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Old buildings testing school district budgets Education 2000: Reforming Schools for a New Century Friday, September 01, 2000 By Gary Rotstein, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
At 71-year-old Glassport Elementary School last year, crowded conditions forced band members taking lessons to share space at lunch hour with students wolfing down food and unwinding from morning classes.
At 43-year-old Northway Elementary School, parents complained about water dripping into classrooms from roof leaks and about special education instruction taking place in hallways with insufficient heat, lighting or privacy.
And at 77-year-old Sto-Rox High School, administrators haven't been able to saturate students' education with computers and new elective courses the way they know they should, partly because the solid old structure wasn't built to accommodate the necessary wiring and modern technology.
These and other examples of the limitations of providing a 21st-century education in public school buildings constructed in the early- to mid-20th century abound here and across the nation. A national report found school facilities to be 42 years old on average in 1998, and somewhat older in the Northeast. In the Pittsburgh School District, the average age is 71.
The good news, despite studies that decry crumbling and cramped conditions in America's elementary and secondary schools, is that many local school districts have upgraded their schools in recent years or put plans on the drawing boards to do so.
The bad news is that such improvements come at a price, often in the form of property tax increases to fund millions of dollars for new roofs and windows, upgraded electrical and heating systems, additional classrooms, modern athletic facilities and more. And while Pennsylvania provides more assistance than many states for construction and renovation, the lack of federal aid diminishes the chances that poor school districts can do as well as affluent districts in keeping up capital needs.
A $38 million construction project envisioned recently in the McKeesport Area School District had to be scaled back by more than half because of cost concerns. That means the district's vocational-technical school retains its windows from the 1940s, which are not energy-efficient, and its Francis McClure Middle School still won't be handicapped-accessible.
"I think we've done a fine job to this point of renovating buildings, but it's difficult in a district like ours to go the distance in all aspects," said McKeesport Area Superintendent Steve Tomaino. "The people in our school district are wonderful people who have bent over backward. The problem is it was just too much for us to bite off -- we just couldn't do it."
The McKeesport district did spend $16.2 million on improvements made this summer to its high school and Cornell Intermediate School, just as other districts have undertaken or planned their own projects to meet update aging buildings.
The Gateway School District, for instance, is wrapping up a two-year, $35 million program to renovate all of its schools.
The West Mifflin Area School District is in the middle of a $37 million modernization and expansion of its high school, providing amenities such as a greenhouse and fitness center to accompany more and better basic classroom space.
The Pittsburgh school district has a record $71.6 million in construction work under way at its schools this year, with Westinghouse and Carrick high schools undergoing major renovations. In addition, the district has plans under development for new elementary schools in Homewood and Brookline. Eight of the district's buildings are more than 100 years old.
And in the Sto-Rox School District, administrators are planning to spend about $14 million to construct a middle school and renovate the high school, which long ago would have qualified for membership in a senior citizen group. Even in a district with few affluent residents, little dissent has been raised to the project, which school officials attribute to community pride and public awareness of space and equipment needs.
"If we do it right, and I suspect we're going to, we can probably get another 30 years" out of the high school building, constructed in 1923, said Principal David Helinski, who is eagerly awaiting the move of middle school students out of the building's third floor and into their own facility by 2002.
All this school work comes at a time when federal officials are debating whether to launch a government aid program for school modernization. The Clinton administration has proposed such help repeatedly in recent years, and the Republican-led Congress has blocked it on the grounds that education should remain a local responsibility.
The need for school repair and upgrading nationally has been put at a cost ranging from $112 billion to $322 billion. The National Center for Education Statistics announced survey findings that three-fourths of the nation's schools would need repairs in order to put them in "good overall condition."
A bipartisan proposal pending in the U.S. House and backed by the White House is designed to generate $24.8 billion in school construction bonds by enabling school districts to borrow money interest-free for their capital projects.
Up to now, only a small federal aid program has been available to help with such costs, and the restrictions on it are so severe that few districts can take advantage. The measure to expand such assistance has the support of more than half the House members, but it remains to be seen whether the bill will pass before Congress adjourns in the fall.
Local school officials have learned not to count on federal aid, though they'd love to see that change.
"We've been very much watching the federal level in hopes that funds for infrastructure would come along," said Richard Fellers, executive director for business affairs for Pittsburgh Public Schools. "But we've already gone ahead and done the things our schools need, and by the time this [federal funding] comes through, it's going to be too late to get the help we need."
The state has been more helpful with local school construction. Generally, local and state education officials view the conditions of buildings as better in Pennsylvania than elsewhere because the state typically subsidizes about one-quarter to one-third of the cost, depending on the type of project and financial status of the school district. Some states provide no renovation assistance to their districts.
The complaint from school administrators is that the state's aid formula uses a cost-per-student reimbursement rate that hasn't increased since 1987, and so the amount of assistance local districts receive on their projects hasn't kept pace with inflation.
Education Department spokesman Al Bowman said there has been no strong lobbying to increase the construction and repair funding. Education proponents have complained far more loudly about the level of state assistance for special education and basic education costs.
One state lawmaker, Sen. Vincent Hughes, D-Philadelphia, has called for a dramatic boost in assistance to local schools and said he would introduce legislation this fall to subsidize districts' interest costs of borrowing, with additional grants available to poorer districts. As a member of the minority party in a legislative session nearing its conclusion, his proposal seems unlikely to move toward passage.
"We have not heard an outcry in the area of school construction," Bowman said, without commenting directly on Hughes' proposal. "The ideology we've had in Pennsylvania is the local school district controls the issue. It's not Harrisburg making the decision; however, we are providing resources to help with the decision that they make."
School districts' decisions about upgrading individual schools are guided, in part, by a state restriction that renovation assistance will be offered no more than once every 20 years for any one building. Administrators and school boards also must evaluate the merits of new construction vs. renovation, how far conditions must deteriorate in a particular building to justify a huge new expense and, perhaps most importantly, to what extent their surroundings are influencing pupils' achievement.
The U.S. Department of Education reports "a growing body of research has linked student achievement and behavior to the physical building conditions and overcrowding." Inadequate ventilation and heating have been cited in studies as a detrimental influence on students, and overhauling the guts of a building is typically among the work undertaken on any significant local project.
Sto-Rox Superintendent John Hisiro said antiquated and uncomfortable facilities would undoubtedly affect pupils.
"Teachers are the most important, of course, but I'm sure if you're in a very modern building and up-to-date environment, I'm sure it contributes to the morale and overall well-being of people," he said.
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