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Dr. Carol Cash Presentation - Building Conditions and Student Outcomes 3-28-2019

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Dr. Carol Cash from Virginia Tech presents research showing the correlation between building conditions and student learning

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Dr. Carol Cash Presentation - March 2019 Building Conditions and Student Outcomes DR. PERRIGAN:  I'd like to thank everyone for coming out tonight, we are, this will be recorded and we will get it out on the both the City's website and the School Division's website and as Mr. Hartley and I were just speaking of on our Twitter and Facebook accounts because we know that those are both two different audiences.  So we appreciate City Council allowing us to use this facility, we have another function going on at the School Board office or we would have had it there and we would have had it at Washington Lee but it's not handicapped accessible so we had to go to another area to the have that, so I appreciate the City Council allowing us to use this facility. I'm really excited to tonight Dr. Carrol Cash who she's with the education leadership department at Virginia Tech she has become the state expert in my opinion on school facilities. When Senator Stanley introduced his legislation back last spring late last spring early last summer, Dr. Cash was the keynote speaker there to talk about the need across our Commonwealth for School Divisions and localities to take care of their schools. It was good, it was good to hear her speak because we know that Bristol's not alone in this.  Bristol does have some of the oldest buildings  - actually three of our buildings fall in the third oldest group of schools across the Commonwealth and those would be Virginia Middle which was built 1916 Highland View in 1938 and Stonewall Jackson in 1948 That does fall in the oldest third but old doesn't always mean bad as we are we have some friends here from the Department of Education who did a tour of our school facilities today and also our transportation department and I think they were pleasantly surprised when they went through Virginia Middle School and saw that even though that building is over a hundred years old that we're getting some good use out of it.  So anyway, that's..  I'll get off track and talk all night and my introduction will be longer than Dr. Cash's presentation, so I won't do that, Dr. Cash, because I know you got a lot of great information for us to share.  At this time I'll introduce to you Dr. Carol Cash DR. CASH:  Well, I can't say that I am an expert, but I can say that my advisor at Virginia Tech, Dr. Glenn Earthman is now 90 and is an expert and he trained me in an awful lot of things and we did a lot of studies together and have worked together off and on.  I do have some things that I'd love to share with you because I think it's worth considering whether not the buildings make a difference. It's going to be a lot of research, if it gets really dry, I will apologize in advance. So, building conditions and student achievement have been compared in many cases, or I should say student outcomes, because it's not just achievement.   Facilities have an important measurable impact on educational outcomes according to Robert's and that they are predictive of the delivery of instruction after controlling for other plausible variables. I think it's important to know that the facility condition explains 43% of the variance and the quality of the delivery of instruction, after you account for those other factors.  Crumbling infrastructures, according to Erin McIntyre, in American schools isn't just a political football that actually presents some physical and psychological dangers and I'm not going to read all of these I promise. So there's more research that's out here right now and I think what's important is it has a profound impact not only on teachers or students but on the combination of the two - for teachers that has a lot to do with recruitment or retention for commitment, for attitude and for the effort that you put in.  With respect for students you're still going to have the attitude but you're also going to have the school help the behavior, their a level of engagement, the learning and their gross in achieving and these are all areas that we can look at and find that there is a difference. This particular piece of information came from a study at Penn State and I'll try to tell you where some of these studies come from. This is an interesting one.  Lorraine Maxwell who has worked with some schools in New York for quite a while is is one who I find interesting because she says the effects of that impact on on students is probably even higher for those who are the most at risk and poverty or minority or have other factors and perhaps that has a lot to do with the fact that they don't have any other contributing factors to build them up at times. So she found that regardless of the level the students, the deficit school buildings contributed to low outcomes academically So Tennessee has done a study recently and what they found as well as its school facility factors such as the building age and condition do contribute that includes the quality of the maintenance or the temperatures and includes lighting noise, color, air quality. It shows that those influence not only the students but it also influences the citizen perceptions of schools and the value you place on education. So it's sort of like when you go by a neighborhood and you want to look for a new house, you look for a house that has a certain look to it and you make judgments based on how that house looks and I believe that you would say in the community it can be a point of pride and it could be a point of disappointment. So the socioeconomic status of students can't be controlled but the time on learning is even more important when the low SES is there because they need more time in many cases because of factors beyond our control.  The important thing about a building is it can actually impact the amount of time in learning. Oregon did a study as well, we might get to Virginia eventually with some of those. So, factors such as teachers and parental involvement having an impact, they also found that school facilities have their own impact and they can either significantly weakened or bolster all those other human impacts that we already have. In that particular study with Oregon there was a focus on three years of research. They looked at lighting and looked at air quality and they looked at noise and in all three cases they found that those impacted students either in their achievement, their health or their behavior and perhaps all three. So, if you've read any studies on buildings you will find some studies that say there's no connection and you will find some studies and say there is a connection. I think it's important to point out the types of studies you're looking at because there are two ways to look at buildings.  One way to look at them is with conventional tools so you're looking at them as engineering-based, property-management perspective and then the other one is to look at their mission-relavant tools and whether or not they meet the mission of their purpose. In evaluating buildings they can use one or the other for example, if I'm looking at windows I would think in engineering-based tools, I would look at whether or not they're clean, I would look at whether not there's integrity of the window, whether the sill is closed and sealed.  I would look at that kind of thing but if I were looking at it from an Educator's point of view or from a mission-relevant, I would look at the natural lighting and what it's bringing to it. Two different ways to look at things in two different ways to evaluate them. Additionally, buildings have been categorized as being either filled with cosmetic factors or with structural factors.  Now the cosmetic factors as the ones we see in many cases they directly impact students more because they can see them - if they're dirty painted recently those kinds of things are more linked with many times, school climate where there are structural factors don't always connect but they do connect when it comes to heating air conditioning those kinds of factors.  So there are two ways to look at them as well as factors that have been noted repeatedly to influence student educational outcomes include natural lighting, paint colors, paint cycles, general cleanliness, air quality, temperature and the ability control the temperature, acoustical enhancements, safety features, the absence or presence of graffiti and air conditioning. So let's look at this example as a homeowner one might explain to prospective by when purchasing a house you need to confirm that the building is structurally sound but now that I've decided that all of these buildings are structurally sound now I'm looking for the features that will enhance my living arrangements. I'm looking at the windows, I'm looking at the thermal controls, I'm looking at the acoustics & cosmetic factors and those become the basis for my purchase from that whole series of structurally sound buildings. This is a model that actually I developed during the dissertation process but it's been used since in for several studies and it was used probably with the whole committee helping me out, but the whole point of it is that if you have a building condition it got there because of the leadership in the amount of money you had that impacted the maintenance and the training building facility materials but now that you have this building condition whatever it is it's going to impact faculty and students both directly because of health and factors and indirectly because that attitude and in each of those cases it will affect outcomes and those outcomes in this particular case are in student achievement and student behavior. Pretty logical, I don't know why they made me write it out. So, the American Federation of Teachers publication was "Building Minds, Minding Buildings:  Turning Crumbling Schools into Environments for Learning," it was commissioned in response to section 5414 of the No Child Left Behind Act on health and learning impacts of environmentally unhealthy public school buildings on students and teachers. The commission report found that poor environment in schools adversely influence the health, performance and attendance of students and again they talked about some of those same factors that we keep saying poor lighting, inadequate ventilation, crumbling walls, damaged ceiling tiles, inoperative heating and air conditioning systems, just to name a few. I found this one to be interesting the impact the school building conditions on student absenteeism in upstate New York,  after adjusting for confounders,  student absenteeism was associated with visible mold, humidity, poor ventilation, vermin - that's scary -  six or more individual building condition problems and building systems or structural problems related to those conditions. And the schools in the lower socio-economic districts in schools attended by younger students showed the strongest association between those conditions and the absenteeism. So, how much does it matter? Well it depends.  Over 60 years of research continue to support the positive relationship between building quality and student educational outcomes. Researchers within the United States have been joined by International researchers in confirming the link between the building and achievement. For example, [?] found significant differences in student scores in Kuwaiti schools high school when comparing students in unsatisfactory and satisfactory building and comprable results have been found in a research study recently done in Great Britain.  I reported that the conditions of the facillities could account for as many as 11 percentile points on student achievement assessments and that's when we were looking at small rural high schools in the Commonwealth.  The difference in those scores were reported as well by other researchers.  Hines, who looked at high schools;  Earthman, Cash and Van Bergen,  when we looked at North Dakota schools;  Lanham, who looked at middle schools; Crook, who looked at high schools - a little bit later once SOLs came in and Bullock and we found ranges from 3 to 17 percentile points.  If you think about how close you are to meeting accrediation standards for SOL tests and you think about what would happen with just 3 percentile points, sometimes I think it's worth considering even that factor much less the one with  17. All of these studies use the same methodology they all use the Commonwealth assessement of physical environment, which was a research develop survey that looked at mission-related characteristics. So, it asked about number of the windows in the classroom and asked about how often you painted, it asked what colors there were on the walls and what kind of flooring you had, whether it was wooden or tile or cement - dealing with acoustical factors.  Of each of the studies using those and almost every one of the studies up here, actually, all of those studies did use the case. So the National Summit on School Design recommends including several references to heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems to counter the concerns are related to building conditions and student achievement. They indicated that industry trends affecting quality of the school environment include temperature, distribution monitoring that can call and track temperature in all spaces in school buildings and improved air filtration for the healthier environment. Every time I say that I think about the fact that when I was about 45, if you let me control the environment in my classroom, it might have been dangerous for students because sometimes you have your own you know, "Summers," "Tropical Days," but having that control was in a series of buildings is really helpful because there is a fine line about that temperature in - if I tell you now that I won't be able to read it later so I'll hold that off for just a second. Let's talk.  This is an interesting study. In New York City, looking at 4.5 million exams that were taken by nearly a million students over 13 years, they concluded that students are almost 11% more likely to fail an exam on a 90-degree day than on a 72 Degree day. Well, we can't control that.  However, they found that if you had air conditioning, it mitigated that circumstance in almost every case. So, one consistent research finding across individuals of all ages is that the temperature in which a person works affects the engagement level and the overall productivity.  Just think about how you feel in the wrong environment.  This includes student achievement. Anyone who's worked in the classroom or office when it's too hot or too cold knows how difficult it can be when trying to work when the temperature is uncomfortable.  According to the best analyses, the ideal temperature range for effective learning and reading and math is somewhere between 68 degrees and 74 degrees. To maintain such a temperature in every classroom, teachers typically need to be able to control at least within a group of classroom because you know that sometimes when you have an overall temperature in a building it's just not going to be the same in this classroom with no windows and this classroom with windows and this classroom that's upstairs with a heat rises.   So having that control level is important. Earthman indicated the temperature range for optimal learning is narrow and he even went so far as to say it might be between 70 and 72.   I think we'd all be happy if we could at least between 68 and 70. Another group of researchers also concluded that the student academic performance was negatively impacted by adverse temperature in ventilation in the classrooms. So, let's go to classroom in size and space.  Overcrowded classrooms and schools have consistently been linked to increased levels of aggression in students.  Overcrowded classrooms are also associated with decreased levels of engagement and decreased levels of learning.  I think it's interesting because my husband went to Auburn University and one of the studies I read a few years ago had to do with dormitories and the grade level, ah,  the grade point averages of students -  girls who were in the dorms at were more crowded versus girls who were in less crowded environments. He wasn't one of those [laughter] But at any rate, it was interesting that there was a a study about Auburn.  So, creating private spaces and smaller learning centers is important as well as giving student space in places - we as Americans like space anyway - we don't want to be in each other's faces so when you put in a school or real compressed or crowded environment or a sense of lack of space - it does increase anxiety. Air quality.  American school children missed 12 million days of school in 2000 due to asthma and a recent review by Carnegie Mellon found that you could reduce the asthma reaction by 38% and buildings with improved air quality.  It's interesting because children have have to breathe more air and they're smaller so it actually impacts them more when they're breathing poor air, bad air quality.  So it's associated with health and attendance not only of students but of staff and if the students aren't there they can't learn and if the teachers aren't there they can't teach . The research on having a every once in a substitute and how it impacts learning is actually a loss of learning that's in its higher than if you have a long-term sub who is consistent for a period of time In Penn State research, it was noted that before the advent of cheap electricity, schools often relied natural lighting so that 1916 building you have is perfect because it has nice natural lighting, it reminds me of school I went to that I think was built in 1924 and had those huge windows. As electric power costs declined, the amount of artificial light used increased and that reminds me of some of those buildings that we have from the 70s with skinny windows if any or completely closed in classrooms. It's shown, research has shown that artificial lighting has negative impact on those in schools while natural lighting has positive impacts in fact one study found that students with the most exposure to Nnatural lighting, daylight, progress 20% faster in math and 26% faster in reading than students who were taught in environments with the least amount of natural lighting .  It has been noted that research has indicated that controlled a lie to get appropriate artificial lighting improve the performance of both students and teachers. I think if we talked to some of the people in Alaska have a lot of daylight sometimes and a whole lot of darkness other times, you would get a feel for why you would want that natural lighting. So, the presence of both sunlight and appropriate lighting does improve student achievement.  The Summit on School Design and its recommendations also emphasized daylight or natural light in learning spaces and energy-efficient and aesthetically pleasing lighting as well. The Oregon study said the same thing research that analyze standardized math and the scores among students exposed to different lighting conditions found a 21% increase in performance from the students exposed to the most daylight compared to those exposed to the least.  The study was in replicated and three other school district similar results that verify the re-analysis of the data and a separate long-term study found an average differential of about 14%. Acoustics. I now wear hearing aids, so I can understand the problem when you can't understand and hear people, but I will tell you that many classrooms feature a speech intelligibility rating of 75% - meaning that people don't hear but about 75% of what's said. That can be a real problem when you're learning. Research indicates that high levels of background noise can impact students especially young children more than others and the harmful effects are beyond just not hearing and not learning, because you don't hear.  They can also impact long-term memory, reading ability, teacher effectiveness and students attitudes. Students are unable to hear their learning will be challenged. It is not a surprise to anyone to learn that being unable hear the teacher undermines our students ability to absorb the information that's being taught while this in itself is enough of a reason to take noise pollution seriously, the harmful effects of poor acoustics and background noise go beyond that and affect other factors. So, let's talk about cleanliness. Connections been made between the lack of graffiti and clean floors and walls and other measures of school cleanliness and student achievement.  I suspect that has a whole lot to do with school climate and the environment and sending the message of a school family as much as anything else but several factors addressed in research relate to cleanliness. A connection between has been made between the lack of graffiti, clean floors and walls and other measures in a survey of high school sophomores according to the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 conducted by the National Center for Educational Statistics, disrepair and inadequate cleanliness were major concerns. Overall in the study, 66% of the 10th grade students reported at least one unacceptable building condition related to vandalism, disrepair or lack of cleanliness.  Further it was noted the students who scored in the lowest quartile of their composite achievement tests were more likely than students who placed in the highest composite to attend schools where there was trash on the floor and the presence of graffiti. So cleanliness affects, if nothing else, the attitudes of both teachers and students. So policymakers, educators and business people are now focused on the need to ensure that students learn 21st century skills, such as teamwork, collaboration, effective communication and other skills as noted older building simply are not conducive to teaching the 21st century learning skills and this is particularly true with regard to reconfiguring seating arrangements to facilitate various modes teacher and learning delivery and the use of technology in the classroom.  If your building was set up with 24 chairs in a row and that's the size of the classroom, you're going to be hard-pressed to put in the tables and chairs it needs to have small groups sitting around in groups and still have that same environment.  So, it that in that case, what happens is you are a jury rigging that's a terrible word to use in the classroom to work for your students in reality if you had the right kind of classroom in the right kind of setting you'd be able to support the teaching and learning and it would increase the positive impacts. Wall Color. Not only is cleanliness important, but what are the colors of those walls can influence students attitudes and academic performance.  Research supports the preference of pastel colors over dark or white it also supports of, some say, a focal points of medium tones.  It talks about blues and greens.   Jensen indicated that for a greater cognitive impact in the classroom the best color to Sky Blue.  He further stated this combinations could do such a thoughtful study and also to alertness because he added a little bit of red in there.  Cafeterias and gyms he says maybe a different colors for different reasons. Now I will have to tell you, I've worked in lots of different schools.  At one point I was in a brand new school and I was the assistant principal for a particular level in the middle school and the lockers were in the hallways. That's not where the teachers a supervising, right? The lockers were red.  Guess where the fights were? So my son went to a school that one point that had blue hallways a green hallways because blue blue and green blue and orange because boys with their school colors.  Guess where their fights were? So, my point is that the color makes a difference but I have a video that will do it even better than I did. So, here we go. [Video plays] The paint company, Hempel wanted us to behave, so they did a small experiment with kids. Hempel wanted to show that painting a room is not only a matter taste but rather the children's behavior is affected by the color surrounding them. We took a kindergarten room and painted it and acid red and place the children in it.  I caused them to play the way they wanted, there were no rules. Teachers were asked not to intervene, children could play alone or together. We wanted to see how children's mood and behavior is affected by the color surrounding them without any adult control. On the second day everything was exactly the same the kids, the toys and the room. Only one thing has changed, this time we've asked them to play in the same room that we repainted an light blue. And the results you can see for yourself. In the red room, there was a lot more crying and fighting kids were running and making a big mess! But when the room was painted in light blue they play together nicely and help each other a lot. So, as you can see [Video ends] [Microphone not picking up speaker's voice] ...they were doing a tour of the Arena if you will and they explained to us, the colors were not quite turquoise - blues and greens - so see colors and in pretty colors like that and they said they had done a study and they had determined that the bed behaved said of attendees would be, would occur, in an environment with those colors.   That's... uh.. we don't do that in schools and yet they did it for athletics and for an arena in a foreign environment. So I thought it was very interesting that that's kind of reinforced the same thing and then just think about how you paint your homes.   Rarely do you have a red bedroom. Oh, I shouldn't have said that. [Laughter from audience] Sorry. My mouth, sometimes.  [Chuckles]  Alright, let's talk about technology. So, learning in the 21st century includes confidence in the use of technology, access to technology has implications for student learning.  Learning skills for the 21st century include confidence in the use of the technology which can be impeded by the lack of access. In a recent International Society for technology in education policy brief it was noted and using technology for instruction and learning students gain more than just knowledge in the core subject area they also acquire skills necessary to be productive and competitive. In that same summary, the brief besides that research supports the positive effects appropriately integrating technology has on student achievement and its contribution acquiring the 21st century learning skills. A study of Michigan's freedom to learn program the research has found that students who are given laptops at higher levels of engagement and higher scores on district writing tests. I live in Hanover County and in Hanover I'm not in the growth zone, I'm in the other side which means that I can't use my cell phone, much less my computer in some parts of my house, unless I hold my mouth just right .  So, I'm glad that I've had students in there who are trying to use the technology this expected in the classroom while they're at home. Because it can be a real challenge and it's even worse when you get a little bit further out and we did and I suspect you may face some of that here, I'm not sure, but it might possibly be the case. Density.   We talked about density for a minute so I probably won't go too much on that except to say that Swift noted that elementary students house in schools that was an architectural square footage of less than a hundred square feet per student performed worse on standardized tests and students in schools with an architectural square footage of greater than 100 square feet per student.   Studies such as these led to an understanding of the impact of density on student outcomes. So, we talked about a lot of factors but let's go back to student and teacher morale.  The attitudes of students and faculty are important factors in Student success.  In recent research on how the brain works, Marzano has highlighted the relationship between students and teachers is necessary component to student learning, so positive student attitudes about their school building are significant in establishing and maintaining a positive environment that enhances learning and positive student attitudes frequently come from positive teacher attitudes. Which brings us to Teacher Satisfaction which is a necessary component or basic to having a positive attitude that builds relationships. a study on teacher satisfaction of building condition reaffirms the connection between the condition of the building and a teacher's attitude or Manila Masters found that the attitudes teachers have about their classroom is influenced by the condition of that classroom Teachers in classrooms in poor condition scored lower on the instrument which measured attitude than teachers in classrooms rated as being in good condition. In addition, teachers stated that the student learning was adversely influenced by poor conditions. I don't think you can read this but I'm going to tell you Jack O'Connell was apparently a sSuperintendent of Public Instruction and he is responding in The Daily News to having been there and saying that he had been into schools that had stark differences between those that had good conditions in those it didn't. And he went on to say that when a school has leaky pipes or toilets that don't work or not equipped with basic outdoor play equipment, students can't perform at their full potential and the differing demographics of students have different needs.   Which goes back to what we heard earlier from Lorraine Maxwell and finally, he said that research shows that comfortable, well lit, safe facilities can translate into dramatic student gains and with the advent of technology being a constant in our professional careers I would also argue that facilities equipped with integrated technology in the classroom give those students a competitive edge over those who have, uh,  go without it. So, it doesn't matter where the school is - whether it's in a rural area, suburban area, or an urban area -  it's physical features affect the students who come there to learn and when those children are poor the impact is greater perhaps because they have fewer factors to mitigate those circumstances if we are interested in giving our students the type of education they need to be successful then we must consider not only our school employees and our school curriculum, but also our school buildings. If the building is part of the instructional support system that can affect students abilities to learn, then one would think that addressing the physical structural needs is also responsibility of those who provide for our students both at the state and local levels. No one is saying that the teacher doesn't make the biggest difference. No one is saying that a Principal doesn't make a difference. What we are saying is a building can either make that better or make that worse and wouldn't it be better if we send the message that we're making it better? So, I'd like to close by borrowing some words from The Third Teacher, which is an interesting book that talks about all those factors.  "The children starting kindergarten this year will graduate in the fourth decade of the twenty-first century.  All we know about the world that they will step into is it it will have challenges and opportunities beyond what we can imagine today. Problems and possibilities that will demand creativity and ingenuity, responsibility and compassion. Whether this year's kindergarten students will merely survive or positively thrive in the decades to come depends in the large measure on the experiences they have in the school.  Those experiences will be shaped by adults, including governmental leaders, peers and others and ultimately by the places - those physical environments -  where they do their learning. If you're not in the conviction that environment is our child's third teacher we can begin a new a vital mission of designing today's schools for tomorrow's world. Thank you. [Audience applause] DR. PERRIGAN:  Thank you.  Dr. Cash, every time I hear your presentation out of it makes me think of another facility issue that we have. You know we'd certainly know that we have older elementary schools that have some conditions that we need to make better, but even our newest school which was built in 1974,  I mean if you think back several of the things that you touched on today are issues even in our newest buildings.  We certainly have challenges in our facilities across the board. Dr. Cash has graciously offered to answer questions that anybody may have.  I know that sometimes I get some really tough questions and I welcome those I know that if you have those give direct those to me and you leave the easy ones to Dr. Cash or she could pass them on to me - either way, so it at this time if I'll turn this on if you have a question I'll bring you a mic and that way the questions are also on the video as well. Questions? AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Thank you for your presentation I found it really informative and  am appreciative.  The debate we're having in our city is whether or not closing three elementary schools because of extreme repair is the best option and then consolidating those students into one building. In preparation for your presentation, I was doing some research today and one of the pieces of research I came across that I was really interested in was how improving microenvironments in the school actually went a really long way into sending the message now only are we investing in you but beginning to actually improve student achievement.  So when I hear you talk a lot about paint and paint color , when I hear you talk about natural lighting or something cosmetic pieces I hear you say that these aren't just superficial Band-Aid fixes that these are indeed substantial investment that lead to student achievement. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more or answer question that would say actually improving microenvironments in the school goes a long way into improving student achievement. Is that a fair question? DR. CASH:  Sorry I don't know your buildings but I will tell you that changing the paint color in those things does make a difference I would say that if you were going to fix or renovate or put Band-Aids on a building that is already not structurally sound or has other major factors like air quality that it may not do as much to mitigate those other things.  So, yes, it could help. Would it balance with some of the other things? I think it depends on what your building is and I worked in a school one time and I said to somebody did a great renovation of a poorly designed and when they finish they still had a poorly designed building. So I think you have to look at the building and you have to decide whether or not it can be brought up and if you can address those issues that have to do with health as well as some of the I guess you call that microenvironment so I can just call it cosmetics features but yes, so I don't know if that answers your question because it would depend on the building but I would be asking somebody.  And do they make a difference?  Yes. AUDIENCE MEMBER AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Dr. Cash, could you, would you be able to address the life cycle of a building and its performance to support instruction in relation to changing educational philosophies? DR. CASH:  I don't know if I can give you a whole lot of good research on it because so many times there is a major renovation in the middle of it, so I could have a hundred year building that has had quality major renovations and it could still be a good building.  Does that make sense and I'm not an architect so if it but what about I would say is that when I think about the buildings were built in the twenties that had the high ceilings and the wide spaces and and had the natural lighting I would tend to say I compared those two that I'm working in the 70s for I had to have a flashlight in case the power went out and I would say age didn't have anything to do it as much as the design.  So, I think it depends it depends on when it was built and how it was built but I think it's gotten now that we volume higher higher level of bandwidth when we're dealing with technology sometimes some of those buildings that were built with lots of bricks that you weren't going to be able to get through - that you can maybe now - so I think it's and I would say you wouldn't automatically say a hundred year building isn't good but you would look at what it needs to be to come back and you might look at some of those ones that were built in that time periood where we had a different philosophy and consider those even before you did that one. DR. PERRIGAN:  We're looking at in a recommendation, my recommendation to our school board is that we close our three oldest elementary schools one being built in 38, one in 48, and one in 68.  I would say using that criteria that are 1948 building is a better building in our 1968 building. Really, at Stonewall Jackson, all you have to do is look at the recommend renovation costs. It's much less to do renovations at Stonewall Jackson than it is to do at Washington-Lee, even though it's 20 years newer at Washington Lee. So, I agree, you know. DR. CASH:  I don't know all the rules on ADA, but I would say when you do a major renovation, you usually have to to bring everything up to standard and that might create some problems for some of the buildings that are older but but you would want to do that anyway because you want to have access for your students. DR. PERRIGAN:  Other questions? Now, this is instructional strategiey called "Wait Time," if I wait long enough somebody will raise their hand. DR. CASH:  Do you know what wait time stands for? Why Am I Talking?  [Chuckles] Somebody told me that I thought maybe I'll wait longer now.  DR. PERRIGAN:  Very Good. DR. CASH:  Now that I know that. DR. CASH:  I appreciate your allowing me to come out here and I really do and I hope I see some more of the schools tomorrow. DR. PERRIGAN:  With that being said, I thought you know it's it's good to see when I look around the room most of the folks that have been in here have been very involved in this process which has been in part of the task that our School Board gave me when they hired me.  They have developed a plan in 2011 that they wanted to move to a 2 elementary school model and when they hired me 2 Decembers ago and I started in January. My task was to make that plan a reality and we've we've come a long way we've had a lot of ideas and we knew it had a lot of mountains and a lot of valleys but there's a view of being involved in the process know that we're really no further along today then we were two years ago and I think the Bristol newspaper said it best a couple of Sundays ago when they said compromise is needed and I and followed up with a response and I feel like our School Board has compromised a lot we've tried to complete the task that City Council has asked us to do and we still haven't made a lot of progress.   I think if you've been at City Council meetings if you've been at our School Board meetings I think it you that you're probably is fair say that we've come to an impasse and I'm not doing a lot to change the minds of the three folks who voted against our new school I don't think I did a lot to sell the idea that we need to do some renovations in the short-term to make our schools safe, accessible and functional even if they do not approve the budget I don't think that we're going to get the 14 million dollars that we would need to make those schools safe, accessible and functional so I think we probably come to the point where we would need an outside person to come in and moderate those discussions and I think Dr. Cash would be a good person to be a moderator from that because it conversations with Dr. Cash she doesn't believe building a new building is the necessarily the best option she doesn't necessarily believe that renovating old buildings is the best option but I think you can tell from her research what she does believe is that the better our buildings are the more our students learn and I think all of us in the room regardless if we if we support consolidation or if we can support renovation I think we can all agree that we want our students to learn more and Mr. Hartley, if you'll pass the word on to City Council I know that we don't have all of them here tonight but they'll have an opportunity to watch the video.  I think it from our School Board side we would like to reach our hand out and say that we would offer Dr. Carol Cash as a potential moderator to help us further discussion not necessarily to decide whether we're going to build a new school, renovate or old schools, but to help us at least come up with a plan so that our students and our families and our parents know that something has to be done to with our schools and you know I'll never quit trying.   I will always fight for our kids but I also see that that I'm not being very effective right now and I think Dr. Cash could help us lead that discussion and and and maybe bring some compromise into the room and if Mr. Hartley, if you'll take that suggestion to your fellow City Council Members I would greatly appreciate that. I guess that's okay for me to say, Mr. Alvis? Okay. Any questions for me before we we call it a night? Any elephants in the room that need to be exposed? Yes, sir? AUDIENCE MEMBER:  One of the topics that came up was concerning student density. Do you know what the student density is for the proposed new school?  DR. PERRIGAN:   For the proposed new school, if you have a calculator out I can tell you that it would be 86,000 square feet and 600 students so I'm going to guess that's about a hundred and fifty students. okay Mental Math got me close to that we are we're at better than 100 at all of our elementary schools, I will tell you we have we have two separate problems - our students that go to Highland View and you folks that went there today, you saw that we have class sizes of 12 in kindergarten. Then we go across the you know two hills,  two neighborhoods, we go to Van Pelt and our kindergarten classes have 24 students in them. So, even though Van Pelt a newer and maybe better more handicap accessible building their problems are with noise because we're going to you know an open California-style classroom and we got 24 kids in this pod, this pod, this pod of this part and there's no wall separating them but then we got to Highland View and we have a building with poor facilities but the good news is it there is we only have 12 kids for each teacher and so those relationships are so strong and the attention is so good so we know we really have a tale of two Bristol's and each side of Bristol has a different issue. We have a plan to help all of those issues we just have to get City Council on board and put in that direction.  One way or the other whether it's doing renovations which is not my everybody knows that's not my top pick or if it's consolidating and building a new school, regardless zip code should not have an impact on student learning. Actually if you break it down in Bristol the name of your street should not have an impact on student learning.  Folks, I'll tell you in Bristol it does it truly does and and if you if you believe any of the research that Dr. Cash shared here tonight, I mean you have to agree with that now we have great teachers at all four of elementary schools who love their kids, who build the best relationships they can with them in and teach them just as hard as they can each and every day, but the facility does matter and whether it's a 1938 building or a 1974 building our kids deserve the very best and I'm going to continue to fight to make sure that our kids get the very best and that it may take us a month and it may take us two more years and it may take us five more years but it's a fight worth fighting I know our board has been doing working on this since 2011 and they're not going to give up either so we'll continue to work and hopefully we can reach a compromise with City Council and we and find a way to get to yes because we're really talking about Bristol's future here we have to look at our students as an opportunity and not an obligation.  That's the bottom line, our students are an opportunity for Bristol not an obligation.  So, unless there are other questions, great questions. Oh, Ms. Marney, I thought I was going to get by scott free tonight!  [Chuckles] AUDIENCE MEMBER:   Is this on? At the risk of getting into something I will not have the time or the inclination to finish tonight, I would like to make a statement or two. DR. PERRIGAN:  Can you turn that buzzer on? [Chuckles] Alright, go, Ms. Marney. AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I have had a lot of experience with student teachers through the years. I have taught a number of student teachers and I took that chore very, very seriously. The issue of facility was never paramount in that process but the thing that was paramount both to me and these young people who were quite smart, was knowledge, technique of teaching. Are you up to it or are you not? Can you hear me now? The issue involved at that time was are you a good teacher? Do you know what you're talking about? Do you know how to get that information across to the students? Do you do creative thinking? critical thinking ? Are you any good at what you're doing or should you be out here doing something else? Now, this is what we went through. And this to this day to me is the greatest most important issue of all is to get the best creative teachers you can get and to have the curriculum that fits that and they'll work it out. Now, you're talking about a lot of facility here and I have strong thoughts and I'm not going to get into that tonight.  But I will say this, a lot of what you're talking about is pure cosmetic. You know there's a whole, there's a whole issue of the psychology of color.  You can go down here to to the Library and get a book and come up with that. That color of blue they were showing tonight would have driven me insane. And if I had gone into a classroom with purple and orange and yellow, I probably would have left screaming. Where do we do contemplative thinking? How do we teach that?  You don't do that in a room that's got people so wired and jazzed up that they can't sit still long enough to think creatively. My point is this, I think that we should be very, very cautious, very careful about trying to put the main emphasis on structure and facility rather than on the real problem, and that is the teaching and the imparting of knowledge. I don't care what your technology is.  I don't care what level it is. You can not be successful with any technology without the 3 R's. You have got to know how to read, write and do arithmetic. Now, the Chinese have been known to be ahead of us at least at some point in technology in and of itself. But in order to make that technology work and be as effective as it needed to be they had to send their top people to the United States to pick up a little liberal arts and a little of the 3 R's.  That is documented. That is fact. So, let me just urge this group of people here tonight. Yes, there may come a time when we need to build a new school. I do not think it's now. I'm not opposed to any new school. I'm opposed to a new school now. I think we have in place at this time everything we need.  It can be worked on. Of course, we need make some changes. That can be done. That can be done. I think that the concentration, we are a high poverty level.  It is not because of the structures.  That has not caused the poverty in this city. That has been the cause and it will not be the solution. It may help, but it is not the solution.  You will find your solution in the best teachers, creative and the curriculum and use what we've got to the best we can and I'm telling you, you will see results .  A good teacher will give you results.  Thank you, Sir. DR. PERRIGAN:  Thank you and I'm going to say Amen this morning because we also believe that the number one factor in student achievement is the teacher in the classroom and I think that Dr. Cash said that as well that the facility is a "third factor" that does come into it too, so if we ignore that, we take the ability of our teachers to be their best away from them, and as a matter of fact you... I mean, our salary scale that I've recommend it is going to be the best.  We're going to pay our teachers better than anybody in our region, except when you cross the state line because we want our kids to have the best teachers.  But we want our teachers to teach in the very best facilities as we can and that maybe now it may be 5 years from now.  I don't know, but we cannot continue to send our children to subpar facilities - I guess we can, but I'm not going to I'm not going to be quiet about it. AUDIENCE MEMBER:  The facilities are not the problem. That's the point I'm making. You all, not you, but the big conglomerate of opinions. Are trying to put the problem is the facililty itself. DR. PERRIGAN:  No, we're not. AUDIENCE MEMBER:  And I don't go along with it at all. DR. PERRIGAN:  Yeah. AUDIENCE MEMBER:  And I think that is what's happened with this group we're talking about. I've been going through this for 30 years down here and down there. [Unclear] I know what you're saying, but I am not the new kid. I have been through a lot and I've lived in 5 different states.  I've done a whole lot. DR. PERRIGAN:  Yes, ma'am. AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I am trying to offer and bring to you some good experience, that I have had problems that have already been solved.  You're reinventing the wheel.  And you're trying to put the blame primarily on facilities and that's not where the blame belongs. DR. PERRIGAN:  Thank you. Further questions? Alright. Class dismissed.

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Dr. Carol Cash Presentation - Building Conditions and Student Outcomes 3-28-2019

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