Neenan BEST schoolsSome of the issues that Neenansaid were discovered duringthird-party reviews:

B Akron— “Minor” issues onPre K-12 building. “Minor” issueswith a transportation building.

B Alamosa— “Moderate” issueswith columns at two elementaryschool buildings.

B Buffalo — “Moderate” and “mi-nor” issues with Merino HighSchool, including lateral bracingfor a wall.

BMapleton— “Moderate” issuewith beam that needs strength-ening at Mapleton Early College-Mapleton Expeditionary Schoolof the Arts.

BMiami-Yoder — “Moderate”issues involving bracing onPre K-12 school.

BMonte Vista — Strengtheningconnections between columns,foundation work andother repairs at high school. “Mi-nor” issues including wall brac-ing at elementary school.

B Sargent — “Moderate” issues atSargent Elementary requiringsnow removal from roof; “moder-ate” and “minor” issues withSargent Junior-Senior HighSchool.

BWeldon Valley — “Minor” is-sues involving elementary, mid-dle and high school buildings.

Sources: Ted Hughes, ColoradoDepartment of Education;Neenan Co.

Detention Center.Kinzie-Graber, 36, of Sterling,

cared for Caleb for about amonth before her sister, whoshe said is a longtime metham-phetamine addict, demandedhim back. During the monthsthat followed, Kinzie-Grabersaid, she called social servicesin Logan, Douglas and Oterocounties, but she got little helpin locating the boy. She said au-thorities told her they could notdo welfare checks without anaddress, and she didn’t knowher sister had lived in the trail-er.

The Colorado Department ofHuman Services will completea child fatality review to inves-tigate any rule violations orproblems with establishedpractices in Caleb’s case, saidspokeswoman Liz McDonough.Investigations are done when achild’s death is the result ofabuse or neglect and there hadbeen contact with the countychild welfare system during thetwo years before the child’sdeath.

“This case met each of thosecriteria,” McDonough said.

Because the investigation isongoing and a Logan Countyjudge issued a gag order in thecase, the department cannot re-lease details about Caleb’s caseand could not confirm whetherthe department received callsfrom the boy's family, Mc-Donough said.

The department completed17 investigations in 2009 and 14investigations in 2010, alongwith starting 21 investigationsin 2011. The number for 2011could change as they are com-pleted. The outcomes and loca-tions of those investigationswere not immediately available.

Before 2011, an investigationwas done if the child had con-tact with the system five yearsbefore his or her death. Thetime frame was shortened afterofficials decided the three extrayears did not dramatically af-fect the investigation, Mc-Donough said.

On Sunday, an officer fromthe Denver Police Departmentencountered Kinzie in connec-tion with a disturbance, accord-ing to an arrest affidavit. Sheappeared to be under the influ-ence of meth when she toldparamedics that Caleb wasdead.

Kinzie was placed on a men-tal-health hold at a Denver hos-pital.

Joshua Briggs, who is beingheld in the Logan County De-tention Center on unrelatedcharges, dated and lived withKinzie in the trailer where au-thorities found Caleb. Authori-ties interviewed Briggs on Sun-day after his family contactedthe Logan County Sheriff ’s Of-fice.

Briggs said he met with Kin-zie at a Castle Rock hotel nearthe end of summer 2011, and shetold him that she made a mis-take and Caleb “was with God.”

Earlier that year, he hadhelped Kinzie move out of themobile home, and she hadasked him to check the pipesunder the mobile home.

Underneath the home, he sawa pile of blankets that he said“gave him a weird feeling.” Healso said he smelled a horribleodor. But he did not report anyof the information to authori-ties until Sunday.

Inside the bundle, authoritiesfound skeletal remains consis-tent with those of a small child.The Logan County coroner’s of-fice completed an autopsyMonday, but the cause of deathis still under investigation.

Jordan Steffen: 303-954-1794or jsteffen@denverpost.com

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PACHECO:

Mom saidshe made“mistake”

SCHOOLS: Neenan has agreed to pay for fixesjust 25 mph.

In all, schools designed andbuilt by Neenan have received$150 million in money throughBEST, which was created in2008 to help school districtsreplace and repair worn-downbuildings.

“It’s very clear to me they areactively taking care of theircustomers and they’re going tocontinue to take care of theschool districts,” said TedHughes, a Colorado Depart-ment of Education official whoheads the BEST program.“They are stepping up and tak-ing care of this.”

Hughes has said he askedNeenan to arrange indepen-dent structural reviews on allof its BEST projects after a re-view found serious design de-fects that closed a non-BESTNeenan school in Meeker.

Neenan agreed to arrangeand pay for the additional re-views, which company repre-sentatives have emphasizedthey are not required to do.Neenan also has agreed to re-view non-BEST schools if re-quested.

“The Neenan Co. is commit-ted to making this right,” saidMike Daley, an architect withthe Fort Collins-based firm,which has designed and con-structed about 100 schools inColorado.

He said that some BESTprojects were not carried outto the company’s standards,that Neenan operates withhonesty and integrity, and thethe company is taking respon-sibility because “it’s really theright thing to do.”

Neenan has agreed to pay forfixes at the schools. Some re-pairs at the Neenan BESTschools are already complete,and the rest will be finished byAugust, Hughes said.

One under-constructionschool requiring more work isthe Mapleton Early College-Mapleton ExpeditionarySchool of the Arts building,

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part of a construction projectbeing paid for by a record $34million BEST grant and $22million local bond issue.

Whei Wong, spokeswomanwith the school district, said athird-party engineer foundthat a beam needs strengthen-ing in the Skyview campusbuilding. The review has yet tobe completed.

Wong said Neenan alsoagreed to the district’s requestfor a new engineer of record onthe school, which will be “com-pletely re-engineered.”

The original engineer wasGary Howell, who also was re-sponsible for the now-closedMeeker school. Neenan firedHowell in November, and astate regulatory board votedlast month to suspend his engi-neering license. Howell has de-fended his work as sound.

On Wednesday, Daley — thearchitect with Neenan — saidHowell was not the only struc-tural engineer working on BESTschools. He did not go into spe-cifics. He also said Neenan is no

longer doing structural engi-neering in-house.

In Alamosa, two elementaryschool buildings open sincelast fall have columns that needstrengthening, Hughes said.

The review said the build-ings should not be occupied ifit snows more than 12 inches.Snow will be removed from theroof until the repairs, sched-uled to be complete by theweekend of Feb. 20, Hughessaid.

Neenan termed that struc-tural issue “moderate.”

Neenan also uses that termto describe problems with Sar-gent Junior-Senior HighSchool near Monte Vista,which was questioned by Kev-in Klein, head of the state De-partment of Homeland Securi-ty.

“If we are taking kids out ofschool because the winds areblowing, I would consider thata serious problem,” Klein said.

So far, that has not happened.The school did devise an evac-uation plan after an outside en-

gineer found the building wasunsafe to occupy if winds hit 25mph. Repairs and an inspec-tion are expected to be com-pleted this week.

The state Division of FireSafety, which is part of Home-land Security and overseesschool plan reviews and in-spections, so far has found onlyminor issues in its own third-party structural reviews ofNeenan and non-Neenanschool building projects, Kleinsaid.

“We haven’t found anythingthat shows this is a widespreadproblem,” he said. “So far wehaven’t found anything thatsuggests it is anything beyondthe Neenan projects.”

Mary Wickersham, chair ofthe board that oversees BESTgrants, proposed Wednesdaythat Education Departmentstaff conduct a “root-causeanalysis” of what happenedwith the Neenan projects.

Eric Gorski: 303-954-1971or egorski@denverpost.com

At its meeting Wednesday, the Public School Capital Construction Assistance Board heardfrom the Neenan Co. on third-party structural reviews taking place at schools across thestate. Mike Daley, left, an architect with Fort Collins-based Neenan, said his company “iscommitted to making this right.” The board oversees the Building Excellent Schools Todayprogram. Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post

Online: Read the fullNeenanschool report.»denverpost.com

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6 the denver post B denverpost.com B thursday, january 26, 2012 NEWS «9A