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Columbine High School Could Be Demolished: Is That a Wise Decision?
Every school shooting is a catastrophe. For every child that dies, a family is severely wounded. Many school districts have taken steps to to protect their children:
In 2016, the CDC found nearly 90 percent of public schools had a written plan for responding to school shootings, and 70 percent of those schools had drilled students on the plan.
Regarding the Columbine High School mass shooting, many steps were taken to make the school more secure. But in the eyes of some, those actions do not respond sufficiently to the situation.
Jason Glass, the Superintendent of Jefferson County Public Schools has written an open letter proposing that the school be demolished and cites several reasons, including this one:
School shooters refer to and study the Columbine shooting as a macabre source of inspiration and motivation. Perhaps influenced by the 20th anniversary of the shooting, over the past 11 months the number of people trying to enter the school illegally or otherwise trespassing on school property has been increasing – now to record levels.
He also says that “school safety experts recommend tearing down buildings where school shootings take place.”
I’ll return to this “analysis” later in this post.
Mr. Glass proposes the following changes:
- Retain the name of Columbine High School, honoring the pride and spirit the community has with the name
- The current school mascot and colors would be unchanged
- Construct the new school near the current location, west of the current site
- Consider preserving the Hope Library, making it the cornerstone of the new building
- The existing building would be demolished, replaced with fields, and controlled entry points
- The new building would have enhanced safety features, designed to provide greater monitoring and school privacy
The new school would require $70 million to construct.
Not everyone thinks that tearing down the school is a good idea.
Unfortunately, the school district is presenting information to voters that is not based on reason, but on thinly disguised emotion and bias. For example, it isn’t clear who is visiting the school; to make the assumption that they are potential shooters is unreasonable. Second, I couldn’t find data to validate that more people are visiting the school “in the last 11 months” than previously; since we don’t know who these people are (they could be simply curious tourists), it’s hard to determine how this information is helpful. (A person could liken this curiosity to people who stare at car accidents as they drive by.) Third, there’s no evidence that the removal of the school would stop people from wanting to visit the site, even though it will mainly be fields; the new school, if built, will be nearby. Fourth, demolishing the school will not necessarily make students safer; the school district has one of the best-protected schools in the nation. Fifth, the experts who recommend tearing down schools that are locations of mass shootings aren’t identified, nor is their expertise defined. Finally, the emotional impact on students who survived and families who lost children is impossible to measure. One survivor offered his perspective on the potential demolition:
‘It’s not right,’ Josh Lapp, 36, who works in the construction industry and is another survivor, told NPR. ‘This community has had to deal with enough of a burden, to ask them to pay for this new construction isn’t fair, just because of what the shooters did.’
Another survivor offered the following:
Will Beck, 36, a Columbine survivor who now works as a financial adviser in Utah, said he recently took his three young children to the school to walk them through the bathroom he sought shelter in during the shooting. He pointed out the exact location where a teacher saved his life. And he showed them the fence he climbed to finally escape the violence.
‘I was heartbroken over the thought of losing it,’ Beck told NPR. ‘The school, to me, is a very special place.’
Revisiting the school shortly after the shooting, and even now with his children, helps him conquer the trauma.
‘We can’t let the shooters rule our lives,’ Beck said.
The questions that I hope residents will ask themselves are the following:
- Are we being fiscally responsible to demolish the school? Are there other more helpful ways the $70 million could be spent?
- Will this action make a difference in the lives of the surviving students, families and the other residents of the community? If yes, in what ways?
- What do we want to accomplish by removing the school and building a new one?
I realize that the decision to raze the school and build a new one lies with the community; however, if someone from that area asked you to provide input to the Jefferson County residents, what would you tell them?
Published in Culture
Outside of pro sports team owners, who want a new publicly-financed stadium/arena every 20 years or so in order to have a latest bells and whistles to promote in their high-priced luxury boxes, no group is more obsessed than school administrators in replacing what to most people would be considered not-that-old infrastructure with brand-new facilities.
The hook here is different because of the Columbine shootings, where the need for a new high school can only be justified by saying local law enforcement is on the Broward County Sheriff’s Department level under Steve Israel of being too bumbling, incompetent and risk-adverse in their actions, to the point that even proper security measures at the school can’t protect the children from death-cult obsessives.
If the student population (and the district’s tax base) has grown to the point where the school can’t handle the current population but can float the bonds to build a new one, then you move forward, or if the school is in the 60-70 years old range, where retrofits for modern technology become more and more nonviable economically, then you look at replacing the school. Replacing it because of the name simply comes across as either trying to use a tragedy to justify more government spending, or an indictment of the incompetence of other governmental departments to do their jobs properly.
No, it’s not understandable – it’s ridiculous. Rebuilding a perfectly good building itself has enrollment issues, such as higher tuition for no good reason.
No, the administration was overthinking it. They should have waited to see if there were any issues, then address those issues without rebuilding . . .
Well, there you go with that common sense stuff again, @stad! What are you thinking?? Yes, over and over again we see people overreacting to situations, or manipulating them before people think them through. It’s going to be so interesting to see whether residents of Jefferson County are taken in.
I totally disagree. We drive on roads where people have died, but you don’t see them being torn up and rerouted at great expense on the assumption some people won’t drive on them.
I’m fine with your disagreeing, but your analogy isn’t a very good one. Choosing a college to attend isn’t the same as choosing a route to your destination.
Really? You aren’t spoofing us with a virtual photoshop job, are you?
I’m not even on a side here. But to not understand why they would want to make changes to the building- on a campus that is reliant upon thousands of students choosing to go there ***every single year*** is not taking the subject seriously. Agree with @susanquinn that the analogy is weak.
Changes, yes! Go beyond patching bullet holes. Heck, put a memorial in the building to remind students what happened.
People should be reminded evil exists in the world, and its brief successes are negated by the long term will of the majority to go on with life. The average person knows tearing down a building doesn’t make the evil committed within go away, but evil loves to see a big reaction to its work.
Don’t let evil triumph in the long run—keep the building. And when evil sees life going on in the building despite the atrocities committed within, it knows it has failed.
My first reaction was to wonder what the next potential seeker of infamy will think when they see that a school shooting is still a major news topic and political football 20 years after the event…
Now that is a scary thought, @lockeon. But it’s certainly possible that the next generation will be inspired. Let’s hope not . . .
Public education already counts for the largest amount of local tax bills. Asking your community to cough up 70 million to demolish and replace a perfectly good building is just plain idiocy.
I think it is a difficult question. There were thirteen people killed, and two shooters killed themselves, and there were twenty people wounded. That’s a great many people who were affected and still are.
There seem to be a lot of factors involved. It happened 1999–a long time ago. So the school building itself is probably out of date in many ways by now. Perhaps it’s a good time to start over with a new building.
You have to consider property values too in the town. I would never send my kids to that school. It would feel rather creepy to me and oppressive. Every day it would be on my mind. If I’m feeling that way, others are too. The quality of the local schools is a significant factor in local property values. It is so easy to just pick another town to live in. Towns compete with each other.
And the event hasn’t gone away completely–not for those people who lost family members or friends that day, and for the people who were seriously wounded. The school building is a constant reminder of a very deep tragedy for the families.
I don’t have any idea as to what they should do with the property, but I think if I were on that school committee, I would want a complete evaluation of all the factors. What is the cost of modernization versus the cost of a new building? The school was built in 1973. It’s getting along in its useful lifespan. :-) How long will we be able to meet the state’s accreditation requirements? Is there a window for obtaining a state aid package or financing? Is the architecture as inviting as it could be, or would a new building be easier to make appealing to students, families, and staff? School design is a factor in student achievement. What has been and what will be the lasting emotional effects of the massacre on the community? Would a new building in another part of town improve our ability to recruit top students, teachers, and administrators? Thank goodness, school choice is a big factor in Massachusetts now. I wonder how important a factor it is in Colorado.
Our town has been going through this evaluation process for the last two years. There are a lot of factors involved.
Please tell me this is tongue in cheek.
The building is probably the single least important factor in student achievement.
Put good teachers and good students in a bad building, the students will do fine.
Put bad teachers and bad students in the most “state of the art” facility ever built, the students will fail.
For example:
http://archive.jsonline.com/news/education/a-formula-for-success-has-eluded-bradley-tech-high-school-b99483255z1-300544281.html
Dumb dumb DUMB.
In the mind of a potential shooter, tearing down the building is an additional incentive. Not only will he kill a few kids, he will literally bring down the whole damn school – sweet!
No, it’s not tongue in cheek. :-) A bright beautiful school will attract good teachers and staff. It is true that the most important thing kids need in their school is a good teacher. I agree with that. And schools compete with each other for excellent teachers.
At least in my state they do. Perhaps not in yours. It is a local issue. It depends on how good the schools are in the next town over. We have a very active school choice climate here. :-) And how well the kids do from one town to the next affects property values.
The trouble is, if you give a mouse a cookie . . . no wait, . . . if you give a school district more money, they just spend it on more administrators and administrator salaries.
Bigger better facilities:
https://fox6now.com/2015/02/27/locker-room/
I am in favor of a “starve the beast” approach to public spending.
I was just thinking about this while I was puttering in my garden: with 2,000 students in the Columbine High School, it sounds like the administration has a near monopoly anyway. So school choice and property values probably are not a consideration at all in that town.
In which case, I agree with the idea that it’s a waste of money to build a new school. The shootings have had no effect on enrollment.
I do not like to see high schools that big. Half of the kids can thrive in a school that big, but you’d lose a lot more than you needed to just because no one knows they are there. It’s just too big for that age.
School choice was the most important factor in education reform in Massachusetts. High schools should not ever be able to exercise a monopoly.
While I don’t disagree, you’re obviously not from California. 4000 students at a single high school is not uncommon. River Springs Charter School in Temecula has almost 6000
Actually (and slightly contradictory to my objection to building new school buildings) I would like to see a move toward more schools and smaller schools in a district, in contrast to the current trend of reducing the number of schools and shoving everyone into the same enormous building.
We keep seeing neighborhood schools close while the districts build new huge buildings to accommodate the students from four or five smaller schools.
But ‘studies show™’ that students actually do better in smaller schools with smaller student populations. It helps schools be more attentive to individual students’ and families’ needs instead of trying to shove everyone into an enormous one-size-fits-all model.
Not that I’m a big fan of the public education (commie indoctrination) model anyway, which desperately needs fixing. But smaller schools given more local control would definitely be a plus.
Do you want more California? Because that’s how you get more California.
I’m not advocating their model in the least! Basically I was saying that being uncomfortable with 2000 kids is almost quaint by comparison.
My kids went through school in a fairly wealthy suburban district. The district and school board opened a new HS when the original one reached 1500 kids and have committed to a third one when both of those reach 1500. Right now they’re about 1500 and 1100. Those seem like reasonable boundaries to me.
Thank you. I tried to write out something similar this morning, but my head is in my garden this week and I could not word it coherently. Thank you.
There was a study of big high schools (over 1,000 students) that came out in the late nineties that condemned them so thoroughly that the town of Barnstable, next to my town, stopped construction midway on their new high school, to rethink the design. What they came up with was a college system of “houses” for the students. So the ninth graders were in their own house with their own advisers and administrators. And so on. It was a great move on the school committee’s part. I was impressed.
Everyone needs to feel that they belong wherever they are for the day, that someone knows who they are and that they are there. I work on business books, and this one factor–personal relationships–is a big factor in employee retention. Companies have devised great strategies for introducing some warmth into their large employment base.
My kids were far apart in age–my first two were only two years apart, but my last one came along eight years after my first two. That meant that I was spending a lot of time in three schools–elementary, middle, and high school. Many of the socialization problems I was seeing in the high school were the result of simple immaturity. The elementary school teachers were used to it and didn’t bat an eye. They just corrected it and moved on. They helped the kids form better habits simply by reacting to the kids’ poor actions consistently. And the elementary school teachers were way better at creating a warm and welcoming environment for the kids than the upper-grade teachers were.
I thought for many years that we needed to put some elementary school teachers–friendly teacher’s morning greeting: “Hi, Johnny, how’s your grandmother feeling today?”–in the high school and some high school teachers in the elementary school to work with children who were acting up simply because they were bored to tears. :-)
I love smaller schools for high school kids. The people in my town disagree, saying that we need the big schools so we can have better labs and art and music studios and athletic fields. I say, “Let’s look at this regionally. Let’s build smaller schools that specialize in some of these areas.” Transportation. I was thinking like Jeff Bezos before he did! :-)
I wish I had known about that example. Well, no, it was in the early 90s that I was involved in some school-size battles in our own school district, and I was trying to get people to pay attention to the research on school size.
I am impressed that Barnstable rethought its plans. I would be even more impressed if they had grouped their colleges differently, because I don’t think age-segregation is such a good idea. In fact, that’s one of the problems with large schools — they tend to segregate students by age more than in smaller schools.
Right. I agree completely. I want to see the kids grouped by their interests. One of the reasons our local vocational schools are so successful is that they do just that.
But at least it was something. And it served as a wake-up call for the school district that it needed to address the human side of the project.
As we all do. If we want the kids to succeed, we have to look at what other types of successful institutions do that help people connect to it and to the people within it.