Empty Prize

When Evergreen School District officials in Vancouver, Wash, were notified that their new Riverview Elementary School had been selected as a finalist for an architects' award as the best designed school in the nation, they were bemused. Drawings, blueprints and photographs of the school will be hung at a meeting of the American Association of School Architects in Atlantic City next month, and a winner will be selected. There is, however, one problem with Riverview. The district's beleaguered taxpayers last spring voted down a $3.6 million bond issue to pay for operating the school. Result: its playground is still an unplanted sea of mud, its windows boarded up. In fact, the new $1.9 million building may be the best designed school that never opened its doors for classes.

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