Crisis in Our Public Schools: A Failed School Construction Program

Guest Columnist

Public education holds the key to Florida's future.  Quality of life, economic development, public safety, and many other issues are related to the success or failure of our public schools.  Virtually everyone agrees that reducing class size would be a major step in the right direction.  However, we must recognize that spending more would not get us there nearly as quickly as would spending more productively.
In Miami-Dade County, there is widespread frustration with overcrowded and grossly neglected public school facilities. These conditions are not the result of a lack of funding for school construction and renovation; instead they are the result of the failure of the Miami-Dade County School Board to manage an efficient and effective school construction program.
The Miami-Dade County School Board has spent billions of dollars in capital construction funds during the last ten years. The public's investment has yielded relatively little results, as so much of the funds have disappeared into a drain of waste and irresponsibility. 
Enrollment has outpaced new construction. Older schools have fallen into such disrepair as to constitute safety and building code violations. While the need to replace or renovate old, obsolete and potentially unsafe structures is clear to everyone other than the School Board, the school system in Miami-Dade persists in squandering millions of dollars on consultants, architects, engineers, and plans that rarely lead to any actual construction.
The impact of the district's failure to use available construction funds is countywide.  Numerous examples show students and teachers suffering in deficient facilities. One of the many examples is Miami Beach Senior High School.  
Beach High's facilities do far more to detract from the potential of educational quality and achievement than they do to enhance that potential.  The School Board's own consultants and inspection reports find that the buildings have long been "functionally obsolete" and are rapidly becoming "structurally obsolete."  It has been repeatedly confirmed that attempts to repair the buildings and bring them up to code would cost far more than it would to replace the school with entirely new, modern facilities.
Beach High's facility deficiencies produce hazards and problems on a continuous basis.  Air conditioning failures, electrical failures and shorts, roof leaks, building flooding, plumbing failures, and/or other conditions occur DAILY at Beach High.  The school's underground utilities and infrastructure have rotted away while state and local funding for the construction and maintenance of school facilities has been squandered.
Even at new schools such as Felix Varela Senior High, the ongoing failure of the construction program is evident. Varela was recently opened but is already operating at over 175% of capacity.  Due to the incredibly slow pace, high cost, and ineffectiveness of the construction program, students and educators at both old and new schools are suffering with grossly inadequate facilities.
While construction projects linger indefinitely, the School Board continues to waste money on plans, studies, plans to do more studies, and studies about doing more plans. Capital funds are spread around to special interests, favored consultants, and used to cover deficit operations in other areas.  Actual results in terms of bringing new classrooms on line are obviously not a priority.
The Miami-Dade County School Board's own records reveal that it is now sitting with over a billion dollars in idle and "currently available" capital construction funds. Nevertheless, it steadfastly claims that it has no money and has become expert at constructing excuses rather than desperately needed new schools.
Once issues of waste and inefficiency have been truly resolved, officials at all levels of government can work together to create a consensus on determining any additional funding that may be necessary for building the future of public education.  In the meantime, we need to focus on fixing the broken pipeline of school construction funds so that public resources that are devoted to building schools will promptly come out at the other end in the form of efficiently produced modern and first rate schools.


Paul D. Novack, an attorney, is mayor of the Town of Surfside and a member of the State of Florida Advisory and Oversight Board for the Miami-Dade County Public School District.