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Do you have a perpetual inventory and do you know what you have on hand at any one time?

Dr. SCOTT. Mr. Bedford can you give that answer?

Mr. BEDFORD. There are two phases to that answer. Yes, we have reduced the total items that were carried in the warehouse. We do not have a staff to carry on a perpetual inventory. We have an annual inventory and this budget requests a staff that will round out our basic staff with additional inventory management people.

Mr. CABELL. Don't you think if that staff is increased to where an efficient job is done that then you can reduce the budget of those items involved more than enough to pay for that staff?

Mr. BEDFORD. Yes, sir.

Mr. CABELL. Have you reduced your requirements for those materials to compensate for that?

Mr. BEDFORD. Well, that is not the whole problem here, sir.

The problem basically is this that we will not by having a perpetual inventory and an increase in the staff reduce the total number of items we need to keep in the warehouse.

Mr. CABELL. Well, then you don't need the staff if you are not going to have a compensating savings, do you?

Mr. CORNICK. Mr. Chairman, I think the answer lies in the area of efficiency.

Mr. CABELL. That is exactly the point I am making.

Mr. CORNICK. I am not so sure that there wouldn't be a saving because with an additional staff we could do a much better job to move faster in improving services without necessarily reducing the cost of supplies.

We could do a better job with the expansion of the staff though I am not sure we would have offsetting savings immediately.

Mr. FRASER. I would say that more efficient services would increase demands because it would mean that teachers could get supplies when they could use them. We visited Eastern High School and the teacher was complaining that she really didn't have enough supplies to work with her children. This may have been a shortage of just that one item or it may have been a problem with internal management but the materials just didn't get out to the schools.

Mr. CABELL. Mr. Fraser, during that survey were you appraised of the fact that the majority of the fifth graders did not get their spellers for the entire school year?

Mr. FRASER. Well, I have that problem with my own children. They didn't get their text books on time and that is why I was suprised that you say there was no problem last year.

Mr. HENLEY. We had no complaints.

Mr. CORNICK. About 98 percent, sir, of all textbooks were delivered in September. It is entirely possible that the problem with your children's textbooks arose in the two percent area. These are the ones we hear about, the two percent. We seldom hear about the 98 percent.

Mr. FRASER. Specifically my recollection was that particularly in Western High School that either in the 11th or 12th grades they didn't get some of their textbooks until quite late.

Mr. HENLEY. Was it this year?

Mr. FRASER. Last year.

Mr. HENLEY. I remember it happening as the year before. I remember that is when the problem came up.

Mr. FRASER. Well, the problem has come up repeatedly. My recollection now is a couple of years old.

Dr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, one of the problems that I am concerned with is a school system has a great variety of needs in terms of instructional materials. And certainly Mr. Fraser wants his daughters and sons to have the kinds of materials that the other school systems are using that are relevant and help to improve the quality of instruction and therefore, as new things come out, they are stored in the warehouse so that the schools have the most up to date things. My estimate of the problem in terms of inventory control and in terms of dispersing these items is the fact that we have a very limited number of individuals working in the warehouse who are what we call a stock picker. We visited one warehouse and they said that I was the first Superintendent to visit there and there were six people stock picking and when a train came in, they would have to stop and unload the train and therefore the handsorting and delivery would have to stop.

It is one of those things Mr. Bedford says was put in the budget and it has been turned down. And the tremendous needs in this area, the requests that come in from the schools, all are involve in the process of handling this. And then you need the money to order things so they can store them.

So there are a lot of factors that operate here and I am sort of hard pressed as Superintendent to really scold administrative people who are understaffed. And I know the public puts a lot of scrutiny on what they are not doing and the principals of the local schools, which are really the hub of the whole inventory control, are saying that too much time is spent on these functions or whatever, but there is a shortage in administrative help.

If you want greater efficiency, we are going to have to have more people and that basically is the problem. The school system is not like Giant Food Stores. They can pretty much guess what kinds of things they will need and what their demands are, and they have the vheicles to move these items.

And that is another problem, the tragic situation of repairs on these vehicles. I visited one garage and found only one mechanic doing repairs on the vehicles. We can't even find a place to house these vehicles. Presently we park them in the street and so forth and so on and so they suffer vandalism and so on. I think the record certainly indicates that the school system gets criticized for things that are beyond its control.

And I am going to document all of these things and submit them for the record and hopefully when we come back to make our annualization I can put the blame where it belongs and I think the blame has to be shared because we make the school system inefficient by not giving them the capacity to solve these situations.

I have already told Administrative Services that when school starts in September I don't want to hear anything about not having enough mops and brooms and things of that sort. We are working on that and in September, hopefully, we will eliminate that 2 percent inefficiency level to 1/10th of 1 percent and that will be because somebody goofed at the local school.

SCHOOL BUILDING PROGAM

Mr. FRASER. On your building program, buildings are actually constructed and designed and so on by the municipal corporation, that is, by the city government, is that right?

Dr. SCOTT. General Services Administration.
Mr. FRASER. For the District?

Dr. Scort. Yes, for the District.

Mr. FRASER. I have asked this question before and I don't remember the answer. Do you have a long term building program? Do you have five and ten year projections on building needs?

Mr. CORNICK. I can answer that. We have six year projections. We have a six-year building program.

Dr. SCOTT. Perhaps Mr. Woodson can answer that.

Mr. WOODSON. Mr. Fraser, we do have and prepare each year a program for six years in advance. We also have a long range program that we have consulted with the planning commissioner on but this is a 1985 plan to be precise.

I would just like to say that that plan cannot be an exact plan because there are too many factors which will change between now and 1985 but the annual restructuring of the six year plan does keep us in contact with actual conditions. In other words, our projections of pupil population for the next six years would probably be at least I would say 95 percent accurate.

Now, in addition to building for numbers of pupils, we also have the problem of the condition of the school plant. That is another variable. Some of the buildings are quite old. We are using Stevens School which is 100 years old. It is in a neighborhood where we don't have overcrowded conditions but on the other hand we have buildings built as recently as 1960 which do not have in them all of the facitilies which a modern school should have.

I might add to that that the administration and the school board is making a strong effort to individualize instruction and for this reason we have changed the design of the school plans so that we are able to provide this. Now, we are going to have to find someway to individualize schools which were built in 1960. This may mean some modernization. So that when we talk about our building program, we are talking about a number of factors that go into it.

Mr. FRASER. Do you work for the school system or for the city? Mr. WOODSON. I work for the school system.

Mr. FRASER. And you are sort of the point of connection between the city and the school system?

Mr. WOODSON. I would say that is a fair assessment of my position. Mr. FRASER. There was, as I am sure you remember in the corporation hearing, some comment about whether in fact there was sufficient progress or planning in school buildings so as to justify appropriations.

Mr. WOODSON. I think that that question deals with how fast architects work and how fast sites can be procured and both of these are factors in this. For example, we might expect to ask for a certain amount of construction money, let's say in fiscal year 1972, but because of the problems of acquiring the site and relocating people, we would find that we could not actually start the construction in

fiscal year 1972. So these funds could be dropped for this kind of reason and this has happened.

Mr. FRASER. Now, who controls the design elements in the schools? Mr. WOODSON. Well, I think that on an overall basis the school system. I think that we control it.

Mr. FRASER. So that the city

Mr. WOODSON. In other words, what I am saying is that when it comes to the space arrangement and the kinds of spaces that we ask for, the kinds of classrooms, and the design of the classrooms, the school system does control it. We set general standards and general guidelines for this. The buildings are designed by private architects, working for the Department of General Services and, of course, all school buildings are not alike precisely but they do conform to our guidelines. We have a staff that reviews these designs at various stages to make sure that from an educational and functional standpoint we get the kinds that we want.

Mr. FRASER. What is the progress on the replacement of the very old buildings?

That is, the District has been engaged in a building program of recent years

Mr. WOODSON. We are making some progress. We have replaced quite a few schools. On the other hand, we have some more to go. And they are probably of two kinds. We have three schools in the area mmediately west of the White House which are old schools with very old populations. We might teach music in an empty room-a room, rather, that is not being used for say a fourth grade and because of this, the priority or urge or the necessity to replace those buildings is not as great as it is in some other places where we don't have old buildings.

We have a condition in Georgetown of three very old buildings but with very old populations and they have some space to move around in. But on the other hand, in the Shaw Urban Renewal Area, we are behind in that area. And because of the Urban Renewal process, we have not been able to find sites. We would like to say we are making progress.

We believe that we will get two such sites this year.

Mr. FRASER. What about the replacement for the Shaw School? Mr. WOODSON. For the Shaw Junior High School?

Mr. FRASER. Yes.

Mr. WOODSON. The plans for that are about 50 percent complete. The construction funding is in the fiscal year '72 request and we hope to start work between now and next June.

Mr. FRASER. And you have the site?

Mr. WOODSON. The site, yes. We have the site on which to build the school.

Mr. FRASER. And the title?

Mr. WOODSON. This piece is already in the ownership of the District. It is a playground and we will, I guess, attempt to keep you fully informed. This project was planned so that it could be done in phases. The school itself will occupy a city square at 9th and 10th and Rhode Island Avenue and "R" Streets.

Now, there are residences along Rhode Island Avenue on the 900 block and on "R" Street and 9th, the southwest corner of that inter

section which will have to be acquired and built in order that the complete plant can be built. We are going to build classrooms in all parts of that building. The assembly hall will be built on what is now ground in government ownership. The second phase, it will have to be built on ground which is yet to be acquired by the Urban Renewal Office.

These people will be relocated and in the new housing project across the street. And then there is the third phase, the federal education phase, and land will also have to be purchased and the people removed.

Now, the Urban Renewal Administration, that is, the Redevelopment Land Agency, is in the process of acquiring these sites and relocating the people. So, that it is going to take a little longer and be slightly more complicated than the normal school project.

Mr. FRASER. Mr. Chairman, I have some more questions and I was going to ask him about the Summer School Program and the fact that it was not being run, but Mr. Fauntroy

Mr. CABELL. If Mr. Fauntroy will yield to me for just one question. Mr. FAUNTROY. Yes.

COMMUNITY FACILITIES IN SCHOOLS

Mr. CABELL. Mr. Woodson, is it not true that your reference to buildings that have been built since 1960 lacking facilities or lacking modern facilities, doesn't that refer primarily to the community facilities as you call them which are essentially things like the little city hall and really are not items relevant to the school building itself? Isn't it true that these designs, that these concepts including these so-called community facilities, are actually about double in space and double in cost of what would be required of a true school or academic structure?

Mr. WOODSON. No, sir, Mr. Chairman, I think I can say no on all accounts. Let me say this, that a school built in 1960 was designed for community use. For many years we worked with the Recreation Department to use that portion of the buildings and they have been designed in such a fashion that they are readily accessible without being connected directly to the classrooms at all. Now, since 1960, from a curriculum standpoint, we added certain things. I might say that music has been one of them. In one elementary school we have been able to add a music education staff and they had no place to work so there is presently an elementary school which must use a small gymnasium for classes.

But the schools are now being designed in a fasion which will let the community use these spaces after 3:00 or 3:30 in the afternoon. It is in that sense that we have many schools which from an educational standpoint are inadequate. I might say this too, that up until recent years, the last three years, we have made very little advancement in the prekindergarden program. And I think that everyone would agree that our kids in these cities don't get the same kind of start that people in the suburbs and people in the better financial brackets are able to give their kids.

So that a prekindergarden program in a central city is an extremely important phase of the educational program and we are now building these facilities but we have very few of them at this time.

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