Baltimore County Public Schools
The Baltimore County Public School (BCPS) District is a large urban/suburban school district covering more than 600 square miles and comprising more than 150 elementary, middle, high and special schools. More than 75% of its schools were built before 1970 and, as has been the case in many urban school districts across the US, building maintenance was often deferred or reduced in years of tight education budgets. Perks Reutter, in competition with several national professional service firms, was retained by BCPS to conduct a comprehensive facilities inventory and condition assessment. While similar to Perks Reutter's facilities assessment of the School District of Philadelphia, several important differences occurred which increased the scope of work. Because of the large geographical size of the county teams of architects and engineers had to be assigned by each of the District's 5 school regions in order to optimize data collection time in the field and the use of laptop computers. In addition several quality of life and curriculum support tasks were added beyond basic site, structural, architectural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, code, ADA and life safety assessments. Quality of life assessments covered indoor air quality (IAQ) and lighting levels while curriculum support required a detailed classroom by classroom inventory of computers, television sets, vcrs, telephones, fire bells and strobes and visual aids including black boards and cork boards.
As noted in several timely articles in The Baltimore Sun, the Perks Reutter Assessment provided BCPS and Baltimore County Government with the planning tools necessary to begin the job of bringing the School District buildings back into good repair.
Client: Baltimore County Public Schools
Location: Baltimore County, MD
Services: Facilities Assessment
Project Cost: $500 million estimated repairs and renovations
Size: 15 million sq. ft.
Completed: Summer, 1999
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