PODCAST: USGBC Raises Awareness About State of America’s Schools

WASHINGTON — On March 12, the Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) released its first State of Our Schools report to raise awareness about the need to modernize PK-12 school facilities to meet current health, safety and educational standards.

The report, featuring a forward from former President Bill Clinton, said that just to bring the buildings up to working order would cost $271 billion in maintenance costs (about $5,450 per student) and to additionally address modernization needs would cost $542 billion over the next 10 years.

In the report, the USGBC essentially urges the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct a survey on the condition of America’s schools to create a more comprehensive guide of what needs to be done to modernize them. The last comprehensive report of this kind conducted by the GAO was completed in 1995. The 1995 report stated that 15,000 U.S. schools were circulating air that was deemed unfit to breathe and estimated that $112 billion in improvements would be needed to bring schools up to code.

The major requests from the USGBC report include:
• Expanding the Common Core of Data (a list of academic expectations that define the knowledge and skills required for students to achieve at the end of each school year) to include school level data on building age, building size and site size.
• Improving the reporting of facility maintenance and operations data to the National Center for Education Statistics.
• Enhancing the collection of capital outlay data from school districts to help define funding for new construction and for existing facilities.
• Asking the U.S. Department of Education to provide financial and technical assistance to states that allow them to incorporate facility data in their state longitudinal education data systems.
• Requiring a GAO facility condition survey take place every 10 years, with the next one starting as soon as possible.

Approximately 50 million students attend the nearly 100,0000 public elementary and secondary schools in the U.S., according to the report, and some of the schools have such poor ventilation, heating and air conditioning that they can cause Sick Building Syndrome (SBS). According to the EPA, SBS can lead to headaches; eye, nose, or throat irritation; dizziness; nausea; fatigue and dry cough.

With the health of students in mind, the USGBC’s request is supported by 24 other organizations, including the 21st Century School Fund, the American Federation of Teachers, the American Lung Association, the National Education Association and the National PTA.

Green Building News spoke with Rachel Gutter, director of the Center for Green Schools at USGBC, about the goals of the report and what a call to action would mean for the green building industry.