School advocates who cheered last year when city and state lawmakers got funding for a sweeping plan to rebuild or upgrade 30-35 dilapidated Baltimore schools now are blasting the state agency in charge for scaling back the plan.

The Maryland Stadium Authority (MSA) has said that costs for the first phase of the 21st Century Schools Initiative are higher than originally thought.

They are now estimating that, at most, 23-28 schools could be renovated with the $980 million in bond proceeds available for the modernization plan.

Speaking at Tuesday’s school board meeting, Andrew Foster Connors, co-chair of Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development (BUILD), implored the commissioners and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to “push back” on the MSA and demand the reasons why.

“Someone needs to act like the owner of this project” and ask the authority why they think the costs are so high, Connors said, as about 60 people in the audience with blue BUILD t-shirts cheered.

BUILD has “shopped the numbers” around to developers who have built schools in the Baltimore-Washington area and believes the estimates are not a good value, he told The Brew.

“We think there’s enough money for at least 30 school renovations,” he said.

Connors’ comments came at an evening meeting clouded with other difficult news for school advocates.

Officials briefed the commissioners on the six schools slated for closure, saying the move was necessary to adjust facilities to Baltimore’s current student enrollment and to prepare for the smaller number of schools being added or upgraded under the modernization plan.

Langston Hughes Elementary, Abbottston Elementary, Dr. Rayner Browne Academy, Northeast Middle. W.E.B. Dubois High and Heritage High were on the list to be closed.

“Everyone Sees an Opportunity”

Asked why the costs of the 21st Century Schools program appear to have ballooned, Connors speculated that the parties involved may have counted on the high-profile project to have a blank check from Annapolis.

“As with a lot of public projects in Baltimore, everyone feels like they need to get paid,” he said, adding that when “there’s a lot of money available, everyone sees an opportunity.”

BUILD suggests hiring a value engineer and using one general contractor, not several, among other cost-saving measures, Connors said in an interview with The Brew.

The group recommends that the school board and mayor look at recent school rebuilds, such as the Baltimore Design School, and compare its square-foot costs to that of the proposed 21st Century Schools.

Original Estimates Higher

The initial scale-back of the plan was even more severe. In September, the school board announced that at most 19-22 schools could be repaired or upgraded, citing new cost estimates by the MSA, which is charged by the Maryland legislature to oversee the project.

Working with the MSA, city schools came up with a variety of cost-saving measures – including deferring two high school renovations – with the hope of increasing the number of new or renovated schools to 23-28.

Connors said his group thinks they can do better by bringing in outside experts, including local developers who have no interest in the project. “It would be a public service,” Foster Connors said. “Now is not the time for ‘business as usual’ in Baltimore.”

The organization would also like to know, at minimum, how many schools will be renovated or rebuilt. “We’ve talked to the mayor and school board throughout the process,” he said. “Their response is, ‘It’s early. We don’t want to settle on a number.’”