Improvements recommended for Isbell Middle School
By Brian D. Wilson
Santa Paula News
Published: August 20, 2008
The Santa Paula Elementary School District board has heard a report on proposed upgrades and improvements to Isbell Middle School.
By Brian D. Wilson
Santa Paula Times
The Santa Paula Elementary School District board has heard a report on proposed upgrades and improvements to Isbell Middle School.
The district hired Mainstreet Architects and Planners to perform an assessment of the school. Specifically, the evaluation included the main classroom building, the cafeteria/music building and the wood shop building. They also looked the existing utility infrastructure, site grading/drainage and landscape.
The engineering and architectural team determined that the main Isbell building and the cafeteria/music building can be used into the future. However, the wood shop building would require significant seismic upgrading to make it safe. The study says, “It is doubtful that the costs for strengthening this building’s structure would be a viable option.”
The report says the demolition of the wood shop building, as well as the removal of 13 portable classroom buildings, provides a unique opportunity to create a new student “quad” between the new gym and the main Isbell building. There are also recommendations on improving ventilation, upgrading electrical systems and improving lighting.
Doug Nelson of Mainstreet Architects told the board that there are a lot of people who have emotional ties to the building and campus. “I really want to emphasize that our assessment of the long-term viability of Isbell is not just the building,” Nelson said. “We looked at the entire campus.”
Nelson said the assessment team and district officials have discussed a “quick start” program. This could include such things as improving ventilation and enabling cooling in classrooms, updating electrical systems and lighting and painting in the classrooms.
Isbell was built in 1925 and dedicated in February of 1926. Barbara Webster School was built at the same time. It was named after Olive Mann Isbell, the first “American schoolteacher” in California in 1846. She and her husband moved to Santa Paula in the 1870s. She died in 1899 at the age of 74.
After the Long Beach earthquake in 1933 the Field Act was adopted, schools constructed of brick were required to be seismically retrofitted. All of the ornamental openings, columns, arches and the art stone were removed. Brick chimneys were replaced by concrete. In 1988 the original windows were replaced with tinted, three-panel aluminum windows and a two-story clock tower was added to the rear of the building.
The report lists a probable cost of between $18.5 and $22.2 million dollars. If you add in a proposed 16 classroom building, future “green campus” technology and landscaping a new quad area, the cost goes up to between $12.4 and $13.4 million dollars.
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