Dressed in protective masks and coveralls, employees of Industrial Services entered Washington School early Tuesday morning to begin asbestos remediation.
Prior to their arrival, USD 503 maintenance personnel spent weeks sorting, tossing and removing wanted items that had been stored in the battered, school building, long used for storage by the district.
“It looks a lot better with all the stuff moved out,” Superintendent Lori Ray said, though, that is not saying much given the school’s condition, she admitted.
Ever expanding mold covers the walls of the old science lab, looking as though students’ experiments went awry. Traversing the halls and classrooms, one can see ceiling tiles drooping around stained holes where the aged roof has leaked in various places throughout the building. Chunks of exposed concrete trail across areas of well-worn asbestos tiles in the halls. All window openings and doors are covered in boards, hiding from neighbors the gaping holes where vandals have smashed or broken out almost all of the glass. Holes have been knocked in some walls and bathrooms are torn apart. The building stands as an abandoned, abused shell of what it once was.
Washington Elementary School, built in 1954, ended its operations in June 1999, when the school district faced more teacher layoffs amid declining enrollment, resulting in declining state funding.
The district was required to close a building, and after much deliberation, and considerable input from the community, the district settled on Washington School due to its age, size and condition. The only other time students walked the halls of Washington was during the Parsons Middle School remodel the 2021-2022 school year. The district patched the aging roof in order to house students for the year and put an electrical panel in one classroom to handle the use of computers, former USD 503 Maintenance Director Dave Winchell said. Following the middle school students moving back into their school, Washington School was put up for sale. No interest was expressed until 2006, though not surprising, Winchell said. The steam and boiler system were original and nonworking. Most of the wall heating and cooling units in the classrooms were non-functioning. All the building’s plumbing requires replacement as do the toilets and sinks, Winchell said, and the pipes would be extremely difficult to replace given most of the pipes are beneath the concrete floor poured during construction. The basement of the building flooded leaving most of the electric in the building nonfunctional. Washington School was built prior to computer usage, so the electric in the building could not handle today’s technology requirements. Asbestos, throughout the building required abatement before the building could be sold, too.
In May 2006, Foutch Brothers LLC offered the district $100,000 for the building and property, with plans to convert the facility into a dormitory for Labette Community College students. When the time came to discuss rezoning the property, residents around Washington School approached the Parsons City Commission and Parsons Planning Commission voicing their concerns over noise and traffic students would bring into the neighborhood. The petition was denied.
Curious Minds Discovery Zone was the next to investigate the building in 2012 but declined to pursue opening its museum there due to the condition of the building.
No further prospects made inquiries about purchasing the building until 2018, when the Tri-County Special Education Cooperative was looking at using about half the building for its Project Alternative School. An inspection was done and it was estimated it would cost around $500,000 to do basic renovations for their space alone, including required heat and air upgrades, in addition to new water lines. The Parsons USD 503 Board of Education toured the building that September. Maintenance Director James Ramsey showed the board the west wall of the building. He said years ago the entire wall had shifted and it was his job to repair the major cracks. Roger Duroni, then board member and retired teacher, said the problems with the wall have been an issue since the building was built, relative to an old drainage ditch that ran along the west side.
When he was in fourth grade, he said they were out of school because the building flooded and they had to mud jack the wall. Seeing the level of deterioration and need, the board pondered what to do. A committee was formed to bring its thoughts to the board, but it could not reach a consensus.
Superintendent Lori Ray began requesting the board seriously consider moving forward with asbestos abatement, as it would have to be done whether the building sold or was razed. They asked her to seek an abatement bid, which came in at $90,000, but the board was split on spending the funds then.
A man approached the district in 2020 about buying the building, but quickly changed his mind, deciding he would rather rent it, or at least part of it, for a church. The proposal did not go anywhere after he learned he would have the cost of repairing bathroom facilities in order to hold church in the building. The most recent interest expressed was from someone with Rural redevelopment to convert the school to housing. The party initially desired the school district absorb rezoning, plus all the costs for the asbestos abatement, and reroofing the building, among other repairs, and then to sell the building to them for $1. The other option was to pay the party $150,000 and they would assume all responsibility, however Ray shared her concerns that in order to do any work to the building, they would have to get it rezoned first to multifamily residential, which residents were not supportive of before. “ I don't believe that the community, and in particular, that neighborhood, would be supportive of that. I'm not sure he could get it rezoned. If he couldn't get it rezoned, it would just sit,” Ray said. “That would make us all look bad.” With costs to renovate estimated at well over $1 million, if enough funding was not available for the renovations, there was still potential for the building to just sit and continue to deteriorate. Ray said there is also consideration for the district that it's a full city block of property within the district boundaries, and that space is hard to come by, making it a valuable asset for the district in the future. Those concerns and considerations were shared by most board members, which led to the district’s decision in June to raze the building. Many residents are lamenting the decision, believing the building to still be in good condition. Others are praising the school district for finally taking action to remove the deteriorating building from their neighborhood.
Asbestos abatement is estimated to take about 30 days, after which the demolition crews will move in. When all is said and done, the school district will have a city block of property that is a blank canvas to work with.
“The district can use the land for anything. If they want a building, why not build something new? It might cost more than $1 million, but they would have something brand new that would last for years into the future,” Winchell said. “Anything they do to the existing building, will just be a band-aid, and more things will go wrong.”
Concerns were voiced over a memorial located beside a tree on the property. Plans are, presently, to somehow preserve the memorial.
“The demolition of the building will allow the district the flexibility for any district needs in the future,” Ray said. “We don't know what the specific district needs will be in twenty to thirty years down the road in regard to facilities. But, we do know that keeping the property will allow the district to have dedicated space to meet those future needs. For now we intend to keep the playground equipment and basketball goals that are currently in the space for neighborhood use and have grass field space available for local little league and PRC practices.”