Worth the fight: some board members lost their posts in the battle over new vs. renovation, but...

A tour of the new Crawfordsville, Ind., High School reveals many of the amenities students and staff have come to expect from modern educational facilities. There's a 50-meter, Olympic-sized swimming pool; a centralized student locker area across from the administration offices; nine computer labs; a 750-seat auditorium; 53 classrooms; a gymnasium seating 2,716; and a three-lane, balcony jogging track. All for a price tag of $31 million.

But the sparkling, 275,000-square-foot building

almost wasn't built. This Indiana community debated, fought and argued for more than seven years over whether to renovate the existing high school or construct a new building on a new site. Members of the Crawfordsville School Corp. Board of Trustees were voted out of office based on their position. Today, three years after the new school opened, a handful of residents still believe it would have been better to remodel.

"We took the position - and it turned out to be a naive position - that if we did our homework, weighed all the pros and cons of both renovation and building new, whatever decision we reached, people would understand," says Dr. Les Hearson, professor of biology and registrar of Wabash College, who gained a school board seat based on his opinion that the district should build a new school. Hearson then served for eight years as board president. "Some people have strong emotional ties to their school...and had a hard time...envisioning a new school. Some will always believe [that]...we should have kept the old school."

One of the most striking aspects of the dispute is that there was no dissension over whether the high school needed to be updated. Everyone agreed "something" had to be done about the old building. The downtown facility was built in 1910 on a site dedicated to education since 1852. It was one of the state's oldest school buildings still being used for its original purpose. By the 1980s, it was clear that the old building and the site no longer had the space to meet state requirements or provide a modern curriculum.

No Space for Sports

For starters, "we had to bus our students off campus for outdoor P.E. classes," says Charles Fiedler, principal of Crawfordsville High School since 1987. "There's not a lot of time for activity during a 50-minute period if you need 20 minutes to dress and be transported to another site."

All outdoor athletics, including football, baseball and softball, were held off-site. Due to the extra transportation time and competition for space, some practices ran as late as 11 p.m.

A significant aspect of the construction debate was that the high school was landlocked. To expand, the district would have had to use its right of eminent domain to purchase most of the surrounding residential neighborhood. The projected price: more than $500,000, excluding legal fees and relocation costs.

However, the district owned an undeveloped 80-acre plot on the outskirts of town, purchased in the 1960s. "Someone back then had a lot of foresight," says current board president Michael D. McCormick. "And it made a lot of things possible in the new school."

The existing facility also presented technical problems. It would not easily lend itself to updated electrical, plumbing and HVAC systems - especially wiring and cabling for computer labs.

"To most of us, it was a no-brain answer," Fiedler says. "It was a situation where we felt we had an opportunity to put everything we, wanted on one site in a new building."

The architectural firm of R. W. Clinton & Associates, Richmond, Ind., was sensitive to the community's needs, providing many feasibility studies, reports and estimates requested by the school board to help in the decision-making process. The team closely examined everything from educational programs to the physical plant.

After creating a comprehensive list of required classrooms, gym space and locker facilities, the architects determined that the existing building would need a 90,000-square-foot addition merely to accommodate basic needs. This figure did not include such amenities as a swimming pool or auxiliary gym.

Renovation Costs More

The team calculated that upgrading the existing facility would cost about $26 million. By contrast, their initial cost projection for a new building, including all desired additions and amenities, was only $23 million.

"Renovation can be done, but it is difficult," says Ed Soots, primary architect for the new high school. "There are some compromises in the way you can use space, and it's more difficult to get new technology, like computer wiring, into the building.

"Plus, putting all that new technology into an old shell is simply not energy-efficient."

District officials agreed with the architects' assessment. "I really felt that they should build a new building, after looking at the feasibility of renovating an old building," recalls Dr. John Coomer, who was superintendent of Crawfordsville Schools during the process and is now superintendent of the Monroe County Community School Corp., Bloomington, Ind.

"The old building had become obsolete. No amount of updating could bring it up to the standards...of what a new building could provide."

Most of Crawfordsville's school board members came to share that view. But a very vocal and determined group of citizens, led by an attorney who had been voted off the school board, were committed to renovation. Suits were filed; both sides ran frequent newspaper ads denouncing the other side's studies and credibility. Multiple hearings were held. Finally, the state of Indiana stepped in to try to resolve the dispute.

The opposition was able to stall a final decision until 1990, when another school board election was held. The community overwhelmingly re-elected a slate of pro-new-school candidates, including Hearson.

"The public didn't buy into the proposition that it would cost less to renovate than to build new," says McCormick, who graduated from the old high school in 1969 and sympathized with residents' emotional ties to the building.

"Community members could see...that we had an opportunity to build a new school that would bring us into the '90s and into the 21st century."

That election sealed the decision to build a new school, although by then, the delays had inflated the construction costs. By the time the new school was dedicated in October 1993, the final cost was $31 million.

Construction Helps the Community

The new building not only serves 700 students during the day but is also well used by the community. The computer labs are in demand by adults for community education classes; several outside groups use the 750-seat auditorium; and Crawfordsville citizens take advantage of the walking track, pool and weight room. (Students and adults use separate dressing rooms.)

A long-term goal is to link the high school with a new city recreation center. Utilities and other facilities are already in place to accommodate the additional use.

"Everything we did was with the future in mind," says Paul Pfledderer, director of support services for the district. "We wanted to make this a school that would serve the entire community, not just students and staff."

By almost any measure, the new Crawfordsville High School is an outstanding example of how to create an environment conducive to learning. A naturally lit main lobby/commons area is the heart of the building. The cafeteria and student lockers are adjacent to this area, and can be secured from the rest of the building.

All classrooms have natural lighting and ventilation, with views into the courtyard or surrounding woods. Each room is connected to a centralized media retrieval system.

The new high school is a success. On one campus and in one building, all of the elements of a well-rounded academic and athletic program could be combined. The one-stop philosophy keeps disruptions to a minimum, fully accommodating both classes and extracurricular activities.

It was an agonizing decision to move from a beloved community structure into a new building. But by working closely with community members as well as high school faculty and staff, the Crawfordsville Community School Corp. was able to create a building that everyone can enjoy and use well into the next century.

Crawfordsville at a Glance

Location: Crawfordsville, Ind.

Key personnel: Dr. Craig Glenn, superintendent; Paul Pfledderer, director of support services; Michael D. McCormick, school board president

Students: 2,438

Annual budget: $11.7 million

Spending per student: $4,900

Number of buildings: 8