Blockbuster Development in Lebo High School Renovation Process

Dirk Taylor, lifelong Mt. Lebanon resident and longtime structural engineering advisor to the Mt. Lebanon School District, recently delivered to incoming Superintendent Timothy Steinhauer and the entire Board a careful yet blistering criticism of the Mt. Lebanon School Board's process and proposal to renovate the Mt. Lebanon High School.

Complete copies of his materials will be posted shortly for everyone to read, and there will be more coverage of the submission here at Blog-Lebo and, perhaps, elsewhere. For now, relevant excerpts include the following (posted with permission):

I received a copy of the current Schematic Design being presented from your office on July17th. After reviewing the plans in detail, along with comparing them to the current high school plans, I am concerned that the ommunity at large has not been given full factual information. In fact, it is my opinion that misleading and inaccurate statements presented throughout the evaluation process have resulted in very poor decisions regarding the direction this project has taken.

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The current High School has been described in numerous presentations to the community by the Project Architects as a non-functional building that is proven not to work. Considering that for decades Mt. Lebanon High School has consistently ranked and continues to rank among the best high schools in the region, state, and nation in every significant category, including academics, athletics, fine arts, graduation rate, college attendance, and ultimate success of its students in the adult world this statement is puzzling. There can be no serious debate regarding the success of our students, whose achievements are well-documented public information.

To state that the current building is non-functional suggests a lack of understanding of what has been going on in the building. I imagine that the authors of that statement can provide documentation of various national studies used to develop current guidelines for an ideal high school design and show how our High School does not satisfy certain statistical criteria. But that in no way proves that the existing building is not functioning extremely well in its current state.

The post-graduate success of every Mt. Lebanon High School Class has proven that the building provides an excellent learning environment. For decades I have visited schools throughout the region as a student, athlete, parent of student-athletes, and on a professional basis as a structural engineer. I have been in virtually every major high school in the WPIAL, and quite a few other high schools throughout Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, and West Virginia. In my opinion, the design of Mt. Lebanon’s current High School is surpassed by no other school I have visited. In my opinion, we already have the best basic building design.

Because it has been nearly 40 years since the last major renovation, the School is in great need of major renovation/update to almost every architectural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and communication system. But having provided structural engineering services to the School District for the past 15 years, I can assure you that the entire building is in excellent structural condition, capable of serving the community for many more decades. To tear down a perfectly good structure and replace it with a new, slightly smaller structure would be an incredible waste.

Stay tuned.