Part Of My Past Now Gone

This is a postcard I ot recently. I am glad that I did because this school was / is being demolished. The demolition started in mid 2012 and continues to this day. Only the original section (top left of structure) still remains but, we don't know for how long.

This is a nice card published by the Herald Gazette Press, a company that also publishes a local paper here.

Chimo

Bujutsu

Am I the only one who has been noticing that school systems across the US are quick to demolish schools built in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s for more modern school buildings, claiming the layout of the old building is too obsolete or costly to be retrofitted for current educational needs?

I remember as a youth being in schools that were 50 or 100 years old. Today, if they are 30 years old, they are considered outdated and in need of replacement.

So true wt1. You never know what type of environmental hazards were used in building them. When we were kids they couldn't spell environmental. It just wasn't in the vocabulary. (Thank goodness for spell checker) Today they raise new taxes and sell more bonds because they can. You have to pick the winners on what history that needs to be preserved. The rest of it goes on postcards and pictures for us to remember. Save the postcard and tell your kids and grand kids how you had to walk 5 miles in white out conditions just to get there.

My town here in MA has a rather high rate of school fires. Usually ones that have not yet gotten any federal money for repairs/replacements, somehow catch fire... ehem... My brother used to work for the school system, and I can tell you that deferred maintainance is rampant. If these older schools were actually maintained, they could last far longer. Those old brick schools were really built. But now if your kid isn't sitting in a school that looks like a 5-star hotel, you are a bad parent.

Our latest new school is already having problems. The outdoor HVAC equipment is so loud, neighbors are complaining. They never had any problems with the OLD school. And now the school will need $$ in replacement equipment.

Seems to be the way anymore- I remember when Joe Louis arena in detroit was built in 1979 and already they are saying it is more cost effective to build a new arena than fix the "Joe" That was a 57 million dollar venture in 79 so hard to believe a new one would be senseable- However the troughs in the mens room could definatly be replaced with somewhat more privacy .
Good ole days at school when water pipes were all lead and we still managed to come out with higher IQ's than todays masses .

Don't get me started! I have two children in elementary school, and I can't stand all the "teaching to the test." I honestly think that's a big part of the problem. The teachers have to figure out some way to teach all the same stuff to all the students within some state-mandated schedule.