From 1976 to 2001: Ray Massey has Witnessed the Growth of WCPSS First Hand Over the Past 25 Years
A lot has changed since Ray Massey first came to work in 1974 as the only member of the facilities staff for the Wake County Schools. Since that time, the Wake County and the Raleigh City school systems have merged into one, five bond referendums totaling over $1.2 billion have passed, more than 50 schools have been built, and the facilities staff has grown from a staff of one to a staff of 42.
Now as associate superintendent for auxiliary services, Massey reflects on the progress that has taken place since his days as a facilities technician, fresh out of N.C. State University.
Talk of Merger Leads to Long Board Meetings
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| Ray Massey began his career with the school system in 1974. |
Massey joined the Wake County Schools' staff a year and a half prior to the merger of the county and city school systems. He said he remembers many long board meetings being held during that time to discuss the issue of merger.
"I was young and just beginning my career at the time, but I attended the board meetings, because I wanted to know what was going on," he said. "Meetings would go until 1:00, 1:30 or sometimes 2:00 in the morning. Some meetings were so well attended by the public that they couldn't get everyone into the board room at Noble Road, so they would set up television monitors in the hallways, and people would stand in the halls and watch the board deliberate on TV. There was a lot of debate and lots of issues. It was a hard time for board members. To merge the systems just two years after the public voted against the referendum, took real leadership."
Property Accounting Book and First Safety Plans Developed
As the only member of the county system's facilities staff, Massey worked under Assistant Superintendent Coyte Lanier in an office located at Noble Road in what is now the school system's print shop. As the merger approached, Massey said it was Lanier's responsibility to make some facilities decisions since facilities, to a large extent, affect student assignment issues.
"The two systems were very different in how they were managed, organized and maintained," he said. "It was Mr. Lanier's job to do an inventory of what we had in the system. Soon after the merger, we started a building by building assessment, finding out about the condition of our buildings throughout the system. One of the first tasks I was assigned after the merger was to deal with property accounting drawings and to produce documents that were site plans and floor plans of all of the buildings for the whole merged system. There were 82 schools, as I remember, and probably 250 buildings in the system. We produced early on what's now referred to as the property accounting book which is a large volume of drawings that include site plans and floor plans of all the schools."
In addition to creating the property accounting book, Massey also helped create the first safety plan for the system early in his career.
"The Occupational and Health Safety Act was fairly new at the time, and there was no OSHA compliance officer or regulations or anything," he said. "But we created the first safety notebook for all the principals and central office administrators, so they could have a consistent plan for dealing with health and safety issues."
Facilities Staff Expands
Shortly after Massey was hired, the facilities staff expanded to two people with the addition of the system's first draftsman, Ronnie Whittington. Massey said Whittington helped a lot with the property accounting drawings.
"We went from no facilities people to two, fairly quickly," Massey said. "Actually, we were fine with just a couple of staff members in the 1970s. We were only occasionally building a new school, and many of the new schools we built between 1976 and '84 were replacement schools. They were not needed for growth, because the district was actually losing kids during the 1980s. It wasn't until 1985 that we actually started to grow as a school system."
Massey said some schools were closed in the early '80s including Longview, Phillips and Mt. Vernon Elementary. He said only a handful of new schools were built between 1976 and 1984 to account for the growth in areas like North Raleigh.
"That first growth spurt was in the North Raleigh area, so East Millbrook, West Millbrook and Lynn Road Elementary were some of the new schools to come out of the ground after the merger," he said. "But for the most part, the work being done early on consisted of campus and building replacements projects."
Bonds Fund Extensive Building Programs
Massey said the population started to grow around 1984-85, and the system had its first bond referendum for $70 million in 1985.
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| Ray Massey is now associate superintendent for auxiliary services. |
"There had not been a bond referendum for the Wake County schools since 1971, and it had failed," he said. "So the successful bond referendum for $70 million in 1985 got us started on what we called our Phase I building program. We knew there were probably going to be more needs - although nobody could fathom the depth of those needs at that time - so we called it Phase I and developed a building plan for a three-year period."
With the bond proceeds and some pay as you go money from the county, the system built five new schools and renovated several schools between 1985 and 1988 and spent around $100 million, which Massey said was unheard of at the time.
"That started our program and that's where all the change has occurred from my perspective over the years," he said. "In the span between 1985 and 1987, in that 24-month period of time, we went from spending $5 million a year in school construction to spending $5 million a month."
Massey said by 1988, it was evident that the school system needed another referendum. A referendum for $125 million passed and helped fund Phase II of the building plan, which cost a total of $200 million and lasted from 1989-1993.
"The building programs progressively increased," Massey said. "It cost $100 million for the first phase, $200 million for the second phase. Then we had another referendum in 1993 that carried us to 1997 and was called III-A for $300 million. In more recent history, Phase III-B was in 1997 for $400 million, which turned out to be around $427 million when the commissioners gave additional funds to build three more schools since we were growing so fast. That brings us to Plan 2000 which is the current building program. At last count, we've built 51 schools since I've been here. That's nearly half the amount we have now."
Community Involvement in Construction Decisions Increases
Massey said the one aspect of school construction that has changed the most over the years is the level of community involvement. He said prior to 1993 most of the construction decisions were made more centrally with the principals and staff involved and little community input. However, all that changed in 1992 when the school system was making construction plans based on the prediction that the student population would grow to 100,000 by the year 2000.
"The community could not accept the prediction that we'd be at 100,000 by the year 2000,"Massey said. "That was a huge issue for the community. We were asking for millions of dollars in school construction money, with just over 70 thousand students predicting that we'd go to 100,000, and the community said 'no way.' So we had to involve the community and let them see how those projections had been prepared. In addition, we asked the Research Triangle Institute to validate those projections and make certain that our methodology was correct, which they did. The community ultimately said we believe you are right, but we don't want to fund the building plans in such long-range terms. We don't want a long seven-year plan, we want a three-year plan; hence the A and B phases of the Phase III plan."
Building Designs Change With Time
Massey said some of the other significant changes that have occurred over the years include designing buildings with security issues in mind, building facilities such as dance studios for the magnet program and utilizing technology as an energy management tool. The beginning of the year-roud program at Kingswood in 1989 prompted the system to air-condition all its schools. Massey said by 1992, all of the classrooms in the school system had been air-conditioned.
Along with the successes, Massey said there were also a few things along the way that showed promise but didn't work out such as solar energy and burning wood pellets for fuel instead of coal.
"During the early 70s with the energy embargo, folks were looking heavily at solar technology," Massey said. "We have some solar in our schools now like solar water heating systems for kitchens and things but the science was never good enough to heat a school. We never could justify building a solar school."
Complete Merger of Administrative and Support Service Finally Occurs
Massey said although the two school systems merged 25 years ago, it took some time before the two systems were able to consolidate their administrative and operations staff into single locations. In 1986, the system purchased the administrative office building on Wake Forest Road that became the headquarters for the school system.
"Devereux Street was the Raleigh City Schools headquarters and Noble Road was the Wake County system headquarters," he said. "When we merged, Noble Road and Devereux were both used. We just had different departments at different locations for years."
Massey said the construction of the central services complex that opened in 1989 off of Rock Quarry Road represented the final merger of the support services by consolidating the purchasing warehouse, transportation, facilities and maintenance in one location.
"Buying the facility out on Wake Forest Road in '86 allowed the merger of the administrative functions," he said. "Building this complex in '89 allowed the merger of the support functions. So it took from '76 to '89 to really get everything consolidated. Previously, they had been scattered across the district. I'd say they were milestones for us."