Pennsylvania school facilities continue to be 'in crisis'

Audio By Carbonatix

(The Center Square) - One of the major conclusions of Pennsylvania’s 2024 Basic Education Funding Commission findings was that damaged and outdated school buildings pose huge health risks and learning obstacles to Pennsylvania schoolchildren in both rural and urban parts of the state.

A year on, legislators are still struggling to find solutions. Meanwhile, facilities are falling further into disrepair.

“Our state has outdated and, in some cases, unsafe school buildings. We all know this,” said Rep. Elizabeth Fiedler, D-Philadelphia, who hosted the House Education committee to discuss the issue. “Warped floors, leaky roofs, aging electrical systems, lead pipes, a lack of ADA ramps—the list goes on. The current state of school facilities presents both a crisis of education and a public health crisis for us.”

Fiedler noted that her children’s school closed when asbestos was found. Committee Chair Rep. Pete Schweyer, D-Allentown, noted that there’s a school in his district that was built in 1874. 

“Philadelphia has some of the highest asthma rates of students in the commonwealth, and it causes chronic absenteeism. So when we improve the conditions in terms of inhalation in our schools, we always increase attendance in those schools,” said LeShawna Coleman, chief of staff at the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. “There are other issues that are exacerbated when there are schools that don't have clean and fresh air, and these things take longer so they’re out of school.”

Many districts lack the funding necessary to make repairs. In Philadelphia, assessments are underway in a five year plan, but funding for repairs remains elusive. All districts lack a clear process for doing what’s necessary per the legislature.

Insurmountable structural problems sank Pennsylvania’s old program, PlanCon, where districts spent a decade in line waiting for grants to fund new buildings or extensive renovations. There was also no focus on maintenance for HVAC repairs, roof replacement, and other smaller projects that could extend the lives of existing facilities. PlanCon 2.0 already exists in state law, but has never been funded.

Today, there are a wide range of challenges facing schools in need of repair. The planning and permitting process can draw out the process. Schools run into increasing supply prices and increasing land costs.

“There was a mention of going back and looking at the PlanCon funding from 2016. 2020 to 25 construction costs in the public school sector have skyrocketed,” said Rick Evans, president of SitelogIQ USA, a construction engineering company. “I would suggest that the data from back then is not even relevant to the cost of construction today.”

One thing that has improved since the legislature last took up the issue? Technology that can help to compile and analyze the data needed to save the system. Private sector partners have already begun to implement the technology in facilities assessments, optimization, and planning.

“Our application called mySiteIQ currently has one fifth of all Pennsylvania school districts in that database,” said SiteLogIQ Vice President Garrett Lewis. “We've actually offered that data to the Senate Education committee in the past because I think we can use a lot of that data to extrapolate and answer the questions that you all have, which is: how big is the problem, and what is the problem?”