The Paschal Sherman Indian School: Respecting Tradition

In design-build we often talk about the art and science of design-build and how effective teams of people can create something that is more than just a building. The Paschal Sherman Indian School (PSIS) in Omak, WA, is an outstanding example of a team of people going above and beyond the call of design and construction to create a culturally relevant school and home for Native American children.

When we last left the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation (CTCR) in the March 2003 issue of DATELINE, they had just selected Garco Construction and ALSC Architects as their design-builder for their new K-9 school, 100 student dormitory, and maintenance facilities and playing fields.

The project was completed in September of 2004 and the Certificate of Occupancy issued in April of 2005. What happened in those 25 months is a story that will make a fine oral tradition for the Tribe.

The Drivers to Inspiration

High levels of poverty are not uncommon on Native American Indian reservations. Many of the children who attend the PSIS face a tough home life. In some cases students are orphaned or left in the care of relatives. Wendell George, Tribal Elder and long-time school board member, said “The school provides an opportunity for kids to be competitive and build their self esteem. The school is for all native children and not just a place to send kids who have no place else to go.”

A deep need for the CTCR was the inclusion of their culture to transform the building from a school to a culturally relevant place of origin for the Tribal children. As Mr. George recently said to me “the school itself had to become a teaching tool for our culture.”

These two key factors, extreme poverty and a unique chance to reflect the tribal culture in a building, brought the people on the project to a higher level of distinction. Design-build as a delivery method supported the distinction, but it was the people who made it happen.

This article isn’t about being on time, because actually the Certificate of Occupancy was not issued until five months after the completion of the project; you will read more about this later. Nor is it about the budget. The project did in fact come in under budget for the owner with some contingency left over for upgrades to the school. Both the designer and the contractor came in with very low or no profit on the project. What is it that inspired the commitment to these two businesses to not only finish the project but to do so with excellence?

The Cast of Characters

One of the first people I met when interviewing for the job of design-build consultant was Wendell George. Mr. George was professional engineer with Boeing before retiring back to the Reservation. He is Tribal Elder. Being a Tribal Elder isn’t something that is publicly voted on like an elected office; a person becomes an elder through quiet acclaim and acknowledgment of how they have lived their lives. Mr. George commits his time to the school, helping with management, and teaching oral traditions for the children.

The second person I met on the Reservation was Virgil (Smoker) Marchand. His nickname, Smoker, comes from his fast pitch. Mr. Marchand is lively, hip, and varied. His spare time is devoted to the arts – graphic design, painting, and ice sculpting. He recently has taken up horse racing. As a child, Mr. Marchand attended the Paschal Sherman Indian School in what was then a Catholic Missionary and Indian Boarding School. For many years he held the record for the most times to run away from the school (six). Mr. Marchand was the focal point liaison for the entire project beginning to end. Surely the Coyote Trickster had something in mind for him when he was assigned to the project, coming full circle from a child to an adult, from project inception to completion, from “Catholic Indian Boarding School” to the Paschal Sherman Indian School and Dormitory.

Paschal Sherman, by the way, was the first Tribal member from the CTCR to earn a Ph.D. He spent many years working for the federal government. He was one of many Native American children taken from their homes and families and forced into an Indian Boarding School where he was stripped of his tribal name and not allowed to speak his language of origin. It can only be with joy that his spirit watches over the new school and dormitory.

During my interview for the work of design-build consultant, I was asked what I knew about design-build; if I remember correctly, I talked their ears off. After being hired, I had an amazing amount of discretion in developing the framework for the design-build competition. I recommended following the DBIA Manual of Practice for Fixed Price Weighted Criteria competition in order to focus on the design needs of the project. I also recommended that we utilized BSD Softlinks’ performance specifications program called PerSpective, and the DBIA family of contracts. Textbook for sure, but this allowed us, as a team, to focus on what was really important to the owner as far as the programming needs.

Many long discussions later, we discovered that the Tribal culture wasn’t about weaving patterns, beaded doeskin, or pottery, but rather a deep connection to the earth, the seasons, the ebb and flow of life. We decided to translate the old traditions into the new traditions by requiring the use of Green Design within the Request for Proposal (RFP).

Design

In no one’s wildest dreams would we have imagined a 43-foot sculpture of salmon swimming upstream inside a south facing cultural center with a cut in the roof allowing direct sunlight to beam onto the sculpture and cast the shadow of a coyote onto a solar clock.

This crazy wonderful idea came from ALSC’s Scott Whitesitt, AIA, Design Principal and lead architect for the project. Mr. Whitesitt is, as he put it, a 6’2” Swede into outrageous innovation. He is vibrantly passionate about great ideas for  archi-tecture.

Humble in many ways, Mr. Whitesitt achieves great success as a design architect because he sets his ego aside. I asked him what helped him connect to the Tribal culture and he came up with the following sketch. “I found the answers by steeping myself in the culture and developing personal relationships with Tribal members. I also had to clear my mind of preconceptions and look for answers.”

Also on the crazy wonderful side is Clancy Welch, Senior Project Manager with Garco Construction, who footed the bill for the sculpture. At first glance you would think he is an average guy. Through his actions, it is easy to see that he runs deeper than most with a commitment to humanity, not often seen or expressed.

The Solar Salmon Clock was clearly the inspiration for the project but the design had other features that grounded the school to the earth – literally. The north side of the school was set back into a low hill and partially underground. On the south side all the classrooms utilized daylighting. Mr. Whitesitt described his idea, “Whether the classroom is upstairs or on the lowest level, we still were able to bring natural light in. We kept the natural lighting within each classroom balanced. That is key in doing natural daylighting – you want to keep an even level of light in the room. You don’t want to have a bright side and a dark side.”

Mr. Welch also talked about the ebb and flow of life and how he organized the design of the school to tie into the seasons. “As they look at the circle of life, they begin with life on the east and greet the sun in the east. Entrances to the building are facing east or northeast and southeast. On the east side of the building are the younger children. As they go up in age, you move from east, to south, to west, to north. So classes are organized in that fashion in the school itself. The older kids are on the west side.”

Inclusion of the seasons is a core concept to Tribal culture. Many Native Americans still flow with berry picking seasons, fishing seasons and hunting seasons in their daily lives. Ceremonies often include foodstuffs from each season. Representing the change of the season through the Solar Salmon Clock resonated with the member of the Tribe during the evaluations of the RFP.

Construction

Mr. Welch had a unique challenge on this project and that was the required use of the Tribal Employment Rights Office (TERO) to hire Native American firms and to provide apprenticeship training for tribal members. This is where Mr. Welch’s amazing humanity came into play. He did not give lip service to the TERO office; he was intensely committed to utilizing Native American firms and hiring Native American labor to build the school.

Mr. Welch hired Apollo Sheet Metal, a Native American firm in Wenatchee, WA. Apollo provided the majority of the steel for the project and was a timely and key subcontractor for the project.

Native American apprenticeships were a highlight of the project. Garco Construction hired tribal members for over 15,000 man hours for this project. On a reservation with an unemployment rate of 53 percent, this was an immediate economic boost and lasting construction training opportunity for tribal members who wished to continue working in construction.

Skilled labor shortages impacted the schedule. Mr. Welch noted that this was not just a Tribal concern but a challenge that he would have faced in any remote location. PSIS is 425 miles east of Seattle and 225 miles west of Spokane, a three-and-a-half hour to drive from either city to the reservation.

Hindsight

The most important tool of the general contractor is managing the budget, contingency, and risk for bonding the project. Co-location of the design architect and the contractor’s cost estimator is of paramount importance. These two critical team members need to be joined at the hip so that each design idea is evaluated for cost and feasibility in a timely manner, especially on fast-track design-build. The entire project budget must be reviewed to find trade-offs that still meet the performance requirements while supporting design innovation.

Mr. Whitesitt commented that “In design-build we work to establish strong teams that can rein one another in when one partner gets really excited about a design concept. This type of outrageous innovation can only be done once in a while by a design firm.”

Intense Green Design on the project affected the design budget early on. A critical thought in contractor lead design-build is how the contractor leads and directs the designer to maintain the construction budget and manage the risk for the bonding the project. Leadership from the contractor also helps the designer maintain their design budget.

Achievement of a Silver Rating by the LEED Council was of great success for the project. This benefited the school but came at great cost to both the designer and constructor. Interestingly enough, Scott noted that the Solar Salmon Clock was one of the items that came in on budget.

Risk Management

During the programming stage of the project, the owner and I developed an extensive risk management plan identifying the highest risk for the project. The funding agency, the Bureau of Indian Affair (BIA), ranked as the highest risk with the most unpredictable results due to the Tribe’s past experience with the agency. The burden of managing this risk fell not to the owner as we had originally expected, but to both Mr. Whitesitt and Mr. Welch as the design-builders.

Early in the development of the RFQ and RFP the Tribe sent me to Albuquerque to meet with the BIA and detail the fast-track nature of the project. I also provided education and coordination to make sure the submittals would be evaluated in a timely manner.

The Tribe and the design-build team were committed to meeting the deadline of December 2004 established by the BIA. However, the BIA review resulted in a delay of the project of over six months.

During our initial meeting, the BIA agreed to review six packages of submittals with their standard 30 day turn-around time. This supported the fast-track nature of the project. The turn-around time and number of allowed submittals was included in the RFP to design-builders in the form of draft schedule with outside agency approvals needed for the project.

What actually happened is the BIA was not able to comment on the drawings until 10 months after the initial submittals were sent to Albuquerque. It became apparent that the BIA was not always using the most recent code standards. The consultants and sub-contractors were left to follow the well-developed and current performance specifications which directed the design-builder to follow standards that were normal industry practice by code agencies and the construction industry.

When the BIA reviewed the submittals, they referenced some model codes that were out of date, out of print, superseded by new codes, or required codes that were unattainable for review. Two examples of outdated codes were the requirement to follow the 1984 Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards (UFAS), an accessibility code that was replaced nationally with the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, and a 1972 elevator code. The BIA did not appear to understand that out-of-date codes could jeopardize the safety of the students and staff.

The BIA inspected the site in October of 2004 as part of the required Occupancy Permit process. They issued a list of citations, based on the outdated codes, that cost the Tribe over $90,000 to implement. After the “code violations” were corrected via change orders to the ALSC/Garco team, the BIA did not return to the project for over five months, postponing the opening of the school until May of 2005.

For public agencies used to design-bid-build, a key advantage in implementing design-build is that the agencies can control the quality and cost of the project through intensive collaboration in the programming stage of the project that leads to comprehensive performance specifications.

The team did everything possible to collaborate and educate all the required agencies, including the BIA, about how design-build is a different way of doing business. In this case, the BIA was the agency that was not able to “round the corner’ to the design-build way of implementing a project.

Leadership and Team Building

On the project, Mr. Whitesitt inspired great design, Mr. Welch promoted quality construction, and both Mr. George and Mr. Marchand fulfilled the huge needs of the children. The passion and commitment to the project by these four people was intertwined and tested against the framework of the performance specifications, design-build contract, and general conditions. When interviewed, all four noted that they were continually referring to these documents for guidance and then negotiating solutions that met the performance criteria and contractual requirements.

I see this as the first leadership lesson which guided this project to excellence. Owners must take the time to develop their project programming and personal needs. Next they need to translate the information into solid narrative performance specifications and contract documents. This gives the team a tool, a framework, and an “outside the circle” reference to remove conflict from a personal level. We cannot rely upon the simple procurement of design-build to solve our problems, but we can use the framework tools to help guide us in our discussions.

The management of conflict is a critical tool for any design or construction project. I believe that the structure of design-build supports better conflict management among team members and the owner. Most people sweep conflict under the rug and work to ignore it rather than manage it. We need a balanced amount of conflict in order to come to the right decision. Too much personal conflict and a project will be stymied; too little conflict and consensus decisions will be made rather than the right decision.

Our second leadership lesson from the PSIS school is built out of the team’s ability to manage conflicts on the job. Positively managing conflict allows trust to be developed. Trust isn’t something that is given freely; it has to be earned. By earning trust through thoughtful deliberations and the vigorous exchange of ideas, we can move to a sense of ease where we can express ourselves freely. Our ideas may not be accepted but they will be discussed with good reasoning.

Finally, the Children

The School opened in May 2005 during the Tribe’s Annual Sunflower Festival. Over 2,000 tribal members attended the opening ceremonies. Tribal members commented on the amount of windows in the school and the beautiful views from each window that look down the valley. Mr. Marchand observed that the view from all of the windows helped the children constantly relate with nature and what was happening outside.

In Mr. George’s experience, the previous school had separate buildings for each grade and the students did not mix much. He had observed that the children were isolated. The new PSIS was built as a cohesive school with everyone in one building. Mr. George saw an immediate difference, “The kids were finally smiling at each other and were really happy.”

During its first year of operation, the Paschal Sherman Indian School has increased student enrollment from 167 to 211 students. The dormitory size has increased from 11 boarders to 65 and the preschool program increased enrollment from 8 to 51 children.

The Paschal Sherman Indian School is located seven miles from the nearest town in a remote and very beautiful valley with mountains surrounding the school. To get to the site everyone needs to drive a twisty, two-lane road. Many students are bused from all over the reservation to attend the school. With this being said, I will leave you with final story told to me by Mr. Marchand.

“I was driving on the road to the school and saw this little kid running down the road. He must have been about six or seven, running as fast as he could. I stopped and asked him what was wrong and why was he running down the road. This little kid told me he had missed the school bus and really wanted to be at school and was running down the road so he wouldn’t miss a day at school.”

PS: Mr. Marchand drove the boy to school and made sure to the let bus driver know to wait for him.