonio, Texas.
Despite these successes, we need to make a strong case to government that we care passionately about the quality of our lives, education and our environment — enough to want to reinvest in existing and historic schools. What better lesson could we teach our children?
This article is copyright its respective owners.
Published on 20 May 2008 by GilesH
Opinion piece from the editorial board of the Macon Telegraph, discussing Central’s — and Miller’s — role in a revitalized community. Article from June 9, 2005.
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Copyright ©2005 Macon Telegraph; used with permission. Thank you!