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Sizzling: Sales climb for two straight quarters,  1EGoing green: Energy efficiency is key to new builds,  1E

Heartache, then joy: First-time buyer tells her story,  2EWhere to buy: Community profiles offer some clues,  5E

In-depth look at ourarea’s housing market

ONLINE EXTRA What’s selling? Go to RocDocs at  DemocratandChronicle.com.

When the Rochester School Dis-trict and the city undertook thebillion-dollar task of updating itsaging school buildings, School 22was an obvious choice.

The old school on ZimbrichStreet in northeast Rochester was,by some measures, the worst build-ing in the district: cramped andoutdated, with a frame made of century-old timber, asbestos behindthe walls, and a small green area

and dreary parking lot across thestreet that passed for a playground.District, state and city officials

trumpeted the Facilities Modern-ization Program at a news confer-ence there in 2007.

But as the project moves closerto putting shovels in the ground,School 22 is no longer among thefirst schools on the list. In the mostrecent draft plan, many of the city’soldest and most dilapidated schoolshave been removed from the pro-ject’s first phase in favor of youngerbuildings that require less work.

And as frustration with the pro-ject’s pace grows, inflation is driv-ing up costs.

The $325 million budgeted forthe first phase won’t stretch as faras it would have a few years ago,

Elisa Ruise’s third-grade class walks to lunch from a portable classroom at School 50 in

Rochester. Proposed work at School 50 would eliminate the need for portable classrooms.

JEN RYNDA staff photographer

SCHOOL WOESWork on Rochester district’s worst buildings

shelved as inflation undercuts ambitious plan

Emanuel Flecha, 8, center, raises his hand while sitting

between Carmen Jimenez, 9, left, and Ynejah Davis, 8,

during Lisa Peers’ third-grade class at School 50.

JEN RYNDA staff photographer

School 22 in Rochester was originally part of the Fa-

cilities Modernization Program, but it is not on the list

for phase one, which doesn’t allow new construction.

JEN RYNDA staff photographer

NESTOR RAMOS

STAFF WRITER

INSIDE A map shows the 13 schools earmarked for the first phase of the dis-trict’s modernization plan, and two that were on the original list, as well as some

pertinent data about those schools,  Page 6A

SCHOOLS, PAGE 6A

SUNDAY, APRIL 25, 2010 $1.50 NEWSSTANDDemocratandChronicle.com

Copyright 2010

Gannett Rochester Newspapers

Seven Sections

A B C

Irondequoit LifeCheck out our 14-pagespecial section to seewhat’s happening inIrondequoit. Inside

Tours with tunesWe’ll give you theskinny on five of thesummer’s biggest musicfestivals, 10C

Bills QB situationColumnist Leo Roth saysBuffalo’s decision tostick with incumbentswill drain fans’ hopes, 1D

 Young at ARTA photo essayshowcases a program

that connects studentswith local artists, 4C

Getting activeHealthy Kids Day aimsto raise awareness aboutweight and diet, 3B

Amerks back homeRochester, Abbotsfordmeet tonight in Game 6of playoff series, 1D

New way to toastEffort to promote statewines features in-storeTV network, 1B

JAMIE GERMANO staff photographer

ALSO INSIDEEDITORIALS | 24A

DEATHS | 2B

WEATHER | 8B

SUDOKU | 9C

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CROSSWORD | 9C

JUMBLE | 9C

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Alec Chierici was exhausted in Marchfrom a stressful hospital stay promptedby a life-threatening heart rhythm. Thenhe opened a letter from his insurance

company that denied the e ntire$84,154.02 claim for reconnecting hisnew heart defibrillatorfor not being   “medicallynecessary.”

“What are they tryingto do, kill me off?” askedChierici, 70, of Roches-ter.   “It threw me for aloop.”

His insurer, EmpireBlueCross BlueShield,had called him beforethe surgery to warn that the planned re-attachment of the dislodged defibrillatorwires was considered an outpatient pro-cedure requiring less than 24 hours inthe hospital, so that’s all the insurerwould pay for.

They also told him not to be alarmedand that he wouldn’t have to pay any re-maining bill — but Chierici was still con-cerned. Problems had kept him in thehospital four days. He called the insurer,who told him they would request moreinformation from the hospital and that itwould be worked out.

Few patients seek reconsiderationsfrom their insurers and even fewer takethe appeal through all the layers avail-able. Patients either give up or lack theability, the health or the necessary paper-work from their physician to pursue an

Few dukeit out withmedicalinsurerson denials But success found bysome of those who do.CHRIS SWINGLE

STAFF WRITER

Chierici

DENIALS, PAGE 12A

It’s been a year since Chiliteenager Brittanee Drexeldisappeared while on springbreak in South Carolina.

Her family has never givenup on the hope that the Gates

Chili High School studentwould be found, but today’smilestone is hitting them hard.

“It just makes us feel so

frustrated and upset that wedon’t have any answers,” saidKeri Drexel, Brittanee’s aunt.

And while South Carolinapolice have said they’re nowinvestigating the case as a

homicide, experts say it’s im-portant for the Drexel familyto hang on to hope.

“You can’t take hope from

the (families) because that isthe only thing they have. It’swhat they have when theywake up, and it’s what keepspeople moving through theday,” said Monica Caison,

founder for the Center forMissing Persons in NorthCarolina.  

STORY: 1B

 Vigil for missing teen, one year later

DEADLY STORMS SWEEP SOUTH

Hillcrest Baptist Church Youth Pastor

Jason Newell tries to salvage what he

can from the church that was de-stroyed by a killer tornado that ripped

through Yazoo City, Miss., Saturday

afternoon. STORY: 3A

BRIAN ALBERT BROOM The Jackson, Miss., Clarion-Ledger

Note to readersWeekend subscribers,

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6A  SUNDAY, APRIL 25, 2010   DemocratandChronicle.com    DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE

said Kenneth Bell, chair-man of the seven-memberRochester Joint SchoolsConstruction Board, theindependent board over-seeing the first phase of the three-phase, 15-yearprogram.

“Five years ago, thatmoney would havebought X. Now, it’s onehalf of X,” Bell said. Andwith the state strugglingto meet existing obliga-tions,   “if we delay thisproject much longer, wemay lose some of themoney.”

In fact, while inflationsince 2006 has totaledabout 9 percent, the costof new K-12 school con-struction has jumpedabout 32 percent, accord-ing to the Bureau of La-bor Statistics ProducerPrice Index.

In the end, Bell said,there might not beenough money to workon 13 schools when con-struction starts sometime next year.

“It sounds like a lot of money, when you say abillion and a half dollars,”said Bell, a retired HSBCexecutive appointed tothe FMP board by MayorRobert Duffy.  “But over 15years, that’s really not alot of money. So we have

to be careful that wespend our money wisely.”

Legislative questionsAt the root of the prob-

lems, some say, is thelegislation that allowedthe district to exceed thestate-imposed maximumson borrowing.

The law, sponsored bystate Assemblyman DavidGantt, D-Rochester, andsigned by then-Gov. EliotSpitzer, is similar to lawsauthorizing projects inSyracuse, where officialsare wrestling with similardelays, and in Buffalo

before that.The project, in those

cities as in Rochester, wasdesigned to exceed thecity’s debt limit and takeadvantage of a high rateof reimbursement fromthe state in order to up-grade aging and outdatedschools. More than abillion dollars would beborrowed through bondsales. But though thecities are in some wayssimilar, their needs canbe very different.

“We spent money andeffort really thinkingthrough what were our

unique needs,” said JamesFenton, a Rochester dis-trict administrator whoworked on the projectuntil a recent promotion.“We crafted a piece of legislation I thought wasvery good. It was uniqueto us. What we ended upwith was exactly whatSyracuse had passed withsome provisions thatDavid Gantt wanted. Itwas really just a heart-breaking thing.”

In the end, the legisla-tion for the first phase of the project only allowedfor rehabilitation and

renovation — not newconstruction. So insteadof being able to tear downand rebuild old schoolssuch as 22 and 36 as thedistrict had originallyplanned, the focus shiftedto upgrades and expan-sions at newer buildings.

The Rochester SchoolDistrict denied a Free-dom of Information Lawrequest for the recentlyupdated master construc-tion plan, but a list of the13 school buildings in-cluded on the updateddraft plan for phase onewas obtained by the  Dem-

ocrat and Chronicle.Officials confirmed thelist but stressed that itwas still a draft. They alsopromised a robust publicinput process in themonths ahead.

School 22 woes

Under the latest pro-posal, several youngerschools would see con-struction to eliminate theuse of portable class-rooms, in addition toother work. Meanwhile,the district’s worst schoolbuildings would continue

to be maintained andused until at least thenext phase of the project,which requires new legis-lation and could be sev-eral years off.

That has left somequestioning whether thehundreds of millions of dollars in state taxpayermoney slated to be spenton Rochester’s schools inthe coming years will beput to good use.

“22 School needs to berazed and rebuilt,” saidschool board member

Van White, who attendedthe school as a child.

If the legislationdoesn’t permit that, well,legislation can be re-written, he said.

“I don’t think thosekids and those teachersand other staff peopleshould be in an envi-ronment like that,” Whitesaid.

“We have some schoolsthat are completely woodframe that we thinkshould be on the listsooner or later,” Roch-ester School DistrictSuperintendent Jean-

Claude Brizard said. Butthose schools — rankedamong the very worst onthe original master plancrafted by district offi-cials in 2006 — didn’tfind their way onto thelist that will likely guidethe project until at least2016.

Parent Lisa Busby,whose daughter Cha-juandra Beaman is afourth-grader at School22, said the building is inbad shape.  “It needs awhole bunch of workdone to it — there’s wallscracking and the bath-

rooms need to be bigger.They have to stand in along line to use the bath-room.”

It needs so much work,district officials said, thatit’s not cost-effective torenovate it — tearing itdown and building new isthe only option, and that’snot covered in the firstphase of the project.

“That legislation doesnot allow you to build anew school. It only allowsyou to modernize anexisting facility,” Bellsaid.

Frey Kassa, whose 5-

year-old daughter, Hewot,started at the school afew months ago, saidshe’s considering otherschools.  “They need morecleanup” and play areas,she said.  “It looks like theschool’s not ready.”

The legislation

Gantt, the veteran as-semblyman who spon-sored the legislation, saidSchool 22 needs to berepaired or replacedsoon.

“Given the school andthe neighborhood … I

don’t know how you pushthat off to a later phase,”Gantt said.  “Why wouldthey want to do schoolsover and not get to thatschool? Why would weget away from that?”

But Gantt expressedsurprise at the idea that

the legislation he helpedpass was partly to blame,and added that he’s beenkeeping his distance fromthe project.

“Do I wish that theprocess was much faster?You bet I do,” Gantt said.“I don’t want to taint theprocess with politics.”

The pace of the projecthas been a source of con-sternation on all sides.

“Our frustration, if wehave any, is that we wantto get the project going,”Bell said.   “We know oneof the things that affectsoutcomes in the schools

is the environment. Thefaster we improve theenvironment that they’relearning in, the better theresults will be.”

But the facilities mod-ernization board, whichwas required by the legis-lation authorizing theproject, didn’t meet untila year after the lawpassed. Several monthswere spent ironing outthe details of a memoran-dum of understandingamong the new board, thecity and the school dis-trict. That was approved

earlier this year, nearlythree years after the legis-lation passed.

Another critical hurdle— hiring a program man-ager to oversee the firstphase — is expected to befinalized this month. In-terviews were held in

early April.

The historyIn 2006, the district,

with the help of an archi-tect, prepared a detailedplan that made the casefor modernizing thebuildings. It identified the13 schools that wouldhave been part of theproject’s first phase anddescribed the work to bedone.

A model of sorts wasthe $36.5 million in workdone at School 33 onWebster Avenue. Theproject, which included a

new community center, anew public library and acomplete overhaul of theattached school, wascompleted in Septemberafter nearly a decade of planning and construc-tion. It was not paid forwith FMP funds, but at itsribbon cutting in October,Brizard said that one dayhe would like all districtschools to look likeSchool 33.

The FMP plan includedbuying land around someschool sites, includingtwo blocks around School

22. That school andSchool 36 were to be torndown and rebuilt.

At School 36, principalPaul Montanarello saidhe’s pleased with thework done to make tech-nology improvements inthe old building. Built in

1898, the school on St. Jacob Street in northeastRochester is the oldest inthe district.

“We have technology,we’re not that far behind,”he said.   “They’re doingenough things that, obvi-ously, we would remainopen.” But the gym isinadequate, he said. Dur-ing a recent kickballgame, the ball bouncedfrom foot to ceiling tofloor to wall like an over-sized racquetball.

Montanarello said hehopes the school finds itsway into phase two of the

three-phase project.School 50 principalTim Mains was less chari-table. School 36, he said,“needs to be abandoned.”

School 50, on SenecaAvenue just south of EastRidge Road, is amongthose on the updated listof phase one schools, andMains confirmed that theproposed work thereincludes eliminating theuse of portable class-rooms. All four third-grade sections are held inconverted trailers behindthe school.

As with several of theschools on the updatedlist, School 50 is popularwith district parents. Itskindergarten class i s oneof the first to fill.

Adding a new wing toreplace the portableswould help the schoolmeet demand, Mains said,and eliminate logisticaland safety problems withthe trailers. Because port-ables are not connectedto the main building,students have to walkoutdoors to go to lunch,gym or for other reasons,even in winter.

“My space problemswould be solved,” Mainssaid.   “I wouldn’t have thedanger that’s involvedwith having kids in abuilding that’s not at-tached.”

Avoiding ‘quagmires’

Bell said the shift fromrebuilding schools suchas 22 and 36 to upgradingschools including 50 waslargely due to legislativelimitations, but not en-tirely.

“Things change as factschange,” Bell said.   “Mostimportantly, I suppose, is(that) the performance of each school … changes, soyou’re investing yourresources in the schoolswith the highest potentialfor success. I think that’swhat the superintendentand his team are con-stantly doing.”

In Syracuse, similarlegislation authorizingthe project there createda similar sticking point.

An aging school there,Blodgett Elementary, wasslated to be rebuilt in thefirst phase of the project.As in Rochester, it’s beenshelved for now.

And Rochester officialsare hoping to avoid arepeat of some of themost troubling problemsencountered in Syracuse,where critics say tens of millions of project dollarshave been spent withvery little to show for it.

“Syracuse is in a quag-mire,” Brizard said.“They’ve spent millionsand gotten nowhere.”

Former Syracuseschool board PresidentKim Rohadfox-Ceasersaid Rochester’s projecthas already avoided onepitfall that has derailedSyracuse.

“The biggest issue forus has been the way our

 Joint School ConstructionBoard has been struc-tured,” she said.  “It’s actu-ally made up mostly of politicians.”

Rochester’s board in-

cludes experienced pri-vate sector leaders, peo-ple with expertise in con-struction and contractingand community — and noelected officials.

Political wrangling was,in part, what derailed theBlodgett project, thoughthe Syracuse district’scurrent president, LaurieMenkin, noted there’s aneffort afoot to revive it forphase one. But eventhough the plan has beenaltered to fit the legisla-tion — Blodgett is nowslated for a large-scalerehabilitation rather than

a new building — Menkinsaid the political willdoesn’t exist to get itdone early in the cycle.

“They really weren’tinterested in investingthat kind of money,” shesaid of the city govern-ment there.  “It’s in one of the poorest sections of the entire United States.Voter turnout is very low.… You can read betweenthe lines on that one.”

There was widespreadanger when the commu-nity found out that Blod-gett was left out, Menkinsaid.   “Rightly so. Prom-

ises were made eightyears ago that Blodgettwould be renovated,” shesaid.

Rohadfox-Ceaser saidthe bureaucracy set up bythe legislation was pri-marily to blame for thedelays.

“Instead of saying,‘each city is unique,’ ”Rohadfox-Ceaser said,“we try to put this cookie-cutter legislation to-gether, and it doesn’talways serve the commu-nities’ needs best.” NRAMOS@DemocratandChronicle.com

SchoolsFROM PAGE  1A

The entrance of School 33 shows off the $36.5 million project that was completed in September. Superin-tendent Jean-Claude Brizard says he would like all the schools in the district to look like School 33 some day.

JEN RYNDA staff photographer

Carmen Jimenez, 9, draws during Lisa Peers’ third-grade class at School 50 inRochester. Storage space for students is limited in the portable classroom.

JEN RYNDA staff photographer

33

390

490

590

104

104

96

31

383

KEVIN M. SMITH graphics editorSOURCE: Rochester School District *Total sq. ft. (includes floor and additional community space)

Rochester

1 mile

2010 renovation listNo./name Sq.-ft.* Age

A. Marshall H.S. 273,996   76

B No. 7 69,327   44

C. No. 34 66,041   83

D. No. 50 59,955   54

E. Franklin H.S. 481,129   82

F. No. 6 71,586   48

G. No. 17 94,548   43

H. No. 58 93,651   95

I. East H.S. 430,492   53

J. No. 28 95,284   41

K. No. 2 88,829   50

L. No. 19 97,232   39

M. Congress Ave. 57,558   94

Not on list1. No. 22 67,260   94

2. No. 36 69,134   112

Thirteen city schools proposed to be renovated

A

D

E

B

C

G

K

L

M

F

1

2

H

I

J

IRONDEQUOIT

LYELL AVE.

A VENUE D

CLIFFORD A VE.

        J        E        F        F        E        R        S        O        N

        A        V        E .

A TLAN TIC A VE.

E . M AI N  S T .

C        A        R        

T        E        R        

 S        T        . 

H       U       D       S       O       N       

A       V       E       . 

J       O       S       E       P       H       

A       V       E       . 

NORTON ST.

N      .  C      L     I      N      T      O      N      A     V      E      . 

S   T    .  P    A   U    L   S   T    . 

RIDGEWAY AVE.

     P    O     R     T     L    A

     N     D

    A     V     E

 .

AVE.LEXINGTON

    C    U    L    V    E    R

 R    D

 .

    W    I    N    T    O

    N R    D .

D    E    W    

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EMERSON ST.

BROOKS AVE.

Genesee

River 

 E.  R I D G E  R D.

 . .

    D .

 .

Thirteen Rochester SchoolDistrict schools have beententatively selected forrenovation during the first

phase of the billion-dollarFacilities ModernizationProgram. But the list doesnot include schools foundto be in the worst conditionin a 2006 study, such as 22and 36. None of the eightschools built before WorldWar I is on the list.

RochesterSchool DistrictNumber of school build-ings: 39 elementary; 15secondary.Enrollment**: 30,000+.Teachers: 3,700.Budget: $700 million.Poverty*: 84 percent.

*Eligible for free orreduced lunch.

**2010-11 estimate.

SOURCE: Staff research

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