THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 22, 1997 TAG: 9702220005
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A15 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: OPINION
SOURCE: KERRY DOUGHERTY
LENGTH: 72 lines
As the termites swarmed up my legs, I experienced an epiphany: I had been wrong about W.H. Taylor Elementary School.
Back in December - as news broke that Taylor Elementary School might be demolished and a new school built in its place - I wrote a column waxing poetic about the grace and majesty of old buildings. I still stand by parts of that column. I still love old buildings. I continue to live in one. And my heart still beats faster when I pass the grand old houses of Ghent with their architectural quirks and uniqueness.
And when I drive or stroll by Taylor Elementary School, I marvel at a quaint neighborhood school that harkens back to a time when children walked to school in the mornings and home for lunch at noon.
Old buildings should be preserved whenever practical, yet there comes a time when the old must make way for the new. The time has come for Taylor.
Inside Taylor the hallways swarm with children and the walls and floors with termites. There are moisture problems everywhere, and no child with physical disabilities could possibly navigate the ups and downs of the many-leveled school. The lavatories are a disgrace, and children must walk down two sets of stairs to reach them.
This is no place for kids.
I discovered just how decrepit Taylor was this week when Norfolk School Board member Joseph Waldo escorted me on a tour of the 79-year-old schoolhouse.
Taylor Principal Mary Ann Bowen served as our tour guide. It seemed somewhat odd to have an articulate school official pointing out the flaws of her school rather than bragging about its merits. But Bowen still found time to praise the teachers and greet each child by name as she looked high and low for evidence that the building was beyond repair.
She made her case.
As we walked the hallways, Bowen pointed to wide cracks in the lovely old terrazzo floors; to water damage around windows and on the walls; to stucco coming loose on the exterior; to the awkward, narrow steps totally inaccessible to the handicapped; to exposed wiring along the ceilings; to offices fashioned out of broom closets; to a sump pump in the floor outside the cafeteria; to stuffy classrooms with creeping damp on the walls; and to termites.
``Oh look, some of them are still alive,'' she said calmly as we stepped down into the basement guidance office where the baseboards are rotten with termite damage. Bowen pointed to the carpeted floor that upon closer inspection was alive with the winged little bodies of insects.
Termites were climbing up my legs by the time we escaped, and I had little doubt that the school was beyond repair.
Yet a debate rages over the future of the West Ghent school. On one side are the demolishers - those who want to raze the school and construct a new one in its place. On the other side are the renovators who want to massively rework the existing building and save the facade.
Back in December I instinctively took the side of renovators (as I usually take the side of workers in a labor dispute or the side of women in marital spats). But I was wrong.
The cost of completely renovating Taylor Elementary School is estimated at more than $6.7 million. A partial renovation - and one wonders how a partial renovation could possibly address all the problems housed in Taylor - would run $3.8 million. A new school carries a comparatively modest price tag of $5.4 million.
Taylor Elementary is a little gem. Its 400 students have some of the highest test scores in Southeastern Virginia and its PTA is among the most active.
The Taylor family deserves a first-class building to go along with its first-class academics.
On Thursday, the Norfolk School Board will consider what to do about Taylor. Reluctantly, I have to admit it's time for this old relic to go. MEMO: Ms. Dougherty is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot.