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For I dipt into the future,
Far as human eye could see,
Saw the vision of the world,
And all the wonder that would be
— (Alfred Tennyson, “Locksley Hall”)
This excerpt appears on the front of a San Bernardino Unified School District request for proposal (RFP), and once you hear from Thomas Pace, you’ll understand why.
If 1,000 more people were thinking like Pace about education, the stories you hear about the US falling behind the rest of the developed world in test scores and job readiness would be nothing more than a whimper. The director of facilities at the San Bernardino City Unified School District understands what public education means to the community around it, particularly one with as many challenges as San Bernardino.
In 2016, San Bernardino earned the dubious title of “California’s Most Dangerous City.” In 2017, a heinous elementary school shooting left three people dead. That was the year Pace left behind an incredibly successful project manager career of building MLB stadiums and Las Vegas casinos.
“I felt like a cog in a machine that, while building beautiful structures, wasn’t leaving any kind of meaningful legacy,” Pace recalls. “I was asked to tour our schools here and provide some feedback. I felt, in many ways, like we were asking 21st-century educators to do their best in 19th-century buildings. I was challenged to be part of the solution.”
Behind Pace, there’s what looks to be the cover of a neofuturist science fiction novel hanging on the wall. It’s not. It’s the winning design from a handful of architecture firms that Pace and his team challenged to reimagine an asphalt plane into an indoor/outdoor learning environment. It’s like Blade Runner if everything had gone right in the world.
Photovoltaic panels allow light to stream down on students. Holes in the roof structure collect rainwater that feeds biophilia thriving below. It’s a living environment, some kind of oasis from an old Star Trek episode but using cutting-edge sustainable technology. And it will be a reality.
“We can’t turn away our eyes from the impact we have on our community. We are a lighthouse, a place of refuge for our city.”
Thomas Pace
Before going any further, there’s the massive elephant in the room. (The figurative kind, but I understand if you were picturing an animal installation.) It’s public education. Who is this guy to be promoting these off-the-wall ideas when school budgets seem so consistently minuscule?
“We are very aggressive when it comes to finding alternative funding,” Pace says. The district recently partnered with a BlackRock subsidiary to build solar energy capabilities for 75 percent of its campuses.
“We serve some of the most underserved students and families in our state, which also means the country. The idea of taxing a tax base that struggles to earn a living wage . . . But I also know communities will fund things when they see the value that you provide,” he says. “It’s a matter of breaking down that idea of building to the lowest common denominator. If we build things that look like prisons, what message are we sending to our kids?”
At that exact moment, Pace holds up a picture of what looks like an auto mechanic shop with service bays ready to go to work on cars. It’s the school’s new automotive educational center. If students fulfill the obligations of the program, they will be qualified to earn $55 an hour right out of high school.
“This is one of the ways you break cycles of poverty,” Pace says. “It’s not just spark plugs and oil filters. It’s about entrepreneurship and building a business.”
What desperately needs to be understood here is how Pace sees the school’s role in the community. That is the missing link that so many can overlook when it comes to serving families who are working tirelessly just to stay above water.
“When you do development for schools, you’re really doing community development,” Pace says. “Our schools are no longer places where students just go to learn. They’re the place where you go watch football games on the weekend. We’re building clinics and supplying behavioral health services at every one of our high schools. We provide dental care and even provide tax preparation for a lot of our constituents.
“If we build things that look like prisons, what message are we sending to our kids?”
Thomas Pace
“Not everyone understands city government, but everyone recognizes and knows where their neighborhood school is,” he says. “We can’t turn away our eyes from the impact we have on our community. We are a lighthouse, a place of refuge for our city.”
Pace isn’t shy about the fact that the job isn’t hard. The school district has successfully sued the state several times to secure funding. The facilities director says the district has a good relationship with the State of California, but it also isn’t afraid to fight for every penny to build better and more sustainable environments for its students.
And the difference? The school that was the site of that horrible shooting currently boasts the highest attendance rate in the school district. The former campus that could have been described as somewhere between “dark” and “dreary” was reimagined through the mind of author Roald Dahl. Whimsy replaced tragedy. Parents saw how hard the district worked to reimagine the space. Their children returned to school.
“We have an incredible staff that cares deeply for our kids,” Pace says. “Passion is the most important ingredient. Every day I aim to put all of our people in the best possible situation to succeed. That’s how my incredible team and I operate—under an umbrella of trust and delegation. You have to be unbending in your resolve. You have to be willing to be criticized daily. But we will do this because every student matters.”
As California’s #1 Education Builder (2023), Balfour Beatty is an industry-leading provider of general contracting, construction management, and design-build services throughout California. Our teams build the unique structures and infrastructure that enhance how people live, work, and play. To put it simple: we love what we do!
DLR Group has been partnering with Tom Pace from the San Bernardino City Unified School District for the past several years on a myriad of projects, most recently the development of interactive educational solutions for its Extended Learning Opportunity Programs and four of its elementary schools. Tom has a unique and progressive perspective on school facilities and how they can make a difference for families in the San Bernardino community. We are proud to be a part of Tom’s vision and to celebrate his achievements.
Founded in 1977, John Sergio Fisher & Associates Inc. (JSFA) has won numerous design awards including 48 AIA Design Excellence Awards, with work published regionally, nationally, and internationally. Within our 43 years of experience, what has remained constant is our commitment to produce superbly functioning, sustainable (green), and humanistic architecture for theaters. Our performance and arts centers have been acclaimed by the users and audiences for their warmth, beauty, and the excellence of theatre systems and acoustics.
