New Mountain View HS, Vancouver WA Flythrough (Pacific: appointed, rent)

[TheOrca]

https://youtu.be/nYiknYqwcZg

[texasdiver]

Thanks for the link. Basically a very traditional HS design. Mostly corridors of classrooms with common areas. I'm kind of disappointed in the exterior which is kind of bland. This school will be there for 50-100 years. It's not bad but I have seen much more interesting school designs. The could have chosen to make more of a statement. Since this is the Pacific Northwest I'd like to see more exposed wood in the design rather than just beige brick. Like this school in North Dakota: https://jlgarchitects.com/projects/w...y-high-school/

I wonder of all those fishbowl classrooms with glass walls will survive the inevitable school shooter security analysis. A lot of new schools around the country are being designed with more built-in armoring and lock-down capabilities. Classrooms with floor to ceiling glass walls exposed to the corridors pretty much go against that trend.

But it will be an enormous improvement over the existing school which is by far the worst in the district and just crumbling and leaking. I expect it will provide strong competition with Union to be the go-to highest rated and most desired school in the district.

[TheOrca]

The school shooter thing really is an over dramatized concern IMO.

I think the proposed school design looks nice, we just need to get rid of those stupid teachers next and bring the wages down.

I just got an e-mail that my business will have an additional B&O tax for "higher education funding" - What a load of BS that is....

There's no such thing as education via institution.

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by TheOrca

The school shooter thing really is an over dramatized concern IMO.

I agree entirely. Probably 100x more students die around schools due to getting run over by cars than by school shooters.

All I am saying is that school architecture is actually changing to make schools into hardened bunkers because no school board wants to be the one that could have prevented a shooting and didn't.

[silibran]

I am going to differ. I think school shootings will become more common. It is the template that unhappy kids know, and there is plenty of stuff on the dark web for them to find about it.

The more guns are out there, the more shootings we have.

I have grandchildren in public schools. I worry about them. They have active shooter drills even in the elementary schools now. I hate everything about this problem. But I don’t see it going away. I think it will get worse.

[Ttark]

But it will be an enormous improvement over the existing school which is by far the worst in the district and just crumbling and leaking. I expect it will provide strong competition with Union to be the go-to highest rated and most desired school in the district.

"Ghetto-View".

I agree entirely. Probably 100x more students die around schools due to getting run over by cars than by school shooters.

All I am saying is that school architecture is actually changing to make schools into hardened bunkers because no school board wants to be the one that could have prevented a shooting and didn't.

It's big business. Surveillance is a huge industry, fuelled by fear. School shooting hysteria/hype is good for business. It creates a sense of fear, which sells papers/ad time ($$$$$MONEY$$$$$). Fear sells. Everybody with a stake in it benefits. 'Merica.

Spoiler

I make my living off the evening news
Just give me something, something I can use
People love it when you lose
They love dirty laundry
Well, I coulda been an actor, but I wound up here
I just have to look good, I don't have to be clear
Come and whisper in my ear
Give us dirty laundry

Kick 'em when they're up
Kick 'em when they're down
Kick 'em when they're up
Kick 'em all around

We got the bubble-headed bleach blonde who comes on at five
She can tell you 'bout the plane crash with a gleam in her eye
It's interesting when people die
Give us dirty laundry
Can we film the operation? Is the head dead yet?
You know, the boys in the newsroom got a running bet
Get the widow on the set
We need dirty laundry
You don't really need to find out what's going on
You don't really want to know just how far it's gone
Just leave well enough love
Eat your dirty laundry

Kick 'em when they're up
Kick 'em when they're down, etc.
Kick 'em when they're stiff
Kick 'em all around

Dirty little secrets, dirty little lies
We got our dirty little fingers in everybody's pie
We love to cut you down to size
We love dirty laundry
We can do the innuendo, we can dance and sing
When it's said and done we haven't told you a thing
We all know that Crap is King
Give us dirty laundry

Kick 'em when they're up
Kick 'em when they're down
Kick 'em when they're up
Kick 'em all around, etc.

I walk past some of these newer modern schools and it almost feels as if I'm walking past a county jail/federal prison. You know, the impression you get when you're riding NE 130th Avenue and pass FCI Heritage. Modern American public schools are already effectively forced labor camps.

[texasdiver]

Heritage HS is actually 100x nicer than the current Mountain View. That it looks "institutional" from the outside is mainly compromises of architecture and budgets. They could have spent another $10 million to make an exterior 'statement' with glass and such but then people would have complained about that too. Regardless of what it looks like from the outside, there are all kinds of nice well-lit open areas and common areas inside the school and the classrooms are mostly bright and nice and modern. The main problem with Heritage is that it was built as a 3-year HS and then the district decided to make it a 4-year school which meant 25% more students and a sea of portable classrooms in the back parking lot. I'm counting 21 portable classrooms as of the most recent satellite pass on google maps. It might even be more today: https://goo.gl/maps/zQLfvswX1QBaFe1H6 The district does have plans to expand the school but I have seen no plans or timeline. I think they are planning it after they do Mountain View.

What makes the current Mountain View so bad is the design which is a collection of 10+ concrete block buildings with classrooms that mostly open to the outside which might make sense in a climate like Southern California but not in Vancouver. Imagine sitting in your living room and having the front door opened endlessly all day long for long periods between classes and then all the time inbetween every time a kid goes to the bathroom or an office messenger brings something by. You basically have to keep the heat running all the time. It is completely inefficient compared to schools with normal interior hallways and limited need to enter and exit the building during the school day. At Mountain View the hallways between classes are mostly outdoor breezeways that are dripping and leaky at spots and the wind blows through making it miserable in winter. The common areas are outdoor concrete plazas with concrete benches that are OK in Sept and June but mostly abandoned and empty during the cold rainy bulk of the school year. Kids don't really want to sit around on wet concrete benches in the rain. Imagine that. There is basically no way to modernize it as the entire design is wrong. So they are doing the right thing to just bulldoze it and start over.

But you are right about the "hardening" of schools. There is a whole enormous security consulting industry built up in recent decades post-Columbine and you can go to big conferences where hundreds of companies are out hocking their various products and services to increase surveillance and monitoring of students and schools. Enormous sums of public dollars are being spent on that sort of thing.

[TheOrca]

Originally Posted by silibran

I am going to differ. I think school shootings will become more common. It is the template that unhappy kids know, and there is plenty of stuff on the dark web for them to find about it.

The more guns are out there, the more shootings we have.

I have grandchildren in public schools. I worry about them. They have active shooter drills even in the elementary schools now. I hate everything about this problem. But I don’t see it going away. I think it will get worse.

Fortunately your worries are driven only by media brain washing and are not reflective of worries.

If your worries are based on facts you would be terrified of swimming pools

[TheOrca]

The emotion of fear is great for politicians to exploit

Its caused almost every major genocide and will continue to hurt people and even kill them.

[StealthRabbit]

Originally Posted by TheOrca

...
I just got an e-mail that my business will have an additional B&O tax for "higher education funding" - What a load of BS that is....

There's no such thing as education via institution.

Originally Posted by silibran

...
I have grandchildren in public schools. I worry about them. ...

Originally Posted by Ttark

...

I walk past some of these newer modern schools and it almost feels as if I'm walking past a county jail/federal prison. You know, the impression you get when you're riding NE 130th Avenue and pass FCI Heritage. Modern American public schools are already effectively forced labor camps.

Originally Posted by texasdiver

Heritage HS is actually 100x nicer than the current Mountain View. That it looks "institutional" from the outside is mainly compromises of architecture and budgets. They could have spent another $10 million to make an exterior 'statement' ... So they are doing the right thing to just bulldoze it ....

But you are right about the "hardening" of schools. There is a whole enormous security consulting industry built up in recent decades post-Columbine and you can go to big conferences where hundreds of companies are out hocking their various products and services to increase surveillance and monitoring of students and schools. Enormous sums of public dollars are being spent on that sort of thing.

Fortunately we all know there are some tremendously successful alternatives to USA Public Schools

Imagine the true educational resources that we could provide for our 'next learners', if there were NO Public School buildings, Buses, Administrators... Yippee... we could have great libraries, mentorships, apprentice programs, utilized millions of valuable (and educated) senior citizens, demonstrate true values (and value), alternative learning's (owning and running businesses as students... endless tangible and beneficial ways to actually learn and contribute for the betterment of our communities and country.

For those inclined to use the USA Public Education 'day-care service', they could rent some of the churches that sit empty during school hours, and subcontract educational services to one of many countries who have proven very competent to provide superior academic results than USA edu.

Just gotta think outside the '4 walls' of the failure we perpetuate, generation after generation.

School shooting risk is VERY real (coming from one who was schooled within the emotional hotbed known as Colorado.) It is quite interesting there were no school shootings, even tho we had our rifles with us at High School in the back window of our pickup trucks. The bullying / racial violence / social disparity / group fights were brutal, but no-one got shot. I am actually quite surprised, tho school officials could / would beat the tar out of you if you got the least bit out of line. (they didn't get shot either!). I actually had a civil discussion last week with one of our most difficult school staff at the time (ex Marine / reserve police officer... i.e. Hardened). We did not unearth the mortal wounds.