(Before) Walls Come Tumbling Down

  • By Deb Moore
  • 04/01/13

In March, The Center for Green Schools at the USGBC released the 2013 State of Our Schools Report. The report calls for the immediate examination of America’s school facilities and outlines the need for an investment of $542 billion over the next 10 years to repair and modernize pre-K12 school buildings.

The study also states that our schools are currently facing a $271 billion deferred maintenance bill just to bring them up to working order. As large as these numbers seem, they do not take into account the need to build new facilities to handle growing enrollments — the National Center for Education Statistics says K-12 public school enrollment is expected to increase 7 percent between 2010 and 2020.

Schools need to be safe, healthy, educationally appropriate and sustainable. Many of our schools do not make the grade, but a lack of comprehensive data on existing school facilities makes determining the actual need impossible. The last comprehensive survey and study of the condition of our nation’s public schools was conducted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO; formerly General Accounting Office) 18 years ago, in 1995.

To start us down the right path, the report recommends:

  • Expanding the Common Core of Data to include school-level data on building age, building size and site size.
  • Improving the current fiscal reporting of school district facility maintenance and operations data to the National Center for Education Statistics so that utility and maintenance expenditures are collected separately.
  • Improving the collection of capital outlay data from school districts to include identification of the source of capital outlay funding and distinctions between capital outlay categories for new construction and for existing facilities.
  • Providing financial and technical assistance to states from the U.S. Department of Education to incorporate facility data in their state longitudinal education data systems.
  • Mandating a GAO facility condition survey take place every 10 years, with the next one beginning immediately.

 
To read the complete report, visit centerforgreenschools.org/stateofschools. 

Featured

  • Springfield Breaks Ground on $53.7M Pipkin Middle School Rebuild

    Construction is underway on a new, state-of-the-art Pipkin Middle School in Springfield, Mo., a major step in Springfield Public Schools’ (SPS) long-term facility improvement plan, according to local news. The $53.7-million project officially broke ground in early June, following years of planning and community input aimed at modernizing aging infrastructure and addressing student capacity concerns.

  • ProTeam Launches GoFit 6 HEPA Backpack Vacuum

    Technology leader Emerson recently introduced the new ProTeam GoFit 6 HEPA backpack vacuum, according to a news release. The vacuum was designed to capture 99.97% of particulates down to 0.3 microns—including atmospheric hazards like lead dust, mold spores, and other particulates—through an advanced filtration system.

  • California High School Starts Construction on New CTE Building

    Analy High School, part of the West Sonoma County Union High School District (WSCUHSD) in Sebastopol, Calif., recently broke ground on a new Career Technical Education (CTE) Building, according to a news release. The 15,000-square-foot facility will offer specialized facilities for students in engineering, welding, culinary arts, agricultural sciences, and design thinking.

  • modern college building with circuit and brain motifs

    Anthropic Introduces Claude for Education

    Anthropic has launched a version of its Claude AI assistant tailored for higher education institutions. Claude for Education "gives academic institutions secure, reliable AI access for their entire community," the company said, to enable colleges and universities to develop and implement AI-enabled approaches across teaching, learning, and administration.

Digital Edition