Renovate or Replace Community Schools?

Eric Fredericks • Tuesday February 12, 2008

The Pennsylvania Department of Education released a report titled Renovate or Replace? The case for restoring and reusing older school buildings. [PDF] Smart growth expert and report contributor Thomas Hylton said it was nearly a miracle to get all of the cabinet secretaries to approve the document. Walkability guru Dan Burden had this to say about the report:

This is an excellent report on how to restore and resplenish a community school, versus tear it down and move children into a mega school that is unwalkable, unhealthy, and cruel.

Tom Hylton worked on getting this process underway. On a more local level Tom got five members of the school board booted off when they planned on shutting down five of Pottstowns schools in order to build an 1800 student mega-box for elementary school age children. The new board supporting renovating the neighborhood schools came on with an 82% plurality vote.

I feel this report, and Tom in particular, deserve a national award for excellence.

Make it so.

I concur with Dan. By the way, Thomas Hylton also put together an excellent documentary called Save Our Land, Save Our Towns.

Category: Smart Growth • Region: General

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