Lake Oswego School Board Testimony, May 2024
Research, Data and Evidence Supporting the Decision to Rebuild Lake Grove Elementary in Place
Lindsey Boccia
A newly re-built Lake Grove Elementary School in place is a smart, visible investment to drive GROWTH in enrollment and Capture Rates. The Lake Grove enrollment area is where the dense population center is living and will live in the future.
Lake Oswego has never closed an at-capacity, in-demand, high growth school. Although district enrollment is stagnant or declining, Lake Grove Elementary School is bucking that trend and has the highest growth rate projected vs. any other neighborhood school in the district according to the February 2024 School Board Meeting PSU Projections. That’s +29% growth projected over the next 10 years. Lake Grove Elementary School, AT THIS MOMENT, currently enrolls the highest amount of Kindergarteners in the district, 73. That’s +35% more kindergartners than the average school in district. A healthy kindergarten enrollment is the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT METRIC a school can look to for indications of improving capture rates, which fell dramatically during covid and the district needs to get back up. The Lake Grove enrollment area also contains one of the largest inventories of developable land for future housing west of the school that will lead to future growth in the city’s Housing Production Strategy. There is evidence that YOUNG FAMILIES (critical to increasing capture rates) are ALREADY choosing the Lake Grove Enrollment boundary to INVEST THEIR HARD-EARNED INCOMES into housing because of the success of the School, the walkable Lake Grove Village Center and the desirable walkable community that thrives within it. The February Board Meeting updated PSU enrollment projections were never shared with the LRFPC. The LRFPC were shown an outdated enrollment forecast chart with no source during their February 2024 meeting, displaying a -110 student undercount at Lake Grove for 33/34 school year vs the updated PSU numbers. It was quoted during the last LRFPC meeting that “We’re in the business of kids”. If that’s the case, Lake Grove is your largest market and you should fish where the fish are : create a visible Elementary School presence in our Lake Grove Village Center.
Full Video Recording of Feb 2024 Board meeting ; LRFPC Meeting Minutes Feb 2024- outdated projections ; Updated PSU Enrollment Forecast: PDF CLICK HERE (chart pasted below);
Closing the Lake Grove Elementary School in the Lake Grove Village Center is in direct conflict with the Lake Oswego Comprehensive Plan. Rigorous public and community planning was completed and the city must work towards execution of the pedestrian centered Lake Grove Village Center Plan. The Lake Grove Elementary School is contained in the vision statement of the plan.
In Ordinance 2454 of the Lake Oswego Comprehensive Plan, The Lake Grove Village Center Plan calls for an Elementary school in the vision statement. “Public Uses, including an Elementary school… are located within the Village Center and serve West End Residents…”. Ordinance 2454 is an ordinance of the Lake Oswego City Council amending the Lake Oswego Comprehensive Plan Map and Text to include the Lake Grove Village Center Plan, and adopting findings in LU 06-0025-1666. Microsoft Word – 2454-LakeGroveVillagePlan-CompPlanAmend.doc (oswego.or.us)
Closing the Lake Grove Elementary School in the Lake Grove Village Center is in direct conflict with the Lake Oswego School District vision for “Neighborhood Schools”. A move to Uplands would almost eliminate walkability to the school to the vast majority of the population that it would serve. A move is in direct conflict with the research paper “Why Johnny Can’t Walk to School”, which was the original basis and groundwork for the movement to identify and save “Neighborhood Schools” .
The Lake Oswego School District also refers to elementary schools as “Neighborhood Schools” in the 2020 Long Range Facility Plan. Moving the school out and away from the majority of the population it serves to Uplands will no longer qualify as a neighborhood school. Lake Grove currently scores as the most walkable school in the entire district on the EPA Smart Location Tool (70) vs the worst score of Uplands (22). The decision to move to Uplands is in direct conflict with: The Safe Routes to School Program, The Oregon School Citing Handbook, The EPA Smart Location Tool, the EPA Smart School Siting Tool, The American Academy of Pediatrics Policy Statement on Child Pedestrian Safety June 20, 2023. The route from the Lake Grove Village Center to Uplands School is a 250 ft elevation gain and has geographic elements that provides no safe neighborhood route. Smart Location Calculator (gsa.gov), DRAFTHandbook_7_20.indd (oregon.gov), Child Pedestrian Safety | Pediatrics | American Academy of Pediatrics (aap.org); , Smart School Siting Tool | US EPA
Closing the Lake Grove Elementary School in the Lake Grove Village Center is in direct conflict with the Lake Oswego School District’s Equity Lens Policy:
The Lake Oswego School District’s Equity Lens Policy requires that all decisions on facilities are filtered through the impact on traditionally marginalized populations. The Lake Grove Elementary School is currently in a walkable location to the Hacienda CDC Low Income Housing units being developed on Boones Ferry Road. Lake Grove Elementary is the 3rd most diverse school in the District. It has the second lowest median estimated household income, the highest percent of households receiving public assistance. (PSU Report, February school board meeting) https://loswegok12.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=3&clip_id=840&meta_id=61472
Hazard Materials are in Uplands: Lead in the Water, Lead Paint and Asbestos from the 1960 facility are a risk to kids. Lake Oswego should strive to send LESS KIDS to old buildings with hazmat conditions, NOT MORE.
The Sunk Cost Fallacy has occurred at Uplands and will continue to cause expensive, lengthy, cumbersome, repairs that won’t add long term value due to the hazmat materials in the building. Although “promote health and resiliency” is listed as a strategic pillar of focus for the district, the Long Range Facility Plan LEFT OUT ALL DISCUSSION of Hazard Materials and the impacts on children. One of the LRFPC members attempted to query “But is an old renovated building just as good as a new building?” to which the answer was “Yes”. Hazard Material Information was not disclosed. Hazard materials were also left of the Facilities Conditions Assessment in which all facility decisions have been based on during the last bond measures: LOSD_FCA_May2021_LR.pdf (arcadis-edpnw.com) . In the Facilities Condition Assessment report from 2021, it was quoted as being left out due to not being “of expertise.
- LEAD IN WATER DETAIL: There were 15 faucets in Uplands that tested in 2022 above the American Academy of Pediatrics Recommended Lead Limits for water of 1ppb. That was AFTER a remodel in which much of the piping was replaced. It’s hard to find the source of lead in old buildings and even once fixed with filters, different faucets can turn up as lead-containing with time (true when evaluating the 2016 results to 2022 results). The 2022 Uplands water test results can be found here: UP_2059009 Alexin_DW PbSchool FINAL 03 11 22 1634 (losdschools.org) The 15ppb “bare minimum” state legal requirements of mentioned by the district are NOT A HEALTH-BASED LIMIT, it is based on pipe corrosion effects from an old 1991 copper and lead rule that addresses pipe corrosion levels.
American Academy of Pediatrics Releases Policy Statement Lead Toxicity
Lead-Report_drinking Water – inspired more than 11 states to create strict health based school limits
EPA sets maximum contaminant level goal for lead at zero
- LEAD IN PAINT DETAIL: 60% of the lead paint samples tested in the 11/29/2018 hazard materials report in Uplands tested positive for lead with many of them over 10x the legal limit of lead paint levels that the Consumer Product Safety Commission allows for children’s products. The CDC states that “ Almost all inhaled lead is absorbed into the body (with children generally absorbing a higher percentage than adults, as they have a higher respiratory frequency”
Lead (Pb) Toxicity: What Are Routes of Exposure to Lead? | Environmental Medicine | ATSDR (cdc.gov) About Lead in Paint | Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention | CDC
- ASBESTOS DETAIL: Uplands still contains asbestos in classrooms, even after a lengthy abatement to the hallways that was required for repairs during a 2019 remodel. Old buildings with asbestos create extra cost, time, expertise and require hazmat containment and disposal procedures and full hazmat suits for anyone working on renovating the building, as it did in 2019. Uplands also requires 3-month reinspection’s and heavy administrative book keeping and reporting to keep up with federal AHERA transparency laws. Asbestos is only good until it’s not. That’s why it’s illegal to important ANY asbestos containing material into the United States today. Recent research and policy statements by the W.H.O. and publications from Reuters to call attention to the impacts of asbestos particles becoming airborne particularly during earthquakes and warn that secondary impacts to those in the building can cause more harm or death in the long run than the earthquake itself. With Cascadia earthquake on the horizon, make the choice to protect kids. Not all asbestos is able to be found easily. PBS environmental notes on Uplands 2019 survey “suspect asbestos-containing materials may be present and concealed within wall, ceiling, or floor spaces.”
Asbestos Is Finally Banned in the U.S. Here’s Why It Took So Long | Scientific American;
W.H.O. earthquake impact on asbestos
The Devastating Aftermath: Unveiling the Hazards of Asbestos Exposure in Turkey’s Earthquakes
The Link Between Asbestos and Natural Disasters | McKenzie Community Partners
The toxic dust from Turkey’s earthquakes (reuters.com)
Asbestos Dangers Lurking in Turkey’s Earthquake Zone
Uplands is less safe seismically than a newly rebuilt school would be.
Although Gyms district-wide were retrofitted for Risk Category 4, the ASCE 41 Seismic standards used for the classrooms at Uplands are Risk Category 3 are highlighted in green below. That’s less safety in the classrooms themselves than the standards that were used in recent New Construction Schools: Risk Category 4 (more safe) was used at Lakeridge Middle and Rivergrove schools both in the classrooms and the totality of the buildings.
Closing the Lake Grove Elementary School ball fields would eliminate the only dedicated girls softball field in Lake Oswego, putting the program at risk.
The Lake Grove Elementary Softball fields are the only dedicated access for Girls Softball in Lake Oswego. The program is at risk if the ball fields close. The fields are also identified as a state-approved inventory as a historic site. It is rare that an open space would receive this categorization, but alignment was made in 2016 of their historic resource, given the original Lake Grove School was sited on the fields and was burned to the ground on the site in the 1948 fire.
The Lake Grove community would experience a long-term loss sacrificing of one of the cities most historic, walkable, neighborhood schools in the population center of the city. Instead of having our children sent to another old, hazmat-containing 1960 facility, please consider in contrast, saving budget on nice-to-have line items. Please don’t make Lake Grove pay the whole tab for generations to come.
Charters must be followed in LRFPC meetings to allow for authentic public process.
The Long Range Facility Planning Committee did not participate in community and parent outreach, nor was public comment allowed in meetings, as required in the Long Range Facility Planning Committee Charter linked here: LRFP Board Appointed Committee Charter_2023
Had public comment been observed per charter, corrections could have been made in a timely manner to data at the beginning of subsequent meetings. For example, when it was pondered by the committee if office space was available for lease on meadows road, an answer of “no its completely full” was given which ended that dialogue. That evening more than 100,000+ SF of leasable office space was listed for lease on the LoopNet.com on Meadows Road and Kruse way office park.
There are deed restrictions on approx. 2.5 acres of the land that was donated to Lake Grove Elementary to build a school. There is legal risk to community for the bond to build something other than a school on the segment of the property containing the North Wing of the property and current parking lot.
The deed has been left off this document for privacy of the land donors.
—————————————————————————————————————————–
Meeting Note: This board meeting could have been held in one of the many large rooms or libraries that we have invested in inside the schools. Even if it’s a conversation that’s inconvenient, disabling public gathering and listening on the topic by choosing the smallest room is restrictive to authentic in-person public input and listening.
HISTORIC PHOTO GALLERY: LAKE GROVE ELEMENTARY
