Who dropped the ball on District 95's new schools?

What went wrong with the construction and inspection of two Lake Zurich Unit District 95 schools now dealing with structural problems roughly five years after being built?

That's the question foremost on many parents' minds, and one District 95 officials are trying to get to the bottom of as the list of those likely culpable grows.

The two affected District 95 schools, Spencer Loomis Elementary and Middle School North, situated on a joint-campus in Hawthorn Woods, are expected to begin classes Tuesday, along with the district's seven other schools.

Emergency work to install roof and wall anchors at the 5-year-old Loomis School was completed last week.

Similar problems with the roof-wall and floor-wall connections at the 4-year-old Middle School North also were fixed. Additional steel wall reinforcements still need to be installed in areas of the middle school.

Some parents and officials are calling for a change in the way the state oversees school constructions.

Inspections conducted by the Lake County Regional Office of Education failed to identify the structural issues at Loomis School and Middle School North because they were done after the schools were built, not during construction.

"Both the inspector and the actual construction company, neither of them did their jobs correctly," said parent Sue Hutchings of Hawthorn Woods, who has a third-grader at Spencer Loomis. "Consequently, now we are in a situation where our kids have been put in harm's way since the day the door opened in 2003."

Similar questions about school inspections were raised four years ago when Gavin Elementary District 37 in Ingleside was dealing with structural problems with cracked and broken wood trusses at Gavin Central School.

At the time, area state legislators argued for revising state law governing the inspection process. Yet, four years later, nothing has changed with the regional office's procedures.

The office uses noncertified inspectors, former school superintendents, who walk through new schools once completed.

That inspection could never have identified the kind of structural problems that arose at District 95 because they were hidden behind the walls and under the foundation of the two buildings.

"I think for the amount of money that the taxpayers are putting out, the inspection process by the regional board is abysmally inadequate," said Jim Hussey, District 95 school board member. "So you need to have a process whereby somebody is assisting the districts."

Roycealee Wood, the Lake County regional superintendent of schools, said her office issues the occupancy permit based on the recommendation of engineers and architects hired by the school districts to perform daily inspections.

"We have encouraged all of our school districts to hire this third-party person who will be on the job every day while the building is being built," Wood said. "It isn't (that) we do solely the inspection by ourselves. I don't think you can blame any one source for this happening."

Wood said the structural issues at Gavin and Lake Zurich are isolated incidents.

Mary Kalou, District 95 assistant superintendent for business and operations, said it's for a judge to determine how and where the system broke down.

"If people do what they are supposed to do, then there aren't problems and there are safeguards in place," Kalou said. "The safeguards failed. Until fault is determined, we cannot comment on what we know or don't know about the construction and inspection process because that's a subject of ongoing litigation."

The difficulty also with pointing the finger at any one entity is that there was no general contractor for District 95's construction project.

Hussey said that was a mistake in retrospect.

"The school board is ultimately responsible," he said. "The community is right to be angry about it, and the lawsuit will determine where the fault is going to lie."

Hussey said state law should be changed to require school districts to hire a general contractor before starting any construction project above $5 million.

That, however, doesn't guarantee something won't go wrong during construction, District 95 Superintendent Brian Knutson said.

"When there are problems with a project, the advantage in that situation is you only have to go back to the general contractor to determine liability versus having to figure out which subcontractors are liable," Knutson said.

District 95 is now suing Waukegan-based Legat Architects, which designed the two schools, and Chicago-based Bovis Lend Lease, which oversaw the construction, and numerous contractors who failed to deliver the buildings per original construction plans.

That lawsuit filed in January attempts to recover the more than $1.5 million the district spent for foundation repairs at the middle school to stop one wing from sinking.

It will be amended to include the recently discovered problems with the walls and roof at the middle school and Spencer Loomis, and will name additional parties, Kalou said.

District 95 will pay roughly $2.5 million after making all the needed repairs at the two schools and correcting problems with Lake Zurich High School's Performing Arts Center and field house.