Haley & Zais and Stock School Plans

Election time in South Carolina is often one characterized by politicians offering up solutions that surely would worsen the situation they are attempting to address. In this vein, the American Institute of Architects agrees with gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley that “The best decisions that are made are local”. However, Candidate Haley seems to disregard her own policy when she endorses the practice of utilizing stock plans in building schools: “There is no reason to reinvent the wheel every time a school is built – using a single, template set of plans will allow us to put the money spent on architectural fees back into the classroom.” Likewise, Mick Zais, candidate for Superintendant of SC Schools, claims as part of his platform, that “One size doesn’t fit all”. He too has endorsed the flawed notion of stock school plans, which by definition is a one size fits all solution. Zais claims that school districts “need to be given flexibility in designing the academic programs to best meet the needs of the students.” Yet Zais does not include the flexibility to design the appropriate environments to fit those academic programs.
The American Institute of Architects South Carolina firmly believes that school facilities should be designed and built to address the specific requirements of the site, locale, and certainly the diverse needs of children and teachers using those schools. Stock plans or “scalable pre-designed templates” involve a multitude of hazards that have resulted in all 25 of the states that have attempted to use them ultimately abandoning the practice. Some of the explanations given include:
• Stock school plans increase construction costs. Due to the varying topography, climate, seismic and soil conditions throughout the state, stock plans will invariably encounter construction conflicts in the field, dramatically increasing change order costs and delays. These job and site-specific conflicts are regularly eliminated during the programming and design phases of school projects by qualified architects.
• Stock plans do not address different curricula and teaching methodologies among districts. Many districts have vocational/adult education requirements or art and science requirements that demand unique facility layouts and use; security needs are different; and special students’ needs are different.
• Stock plans are not free. They must be created and detailed to completion. For the school to function properly, an architect must be hired to modify the standardized school plans according to the site’s topography, location of roads, access to utilities, climate, and site orientation. Modifications of stock plans to fit local conditions typically costs 2/3 to 3/4 of the original fee. Results are that there is very little savings in design fees and the community whose tax dollars funded the school must live with a building that may be marginally adequate for their needs.
• Standard plans are contrary to a free market. Stock plans limit competition among building product manufacturers and suppliers. Lack of competition typically drives building prices upward. The standardization of specification forces many component manufacturers out of the bidding process. Schools are constructed with tax derived funds and all segments of the building industry provide these taxes and each segment should have its chance to participate in accordance with its competitive edge.
• Stock school plans increase life-cycle costs. Like snowflakes, no two school sites are the same – in most cases, they are dramatically different. Building design must take into account orientation to the sun, differing climate zones as well as district specific uses for the buildings. Each of these factors greatly influence school design, and when not appropriately considered, will result in increased maintenance and utility costs, decreased life span for the building systems, as well as inefficient and ineffective buildings that must be maintained for years to come.
• Liability becomes complicated when a stock plan drawn up by one architect is modified by another architect. In South Carolina it is illegal for an architect to sign or stamp construction documents that he or she did not personally prepare or directly supervise. An architect hired to use existing documents would essentially need to disassemble the plans and recalculate each element to be assured they are designed to his or her standard. The costs and time involved in such a task are considerable, and could easily outweigh the perceived benefits of using stock school plans.
Ultimately, we would pose the following question to candidates Haley and Zais: what school delivery model serves the children of South Carolina and those responsible for their education in the most beneficial manner? Is it a model that curtails innovation, limits competition and provides the bare necessities of a factory-like learning environment? Or is it a different model, as the American Institute of Architects South Carolina believes– one that promotes local engagement and free market principles that produce a well thought out learning environment for producing the leaders of tomorrow? We invite the candidates to reconsider what course is best for the future of our state.

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