Lebanon Community School District officials are weighing their options as they face problems caused by years of, as Chief Executive Officer William Lewis has described it to the School Board multiple times, “kicking the can down the road.”
“We have a lot of old schools in need of repair,” Lewis said earlier this week. “Even our newest schools are approaching 25 years old. There’s going to be a need for repair. We want to make sure we’re proactively maintaining at the highest level, but even then their boilers are wearing out.”
A District Facilities Assessment produced by Soderstrom Architects two years ago, in February 2024, rated structural and other conditions of buildings on 12 of the district’s campus facilities, including the District office and Maintenance Building.
The assessment determined that more than 30% of the district’s deficiencies were “critical,” and 10 to 30 rated “poor,” with pages of specific alerts and recommendations for each campus.
It identified Lacomb, built in 1953, as the campus with the greatest overall needs in the district – noting that nearly every element of its structures needs replacing.
Cascades, built in 1953, and Green Acres (1948) were rated the next-worse, followed by the high school, whose rating was skewed by the condition of its grandstand, which was closed down last year due to structural issues and torn down earlier this year.
That was followed by Seven Oak Middle School.
The ages of the district’s school facilities range from 78 years for Green Acres to 25 for its two newest schools, Pioneer and Riverview, both built in 2001 after voters passed a $49.85 bond measure in 2000 that paid for those schools, as well as additions and repairs to other campuses.
The oldest of the district’s schools are Cascades and Lacomb (73 years), Seven Oak and the District Office (71/1955), Lebanon High School’s main building (69/1957 – the annex was added 23 years ago, in 2003, following the bond passage), the Maintenance Building (66/1960), and Hamilton Creek (54/1972).
The average age of district buildings is 56 years, according to the report.
“A majority of our schools were built post-World War II, right in that era,” Lewis said. “That puts them in that 70-plus age range. Anything that old has challenges. A 1970s car is not going to perform without problems. Even if you maintain it, there are still challenges.”
According to the Soderstrom report, gymnasiums, cafeterias and multipurpose rooms that are feasible to be used as emergency shelters in disasters must be rehabilitated to meet “immediate occupancy” seismic safety requirements, the report stated. Many older district buildings have ADA accessibility issues and contain hazardous materials, such as lead, mold, PDBs and radon gas, as well asbestos, the latter particularly in flooring.
The report rated several buildings – the original Classroom Wing A and gymnasium at Seven Oak, and the Auditorium and Cafeteria, and weight room at the high school as the highest risks for structural collapse. Cascades’ facilities, the older structures at Green Acres, the older buildings at Lacomb and the north Classroom Wing A at the high school were rated “moderate” risks, as was the district’s Maintenance Facility, located next to the District Office.
Lewis said the biggest issues the district is facing are failing roofs, problems with the building shells and “electrical and plumbing that is 70 years old.”
“The plumbing has collapsed underneath some of our schools,” he said. “They didn’t do plumbing back then the way they do now. In 1950 they put a single drain under a school.”
Roofs Triple Life Expectancy
In March, district staff took a tour of the high school and middle school campuses with a reporter to look at some of the issues.
The tour was limited to the high school and middle school, but Lewis and Maintenance and Custodial Supervisor Brian Eilers, who’s been with the district 13 years and oversees all of its facilities, said the problems that were evident to participants were similar to those on other older district campuses as well.
Participants started on the high school roof, much of which is, like the Seven Oak, nearly 70 years old, more than triple its expected lifespan.
Most of the roof is rolled asphalt roofing, originally covered by white grit that, when it still was adhered to the roof, helped deflect solar rays. Mostly, it’s gone, leaving visible shreds of fiberglass in many areas.
“We’ve had several failures in this,” Eilers said as the group of several people picked their way around standing water on the roof. He noted that the roof, which had a 20-year guarantee, is nearing 70 in age.
Here and there were patches of white vinyl sheets, thermoplastic polyolefin (TPO) roofing a cost-effective, single-ply membrane used primarily on flat or low-slope commercial roofs, such as the high school.
Eilers said portions of the roof were replaced in 2002-03, when the last bond was passed by voters, using the white vinyl, which is now aging out.
As the roof expands and retracts with changes in seasons, the vinyl starts wearing through, especially at the seams.
“I always refer to it as a swimming pool,” Eilers said, noting that the vinyl covering is very thin. “It’s very fragile.”
Eilers said TPO “was a great, great idea,” but there are better options now, called “built-up roofs” composed of alternating layers of bitumen (asphalt or coal tar) and reinforcing fabrics (felts or fiberglass), which cost about 40% more.
“To be honest with you, out of an 80 (millimeter) PCV you get the same 30-year warranty that you do out of a built-up,” Eilers said.
This excursion was less about finding solutions than identifying the problems.
“You see the start of some of the degradation there,” said Lewis, who’s been with the district seven years and currently oversees its business operations.
“This is supposed to be white, with a kind of grit sand. It’s been washed off over the years,” he noted.
Eilers said the flat roofs have settled to the point that the gutters on the edges are higher than the centers in some spots. That has contributed to expensive leakage.
“As we look back through our records, we can find no second-generation roof,” he said. “The original high school was the 100 Hall. This is the 200 Hall and we can’t find any records that this was ever replaced at any point between then and now. So from 1957 to now, we could very well be looking at the original roof.”
He said he’s seen evidence of repairs, but the roof is largely missing the white granules that served as a protectant against the sun’s rays.
“This roofing is only 70 years old,” Eilers said, semi-jokingly, as he surveyed the expanse. “I don’t know why it would be failing.”
Recently, he said, the district had to spend $30,000 – not counting framing – to fix the roof over a boys bathroom in the 200 Hall where water had slowly seeped in and dried, rotting out the ceiling members.
At the middle school, overhangs, which measure roughly 4 feet, were so rotten along the original A wing that maintenance staff cut them back about a foot, Lewis said.
In one classroom, ceiling tiles were missing because of leakage from the roof.
“This wing is our oldest section of roof and it is every bit as bad as what you saw at the high school,” he said.
Another issue is the lack of insulation, besides what the roof itself provides: “There’s no added space,” Eilers said of the existing flat roofs. “There’s no hidden area, so there’s no insulation that you can see underneath. That’s just the way it was built.”
Eilers said that one solution to the high school roof issues would be to reshape the flat roofs with approximately 6 inches of rigid foam, which would both provide insulation and drainage that is currently lacking.
Building ‘Envelope,’ Interior Issues
The Soderstrom facilities assessment reported two years ago that while the district’s newer buildings are in “good shape overall,” its older facilities are, in general, “under-insulated, have inefficient windows, worn siding and aging roof systems.”
“Roofing is the most critical item, as it impacts the building most significantly and directly. Additionally, there are significant operating costs that can be saved if energy efficiency is prioritized, including more efficient insulated windows and added roof insulation, in particular.”
Eilers noted that the high school has very little to no insulation in its roofs and walls.
In the high school classrooms and cafeteria, the walls consist essentially of quarter-inch metal sheets and windows, supported by steel posts.
“You have, basically, a thin piece of metal and a thin piece of glass and that’s your whole facade,” he said. “You’re not looking at a wall. You’re not looking at any R (insulation) value at all. So actually, you’re conducting cold and you’re losing heat.”
The older buildings of the middle school, noted later, are built the same way, except roughly half of the original windows have been replaced with drywall along the older wings.
Those issues were among those flagged by the Soderstrom report, which noted “significant building envelope issues” on older elementary school campuses and stated “generally
speaking, (district) buildings are “under-insulated” and have “inefficient windows.”
“While all of the district’s buildings are well-maintained, many have identified a long list of needs, particularly the older elementary schools,” the assessment reported. “With an average building age of 56 years, there are several buildings well beyond their practical lifespan.”
Lewis said that flooring at the middle school is problematic and the district hopes to replace layers of worn asbestos tiles in the older hallways with polished concrete.
“This whole hall would be amazing,” he said, gesturing. “That’s a nice, cheap way of fixing everything.”
Cascades, Green Acres and Lacomb, particularly need “significant” interior improvements, according to the Soderstrom assessment, particularly to flooring, but many district buildings have outdated window covering and need repainting.
Mechanical/Plumbing/Electrical Systems
Many buildings, particularly older ones, have “significant needs” ranging from controls to actual replacement, as well as overall capacity concerns, the Soderstrom report said.
“Generally speaking, many building systems are well beyond their practical lifespan and
require significant work.” Buildings need lighting upgrades, from fluorescent to LED, and many have water delivery issues, well behind current code requirements, and in some cases “are aged beyond their practical lifespan.”
In total, the report estimated needed repairs to the district’s mechanical and plumbing systems at $7,556,764, including nearly $2.25 million at the high school alone, and over $1 million each at Lacomb and Hamilton Creek, with Cascade right behind at $972,587. Needed electrical upgrades total $5,920,338 for the district, nearly $2 million of those at the high school, with Green Acres totaling $808,912 and Seven Oak $648,682.
Eilers showed the tour group the boilers-based heating systems that provide heating and hot water for the high school and middle school.
The giant boilers at the high school are, he said, “are a massive ticket item.”
About the height of a single-story building, they are “very inefficient” compared to modern units, though they do their jobs of providing heat and hot water to some 200,000 square feet of building space.
“It’s just that they’re 70 years old,” Eilers said. “Brand new systems will use the same technology, but it’s just been moved along.”
The more modern boilers at Seven Oak could “fit in the back of your pickup,” he noted.
The insulation on the high school boilers needs replacement, he said, but the cost would be about $60,000.
Also, he said, any repairs on older boilers are very expensive.
“We have a tank right now that needs to be repaired and that was $30,000, just for a tank and a pump.”
Another challenge, Eilers said, with the high school plant is that maintenance staffers must crawl through sometimes long tunnels to address issues. The tunnels, roughly 3 feet by 3 feet in size, run the lengths of the buildings and include the steam lines through which the buildings are heated by the boilers, other plumbing and power lines and technology cables.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “You’ll have a trap door about every third classroom so you’re crawling a ways.”
Standing in the high school cafeteria, he pointed out the length of the room: “This tunnel runs all the way through into the kitchen, runs all the way down this and you don’t see another trap door. So if I’ve got to get down there, and we did have to do some repairs in here one time, you had to crawl in here and crawl all the way into the kitchen and do repairs. And it’s just not fun. Never a fun thing, yeah, never a fun thing again. No insulation in the ceiling, other than what’s on the roof. So you have large space, it’s either getting super hot or you crank the heat up.
At the middle school, heating is inconsistent because a giant fan is used to suck air into the school rather than using individual rooftop air intakes to recycle fresh air.
“The problem is, when you get down to the end of the hall there’s not much air left to get there,” Eilers said. “All these walls are concrete in this hallway, so if you draw the lucky end-of-the-hall room, it’s really cold or really hot.”
If the district could install more efficient rooftop units, that would also provide heating and cooling, he noted.
Also, Eilers said, repairs are expensive on the boilers.
“I can find anybody that can work on a rooftop unit,” he said. But for a boiler, “I have to call one of three specialists in Oregon to come work on this. So we pay the price. When you know you’re one of the only games in town, you can demand a little higher price.”
The south wing at Seven Oak, added in 2003 after voters passed the $49.85 bond measure in 2000, has concrete floors, gender-neutral bathrooms, LED lighting on controllers, and includes an indoor physical education facility that has roll-up doors to give students access to an outside grassy field when needed.
“The maintenance side of (the new building) was very well thought out,” Eilers said. “What is the biggest bang for the buck? What’s tough? What will handle kids?”
The new wing is heated with what he described as “glorified homeowner heating and air units” which allow him to easily arrange for repairs.
“We would love for this to be a prototypical design for the high school,” Lewis said, noting the ease of maintaining a polished concrete floor that doesn’t require stripping and waxing each year, easily accessible mechanical systems, efficient lighting and more.
“A normal human can walk in there and actually service things” he said, as Eilers chimed in: “stand upright.”
“Exactly,” Lewis said.
Security Issues
Installation of chain link fencing is planned for this summer to enclose the campus, Lewis said.
Access to the back of the high school campus is not difficult, Eilers pointed out.
The back of the high school is surrounded by a chain link fence, but the “big weak spot,” he said, “is at the front of campus where “anybody could walk to the back, which is where we have all our open doors.”
The plan is to set up a system in which students and visitors are funneled through the athletic doors or the front door, next to the office.
The Money
Lebanon, like school districts around the state, is struggling with budget reductions – in its case, approximately $2 million this year, due to enrollment declines and other factors.
Those restraints make the price tag for fixes even more daunting.
The Soderstrom report estimated district-wide repair costs at $119,459,336 in 2024, about one-fifth of actual replacement costs at that point in time.
Lewis said that the district asked Soderstrom “to go back and fine-tune” the figures.
“We don’t want the $70 (per square foot) cost in Portland metro,” he said. “They’ve adjusted them to Linn County and to a public works contract,” adding that by state law, any construction contract over $50,000 must pay a prevailing wage.
Given all that, he said, district officials have arrived at a $100 million figure to just cover “basic needs,” particularly at older campuses.
Michelle Steinhebel, district communications director, noted that staffing accounts for about 80% of the district’s budget.
“The leftover is for maintenance,” she said. “It’s always for maintenance. We’re using Band-Aids, but you can only Band-Aid a roof so many times.”
Lewis emphasized that district staff, in his words, “does a lot with a little. We really do.”
“As we’re going along, we’re making reductions to our budget as needed. We Band-Aid, we make it look good, we spend time and effort to cut costs. We have in-house staff construct certain things, which saves taxpayers a lot of money.
“But it’s going to be a challenge, going forward.”