McMillin, E. (2010). According to an American Association of School Administrators survey, 6 percent of school districts closed or consolidated schools during the 2008-2009 school year, double the rate of the previous year. Another 11 percent were considering school closings or consolidations in 2010-2011.
Tag: Facilities Maintenance
School Facility Conditions and Student Academic Achievement
Glen I. Earthman, 2002. School building design features and components have been proven to have a measurable influence upon student learning. Among the influential features and components are those impacting temperature, lighting, acoustics and age. Researchers have found a negative influence upon student performance in buildings where deficiencies in any of these features exist.
Research on the Impact of School Facilities on Students and Teachers
21st Century Schools, 2010. There has been a slow but steady increase of research on the impact of public school facilities on educational achievement and community outcomes and of the rigor of the research. This summary of studies is part of a larger literature review conducted by the 21st Century School Fund with funding from the Charitable Trust of the Council on Educational Facility Planners International.
The review is designed as an update to the 2002 review “Do School Facilities Affect Academic Outcomes?” by Mark Schneider, originally commissioned by the 21st Century School Fund’s Building Educational Success Together collaborative and then expanded by Dr. Schneider and published by the National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities.
Recent research continues to point to a small but steadily positive relationship between the quality of a public school facility and a range of academic and community outcomes.
This study reviews the literature on:
Facilities & academic outcomes
School building systems
PK-12 Public Educational Facilities Master Plan Evaluation Guide
21st Century Schools, 2011. Proper planning of school facilities is critical for all school districts no matter how large or small, whether major construction is in the works or the district is managing enrollment declines. When school districts properly plan for their school facilities they have better schools, more public use and higher value for public spending. This evaluation guide was designed for superintendents and school boards that are called on to develop or sign off on plans, but who generally may not have extensive experience with educational facility planning. It can also be used to help community members participate in high quality educational facility planning.
An Educational Facilities Master Plan is a written document that describes the school district’s real estate and capital improvement requirements and its strategy and school specific plans for meeting these requirements over a 6-10 year period. On the real estate side, educational facility master plan elements will address the space needs for schools, administration and logistics, including proposed site selection, school closings and consolidations, attendance boundary changes, leasing, joint use and co-locations. On the capital improvement side, educational facility master plan elements will include: the justification, scope, schedule and estimated cost for major repairs, modernization and new construction.
U.S. EPAs National Radon Action Month
EPA, 2015. This January, as part of National Radon Action Month, U.S. EPA encourages you to test your school facilities for radon. A known human carcinogen, radon is one of the most hazardous indoor pollutants. It is the leading cause of lung cancer among non-smokers, causing almost 21,000 deaths a year. Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas that emanates from rock and soil and can enter school facilities through cracks and openings in building foundations. A nationwide survey of radon levels in schools estimates that nearly one in five has at least one schoolroom with a short-term radon level above the action level of 4 pCi/L (picocuries per liter) — the level at which EPA recommends that schools take action to reduce the level. The only way to determine if your school building has elevated radon levels is to test for it. Testing is simple and unobtrusive and every school should have a plan to manage radon. Winter is a good time to test for radon because cold weather and the heating season can elevate radon levels in a school. It is also easier to maintain proper testing conditions in the winter because doors and windows are closed except for normal entry and exit, which helps in determining the maximum radon level.
PK-12 Public School Facility Infrastructure Fact Sheet
21st Century School Fund, 2011. There is no national database of information on public school facilities. Some states collect information and some do not. The 21st Century School Fund and its Building Educational Success Together (BEST) partners have worked to understand the scope, scale and condition of public school facilities. This is important to building our nation’s public will and our government’s capacity to provide high quality public school buildings and grounds for all children in all communities.
Repair for Success: An Analysis of the Need and Possibilities for a Federal Investment in PK-12 School Maintenance and Repair
21st Century School Fund, 2009. A new national commitment to address the deferred maintenance and renewal of our nations PK-12 public school buildings will improve our education system, the economy and the environment. A $27 billion investment, just 10% of the minimum estimated total need, would take us a major step closer to ensuring that the nearly 55 million staff and students who attend school daily are in healthy, safe and educationally appropriate environments. This investment will also quickly create between 160,000 and 235,000 jobs1 that will protect our environment and sustain the public infrastructure investments made by earlier generations.
Through a detailed analysis of what school districts have spent on maintenance, repair, and capital renewals, the 21st Century School Fund found that since 1995 the nation has not reduced its level of deferred maintenance. In fact nationally, using a conservative estimate and extremely modest standards, deferred maintenance in our PK-12 public school buildings has grown from $216 to $271 billion. This is an average of about $41 per square foot of space and about $5,400 per student. A more aggressive estimate pegs the total national deferred maintenance, repair and renewal needs of our public school buildings at $650 billion.
Creating Jobs Through FAST!, a Proposed New Infrastructure Program to Repair America’s Public Schools
Mary Filardo, Jared Bernstein, and Ross Eisenbrey, 2011. The average U.S. public school building is 40 years old, and many are much older. The cost of maintaining nearly 100,000 public schools and facilities in good repair is enormous. According to the Government Accountability Office and the American Society of Civil Engineers, school districts have been under-spending on maintenance and repair for many years. Chronic deferred maintenance and repair can lead to energy inefficiencies, unsafe drinking water, water damage and moldy environments, poor air quality, inadequate fire alarms and fire safety, compromised building security, and structural dangers.
A national project to address this backlog could create hundreds of thousands of jobs, including jobs for construction workers, building technicians, boiler repairmen, electrical workers, roofers, plumbers, glaziers, painters, plasterers, laborers, and tile setters. It could also lead to the direct hire of building maintenance workers to help slow or prevent the deterioration of buildings and building systems, while generating new savings through energy conservation.
Reversing the Cycle of Deterioration in the Nation’s Public School Buildings
Council of the Great City Schools, 2014. The report describes how school districts, financially squeezed over long periods of time, made economic decisions that reduced the most cost-effective types of maintenance work: preventive and predictive maintenance. The result of those decisions “to save money” will, in the long term actually increase the amount and frequency of much more expensive breakdown repair and replacement work.
As funds continued to be inadequate, the higher costs of breakdown repair work are forcing districts to make fewer repairs, which accelerates the deterioration of buildings and component systems. Ultimately, districts experienced and will continue to experience premature failure of buildings and systems, and are forced to borrow large sums of capital funds (with their accompanying debt service costs) to upgrade and/or replace facilities. Sadly, new buildings are likely to receive the same lack of preventive and predictive maintenance, thereby repeating the cycle of deterioration.
The report contains contemporary references that link the conditions of school buildings to student achievement and a variety of other issues. It also provides information and references to a variety of strategies that have proven successful in reversing the cycle of deterioration.
Texas Emergency Management Toolkit
Texas School Safety Center, 2013.The Texas Education Code §37.108 states: "At least once every three years, each school district or public junior college district shall conduct a safety and security audit of the district's facilities. To the extent possible, a district shall follow safety and security audit procedures developed by the Texas School Safety Center or a comparable public or private entity". While the term "audit" is included in TEC §37.108, the process was developed as an ongoing assessment of a district’s safety and security. Audits should be an ongoing process with the aim of identifying hazards, threats, and vulnerabilities that might pose a danger to life or property and/or may interfere with a safe, secure and healthy environment that is conducive to teaching and learning. Attention to safety and security should not be thought of as an annual or a once-every three year "audit" event. Districts are encouraged to integrate ongoing safety and security assessments into everyday activities. This includes planning, training, and drilling of emergency procedures.
SECTION 1
Audit Reporting
SECTION 2
K-12 Safety and Security Audit Guide
SECTION 3
Higher Education Safety and Security Audit Guide
