School leaders say they want to hear from the public before they adopt the use of cafetoriums in new middle schools.

As noted in today’s article, the school board will vote Tuesday on eliminating a separate auditorium in favor of combining the auditorium and the cafeteria at new middle schools. That was one of the recommendations in the CFAC report.

Despite the fact that school administrators are recommending the change, you get the feeling that they’re not thrilled to do so. As noted in the CFAC report, school leaders had initially argued against cafetoriums because they said auditoriums “give legitimacy to theater arts” and “the Wake County community expects these spaces.”

A large wave of community opposition between now and Tuesday against cafetoriums could give the school district some cover for not implementing that CFAC recommendation.

Click here to view some auditorium designs. The first one is what's now used for middle schools. The second one was rejected by administrators. The third image is what's being recommended Tuesday.

10/11/07 at 06:16
Thank you for including the links to the design samples. However, without an idea what he cost differences are between the three I'm not sure how we (or they) could evaluate.

My first impression is that, like most of the other CFAC suggestions I saw, it's a rather silly economy - penny-wise, pound-foolish. The fact that all they could come up with was suggestions like this seems like confirmation that there is NOT a lot of wasteful spending or legitimate efficiency to be found on the constuction side of the house.

10/11/07 at 06:48
Chaboard,
That is one conclusion. Another is, since the CFAC was comprised almost entirely of people who make money off WCPSS construction, they have little motivation to cut costs.

The truth is likely somewhere in between.

10/11/07 at 06:49
chaboard,

The first image, the current model, is $42.6 million. The third image, with the cafetorium now being recommended, is $42.3 million. The middle image, which was the hybrid design rejected by administrators, is somewhere in between the other two in cost. They rejected that one because it had a sloped floor that would have made it hard to move the cafeteria tables around.

10/11/07 at 06:54
Exactly - Penny Wise Pound Foolish.

"Burriss said using a cafetorium will reduce the size of a middle school by 2000 square feet and cut $300,000 out of the $42.6 million price tag"

So the savings amounts to 7/10 of one percent.

Let's put it in the perspective of a home buyer. If a builder offered to build you a house for $200,000, but said he could save you $1400 (.7 percent) if you would eliminate the dining area (e.g. dining room, breakfast nook) and replace it with a kitchen table-- would you consider it a smart choice? Keep in mind that saving $1400 on your home would reduce your house payment (30 year mortgage at 6%) by about $8/month.

There are much better ways to save money in Wake County.

10/11/07 at 06:55
the savings is peanuts to the system. The data from the CFAC showed Wake's costs to be out of line with other comparably sized districts. the CFAC did not make the kinds of significant recommendations I was expecting. Our costs will continue to be out of line and we will be paying for it through megabonds. Dr. Cris

10/11/07 at 07:43

It's possible that the CFAC was tainted, sure. But I'll point out that the outside, independent study they commissioned *also* had a hard time coming up with any real savings on construction that didn't involve cutting actual service to the kids. I read the whol ething and with one or two small exceptions that's all even the outsiders could come up with.

10/11/07 at 07:45
So then how do the other districts do it? Their have lower per student construction costs. The CFAC focused on per ft², not per student.

10/11/07 at 07:59
Rich,

I think part of it is supply and demand. This area is growing so fast and there is so much work avialble for construction companies that they don't need to cut any deals. They can keep thier prices high, because if one potential customer thinks the cost is too high, there are two other potential customers waiting to say yes.

10/11/07 at 09:13
Ron shared with me that one of our huge expenses is cost of land and architectural beautifications like the three story atriums in high schools that add to the costs of building our schools.

Since the new schools that are being built are all in the county, there is no reason to short change amenities....gracious they are already spending less per student here with MYR and no elementary school magnets....why add insult to injury?

I bet I can already guess how the voting is going to go....

10/11/07 at 14:24
Another point--with lunch going all day as a result of overcrowding a separate space is needed for auditorium actitivities to be held at the same time....

10/11/07 at 14:49
"School leaders say they want to hear from the public before they adopt the use of cafetoriums in new middle schools."


But why? You folks don't really WANT to hear from us, so save us all the time and don't bother. Since you NEVER seem to listen when you put on these "make believe forums" DON'T BOTHER, just do as normal and do what YOU want.

It's ok, we trust you all!

10/11/07 at 14:56
GM,
Good point, I had missed that. Here is the link:
http://www.wcpss.net/news/2007_oct9_auditorium/
No indication there that they want feedback, never mind an actual method to give it.

10/12/07 at 05:30
The diagrams are missing some important information --- How many people will the modified versions seat?

Even at 528 seats, the original auditorium size, you're looking at an auditorium that will barely fit in half the student population. If the seating size of the revised auditoriums is less than that, they have not provided a useful space for the school. As it is, our PTA is being hounded for more money from the school to provide funding for people coming to the school to provide an extra performance so that all kids can see it.

Our middle school also has more than 100 students in each grade level of band. When the school has band performances, the 200 seat capacity would be more than filled by band parents. It is not a practical size.

Also, how practical is it to fill a flat space with 500 chairs and attempt to have people past the 6th row be able to see anything happening on the stage? Seriously, they should go into a similarly sized space (such as the gym) and stack it in with chairs as densely populated as they are planning on in these plans. What point is there in having this as a performance space when once you actually put chairs in there it will be impossible for 95% of the students or parents crammed in there to see what is happening on the stage because all they can see is the backs of the heads in front of them?

10/13/07 at 20:57
they are nitpicking at a relatively small one-time construction cost )auditoriums)....

If you want to save some real money, look at the transportation/busing budget and include the dozens of subcontractors too....
BoE/WCPSS spends 10's of millions of dollars extra EVERY year to slice, dice, & bus your kids and mine further than necessary. You can buy a lot of auditoriums & cafeterias for what is wasted on excess busing every year.
The millions of gallons of disel fumes is bad for the environment too - - just ask Al GOre.
one time cost Cafetoriums are a drop in the bucket compared to annually recurring 1000 idling buses....