How did we get here?

Our blogs are often inspired by questions we are asked.  When conducting community meetings, this questioning is just a daily part of the job. Some questions are popular, like this one, "How did we get here?" and going unstated is "with so many schools that need so much work?" This is a very common question, especially in California.

The question refers to the current state of the school facilities.  Normally, this is followed by our school facilities are unacceptable, deplorable, inadequate, unsafe and out of date.  We have heard these descriptors from so many community members, administrators and teachers in every district that we conduct meetings. 

Can we answer this question? As in every problem that has taken our society decades to create, a complex system of circumstances and hard choices lead to our run down, out of date and generally uninspiring school facilities. Although every school district has unique factors that contribute to the condition of their facilities, there are several repetitive factors.  The first is applicable nation-wide but the other factors in this blog are specific to California.

Factor 1: Baby boomers.  A large growth in births, resulted in a dramatic increase in school enrollment, resulting in the building of many schools, which are now 60ish years old.  Depending on where a district is geographically located, their entire building stock can be from this era.  Typically maintenance funds have been depleted, or cannot meet the demand, resulting in poor physical conditions and lack of updates for the changes in the deliver of the new pedagogy and technology.  Updating schools are very difficult and having many schools the same age only amplifies the problem.  It is like when a household has two or three cars with the same level of mileage.  You have to start all your car payments at the same time.  Maintaining, replacing and modernizing schools on the same schedule is nearly impossible with local bonding limits.

Factor 2: Class size reduction.  In 1996, in California, class size reduction was enacted, resulting in the increased need for more classrooms.  Many Districts turned to the "P" word; that's right portables having few funds and a large need for more space quickly.  20 years later the portables are large contributors to the overall poor condition of the facilities, and in many cases are in worse condition than all other facilities in the district.

These two factors alone lead to many of the understandable complaints about school facilities not being suitable for today's needs and culture. School sites with many portables were never originally designed for the sheer number of students, the personal car culture, the changes in pedagogy and 21st-century technology. These changes have resulted in the public areas (office, library, cafeteria, etc.) being too small, overall circulation nightmares and building systems (heating, cooling, electrical and low voltage, etc.) that are seriously overloaded.

To add to the problem, and as mentioned above, Factor 3: has to be  the roller coaster of deferred maintenance State funding in California. In lean years, it has been delayed or deleted. Maintenance funding in Districts complete with all the operational funding needs, and when maintenance of the physical plant is pitted against teachers, special programs and other operational cost, it is not surprising maintenance lost.  Restoration is difficult and rarely enough to make up for what was lost through the lack of state funding. At one point, the state required certain levels to be set aside by a District, but many could not comply. Still as anyone with a home knows, if you don't maintain it, it just falls apart faster. As the saying goes, one ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and now, in many cases, we are only left with the choice of paying for that pound because the opportunity for the prevention has long passed. 

The question remains why did we let so many of our facilities become 60+ years old without replacement or fixing them up. Factor 4: Prop 13. Just as we start reaching that critical age of schools from the baby boom period  needing major help and growth in the suburbs, the local bond funding is shut off because property taxes were going through the roof. Some controls and relief, especially for those on a fixed income, were needed. The solution of prop 13 dramatically changed school facilities funding from local control to the state. Of course, through the years the state has been at varying levels of funding and requiring local matching funds in most cases. Even after local bonds were allowed again, the low assets value of property limited the funds that could be raised by schools districts. There was just not enough money to go around.

Today we are here, with the state out of bond funds, and many school districts at or near their local bonding limit with an aging school facility portfolio.  Do our kids deserve better, sure they do.  I look around my home district and I am sad to know my child will soon be entering the 1950's style schools that have changed little since I was a student or even from the day they were opened. All children should be in safe, inspiring, healthy schools.

Where do we go from here?  There are a couple of options....

Here is a great link to a website that has more history and suggested overhaul to the problem.  

CASH has another approach to continue the current system and revive state funding through bonds. Prop 51 is on the state-wide ballot with many districts also adding local bonds for their area.