The new gym, as well as a main building, have faced many other problems as well, including structural flaws, numerous design changes, unapproved installation of doors, stairs and fire sprinklers and failed inspections, according to monthly construction progress reports reviewed by the South Florida Sun Sentinel.<\/p>\n
A project once planned to be finished by August 2024 now has a targeted completion date of summer 2026 for the main building and January 2027 for the gymnasium.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is catastrophically alarming that we are in this predicament now,\u201d School Board member Sarah Leonardi, who represents Rickards, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. \u201cI have made it very clear every step of the way that this is completely unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leonardi and others familiar with the project say they believe a major factor in the delays is the district\u2019s decision in 2021 to reuse the architectural design of a school in Miami-Dade County that didn\u2019t even start construction until 2022.<\/p>\n
The Miami-Dade school went through a number of design changes, many of which then had to be incorporated into the Rickards design and some of them after construction had started, causing delays. Officials from Miami-Dade schools didn\u2019t provide answers to questions from the Sun Sentinel, despite repeated requests.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe prototype that the board was urged to approve, with promises of being a faster, safer, and less expensive option, is in fact extremely flawed, much to my disappointment,\u201d Leonardi wrote to Superintendent Howard Hepburn on Aug. 1, following a tour of the construction site. \u201cThe numerous problems with the design of this prototype should have been caught by those who pushed this design on the board, and I trust that you will investigate that and hold those individuals accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hepburn, who started in April 2024, said he can\u2019t speak to why the district chose the design. But he blames contractors and architects, not his own staff, for recent issues, including the gymnasium work stoppage.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate that there have been many bumps in the road, and we\u2019re going to hold the contractors and also the architects accountable for the issues that have arisen within the past year,\u201d Hepburn told the Sun Sentinel. \u201cWhatever we need to do moving forward, we\u2019ll work with our legal team to see what type of recourse we have.\u201d<\/p>\n
The architectural firm for the project, Zyscovich, couldn\u2019t be reached, despite attempts by phone and through the website of its parent company, Stratus.<\/p>\n
An executive with CORE Construction, the general contractor, issued a statement to the Sun Sentinel saying, in part, that the company has \u201can outstanding record of delivering high-quality schools on time and on budget,\u201d including in Broward County.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe take any construction issues seriously and are working closely with the School Board to resolve all concerns quickly and transparently,\u201d Ted Cava, senior vice president for CORE, said in the statement. \u201cThe safety of students and staff and the quality of our work are always our top priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Until the new Rickards campus is complete, students, teachers and staff will continue to occupy a portable campus on the site that lacks many of the basic features of a normal middle school, including a cafeteria and gymnasium. This is the fifth school year that students, teachers and staff have been housed in the temporary buildings.<\/p>\n
![\"Construction](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/tfl-l-rickards-middle-delays-03.jpg\")
Construction continues at Rickards Middle School in Oakland Park, Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025. (Joe Cavaretta\/South Florida Sun Sentinel)<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can see the new building. We can see the structure. We took a tour of it in August, but there was nowhere near completion on the inside,\u201d said Scott Rubinchik, a language arts teacher at the school. \u201cSo it\u2019s frustrating, and it presents a set of unique challenges, but as teachers, we show up and fight through it every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rickards was already in the middle of a $10 million renovation when the media center roof collapsed<\/a> during the school day on March 5, 2021.\u00a0Students and teachers described the incident as traumatizing, sharing stories of climbing over rubble and being hit by falling debris. No one was seriously injured, although about 10 people were taken to the hospital, complaining of headaches and issues related to asthma and anxiety.<\/p>\n The main building was determined to be a total loss. Since no nearby middle schools had enough room to house all of Rickards\u2019 students, the School Board agreed in the summer of 2021 to install a temporary campus on site\u00a0while a permanent campus was built<\/a>.<\/p>\n History of construction issues<\/p>\n Construction has been the subject of significant scrutiny for the Broward School District. Four grand jury reports released over 25 years all criticized the way the district handled everything from selecting contractors to inspecting buildings.<\/p>\n The most recent grand jury report, completed in 2021, blasted the slow progress and ballooning costs of construction projects funded through an $800 million bond referendum<\/a> that voters approved in 2014. Eleven years later, more than 100 out of 335 projects are still not complete.<\/p>\n The 2021 grand jury report was released shortly after the Rickards roof collapse. While the grand jury didn\u2019t yet have details on what caused the breach, the report still highlighted the incident as a visual symbol for what has gone wrong over the years with district construction.<\/p>\n But district officials promised in the summer of 2021 that construction of the new Rickards Middle School would be different.<\/p>\n They said they could save $5 million, avoid a lot of errors and change orders, and open in 2024 \u2014 a year early \u2014 if they bypassed a competitive bidding process to secure an architect and, instead, reused a design created for another school.<\/p>\n During a public workshop, district facilities staff pitched a design by Zyscovich Architects for Ammons Middle School in Miami, which was not yet under construction. The Ammons project didn\u2019t have a gymnasium, so the district reused a Zyscovich design for a gym at Parkway Middle in Lauderhill that had been built about a decade earlier.<\/p>\n School Board members praised the design reuse idea at a meeting on Nov. 3, 2021.<\/p>\n Then-Board member Rosalind Osgood called it an \u201cout-of-the-box\u201d approach that she hoped could be replicated at future schools. Laurie Rich Levinson said at the same meeting, \u201cI am definitely in favor of a reuse prototype when we can optimize our timeline and costs involved.\u201d<\/p>\n But the district\u2019s Facilities Task Force, which provides an oversight role on school construction and maintenance issues, was more skeptical.<\/p>\n Nathalie Lynch-Walsh, who was chairwoman at the time, emailed the Rickards project manager in November 2021, pointing out that a 2003 grand jury had questioned previous decisions by Broward to reuse designs of schools that were not yet complete. That grand jury report said schools built with reused designs from 1987 to 1996 were not holding up as well as older schools with original designs.<\/p>\n \u201cWe cannot overemphasize the importance of analyzing and evaluating new designs for schools prior to their reuse,\u201d the 2003 report said. \u201cWe strongly recommend that the School Board carefully analyze every school design that it intends to use as a prototype to ensure that the design is structurally sound before it is used as a prototype.\u201d<\/p>\n Lynch-Walsh, contacted recently, said she believes a root cause of the problems with the main building can be traced back to the decision to choose the Ammons reuse.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is an inherent risk of unnecessarily repeating past mistakes in the reuse of a design that has not yet been successfully constructed, including costly delays,\u201d she told the Sun Sentinel.<\/p>\n In a recent email, district spokeswoman Keyla Concepcion referred to the design of the main Rickards building as a \u201cpartial reuse,\u201d saying only the exterior shell was used.<\/p>\n She said the \u201cinterior layout and systems\u201d of the building \u201cwere substantially redesigned\u201d to meet the district\u2019s own building specifications.<\/p>\n \u201cDue to the extent of these modifications, the reuse did not translate cleanly, resulting in coordination conflicts within the construction documents,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Concepcion\u00a0said Zyscovich Architects \u201cdid not fully resolve these conflicts before permitting,\u201d and CORE, the general contractor, didn\u2019t identify problems during a required review it conducted before construction started.<\/p>\n CORE was hired by the district in March 2022, following a competitive bidding process. But more than a year later, construction had yet to start.<\/p>\n When School Board member Leonardi asked for an update from district staff in June 2023, she was told the project was no longer on target to be completed in 2024.<\/p>\n \u201cPersistent delays due to the staffing shortages, which have affected many companies and government agencies, have delayed that date,\u201d the June 2023 memo stated. \u201cFor example, the civil engineering design plans were delayed due to the inability of the surveying crew to complete the final site surveys.\u201d<\/p>\n Construction costs also rose, with the Rickards budget increasing from an initial estimate of about $60 million to a new budget of $82 million in September 2023. The School Board approved the expense<\/a> at a Sept. 12, 2023, meeting. Rickards parents, teachers and supporters attended the meeting and voiced concerns about the delays.<\/p>\n Peter Licata, who had just been hired as superintendent, pledged to make Rickards and other delayed projects a priority.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of mistakes in the past. It\u2019s not going to happen on my watch,\u201d Licata said at the meeting. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to play around here anymore. We\u2019ve got to get these projects done.\u201d<\/p>\n Construction started a few weeks after the meeting.<\/p>\n But about six months later, Licata was gone. He announced in April 2023 he was retiring, citing health issues. His chief facilities officer, Deborah Czubkowski, who was also new to the job at the time, resigned shortly after Licata left.<\/p>\n The School Board named Licata\u2019s second-in-command, Howard Hepburn, as the new superintendent. Hepburn assigned facilities oversight to Wanda Paul, a recently hired administrator he\u2019d worked with in the Palm Beach County School District, where Paul helped oversee a construction program considered far more successful than Broward\u2019s.<\/p>\n But construction delays continued, including at Rickards.<\/p>\n A May 2024 report prepared by AECOM<\/a>, the company hired to manage most school construction work, stated the engineer on the project had made numerous structural changes to the main building, causing the district to seek an external review of the changes.<\/p>\n A December AECOM report<\/a> cited structural failures on tilt wall panels, requiring a structural revision.<\/p>\n![\"Construction](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/tfl-l-rickards-middle-delays-01.jpg\")
Construction continues at Rickards Middle School in Oakland Park, Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025. (Joe Cavaretta\/South Florida Sun Sentinel)<\/p>\n