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Dive brief:
- The average age of a main school building is 49 years, according to survey findings released Thursday by the National Center for Education Statistics. 38% of these facilities were built even earlier, before 1970.
- Less than half of the schools surveyed made a major building renovation, with respondents saying it had been an average of 14 years since the last one. Also, the average time since their last major replacement or addition was 15 years.
- About a third of all schools reported never having had a major renovation, replacement or addition, NCES found in its nationally representative December survey of 1,625 public schools.
Diving knowledge:
The NCES survey results provide insight into the state of aging school infrastructure across the country.
While school facilities exist to house spaces for learning, they also affect the health and comfort of students and staff, NCES Commissioner Peggy Carr said in a statement.
“The state of our school facilities plays a critical role in the education of more than 49 million students in U.S. public schools,” Carr said. “This data provides insight into the current state of our schools as the nation continues the path to learning recovery.”
While more than a third of major buildings were constructed before 1970, NCES found that another 21% were built between 1970 and 1999, with an additional 20% built between 2000 and 2023.
While almost a third of schools have not had major reforms, 13% reported doing so between 2020 and 2023, 16% between 2010 and 2019, 15% between 1990 and 2009, and 3 % before 1990.
About a third of schools, 31 percent, also had at least one portable building in use, according to NCES.
NCES also found that 39% of schools have an indoor air quality coordinator, who is responsible for monitoring air quality conditions and reporting any related problems or complaints.
President Joe Biden’s administration has paid more attention Indoor air quality K-12 in recent years. Concerns have long persisted among political and educational leaders about the condition of older school buildings that haven’t received upgrades for years and, in some cases, decades.
For example, in 2021, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave schools a D+ Infrastructure Report 2021. The group said 53 percent of public school districts reported the need to upgrade or replace various building systems, such as heating, ventilation and air conditioning.
To deal with the great need for infrastructure improvements, some districts have taken advantage of the historic pandemic-era federal relief dollars to finance school construction projects, including air conditioning systems. Schools have also used these dollars to improve airflow and ventilation to prevent student and staff illness by minimizing the spread of COVID-19 and other airborne viruses.
But as deadlines loom for the obligation and spending of elementary and middle school emergency relief funds, and supply chain and staffing issues, district leaders worry that these projects are not completed on time.
Another avenue to help with much-needed infrastructure upgrades is a federal grant program designed to help high-need school districts. The program was established by the bipartisan Infrastructure Act of 2021 and is implemented through the US Department of Energywhich doubled the funds awarded during the program’s inaugural round in 2023, from $80 million to $178 million.
