Students play at Lincoln Elementary School in San Bernardino. The district's accountability plan is expected to set aside funds to repair the school's playing field. Credit: Karla Scoon Reid

Students play at Lincoln Elementary School in San Bernardino. The district's accountability plan is expected to set up bated funds to repair the school's playing field. Credit: Karla Scoon Reid

(Updated April 26 with a clarification from the Land Board of Didactics.)

To weather deep cuts in public school funding, many California schoolhouse districts shifted much-needed dollars away from repairing and maintaining their buildings to proceed teachers in the classroom and save instructional programs from being eliminated.

At present, the country'south new funding formula, which allocates much of the increased school revenue to high-needs students, provides some breadth for districts to fix their ailing buildings too.

While there has been an assumption that only base of operations grant dollars — the funds allocated to districts for all students — tin can be used for building repairs and improvements, that's not necessarily the case under the Local Control Funding Formula'due south current regulations. Merely what'due south considered an allowable use of money targeted for high-needs students – defined as English-language learners, low-income children and foster youth – gets somewhat murky when it comes to school facilities.

Included in the eight priorities that school districts must address in their state-mandated Local Control and Accountability Plans (LCAPs), which identify how districts will allocate their funding, is a goal to ensure that schoolhouse facilities are maintained in "adept repair."

Jeff Vincent, the deputy director of the Center for Cities & Schools at UC Berkeley, said the salubrious school facilities goal has "flown nether the radar" throughout accountability plan discussions.

The Center for Cities & Schools is hosting a daylong forum Friday at the California Endowment office in Oakland, which will include sessions that will further explore how districts should meet the healthy school facilities goal. The Center for Cities & Schools is a inquiry and technical help centre that promotes high-quality education equally a means to support urban development.

The good for you school facilities standard is defined under country regulations drafted post-obit the Williams settlement, the resolution of a class-action lawsuit filed against the state in 2000 that alleged that public school students were denied equal access to instructional materials, condom and decent schools and qualified teachers. A building in "expert repair" is divers as a facility that is maintained in a mode that assures that information technology is clean, safe and functional.

Although the Williams settlement established criteria for districts to evaluate the condition of their facilities, Vincent said at that place'due south been very little oversight or enforcement of the standards outlined in the education code. He believes that including schoolhouse facilities in the pedagogy funding law means communities tin can concord districts more than answerable for the condition of their buildings nether the accountability plan.

"In my heed, it puts [school facilities] on a platform where it volition be taken much more seriously," Vincent said.

Rules "Not Cutting-And-Dried"

Whether a commune allocates money for high-needs students, known as concentration and supplemental funds, to repair or meliorate facilities may come down to ii master questions, said Liz Guillen, director of legislative and community affairs for Public Advocates, a nonprofit law firm and advancement organisation:

  • How does the expenditure meet the commune's accountability plan goals for high-needs students?
  • What is the issue of the proposed use of those funds on high-needs students as compared to the rest of students?

"It's non cut-and-dried," Guillen said nearly how districts can use state dollars nether the new funding formula for facilities' needs. "Merely by and large, information technology shouldn't be hard if districts are transparent and develop relationships with the community, which the LCAP process requires and encourages them to do."

Districts are mandated to seek input from a diversity of stakeholders, including parents and labor groups, equally they develop their accountability plans, which must exist adopted by July 1. Other priorities that must be addressed in the plans include school climate, student achievement and parent engagement.

While many districts are still working on their accountability plans, the West Contra Costa Unified School District is proposing an annual three percent increase in the percentage of buildings deemed in "good repair" and will solely use base of operations grant dollars to fund this goal. The San Bernardino City Unified School District has proposed spending $1.seven million to assistance encounter the facilities goal in its accountability plan.

Meanwhile, the Santa Ana Unified School Commune developed a five-year plan to maintain and meliorate its facilities. So far, Santa Ana Unified has identified near $800,000 in projects that will be tied to its accountability program's school building goal. Both San Bernardino and Santa Ana are nevertheless in the procedure of determining which funds will be allocated to finance those school edifice improvements. EdSource is tracking all three districts equally role of its Following the School Funding Formula serial.

Trusting Communities

Brooks Allen, deputy policy director and assistant legal counsel to the State Lath of Education, explained that the makeup of a district'southward enrollment influences how information technology may use funds targeted for high-needs students.

Updated:If a district's enrollment of high-needs students is below 55 percentage, Allen said it would need to describe how the proposed district-wide utilise of funds is the "most constructive" way to see the commune's goals for those students. For a district where the high-needs student roll exceeds 55 per centum, he said it would be required to demonstrate that the funds volition help meet a specific goal for those students. He added that these aforementioned requirements use to proposed schoolwide expenditures. Notwithstanding, the enrollment threshold is xl percent.

For instance, a schoolwide program that boosts services for a subgroup of students, say English-linguistic communication learners, but benefits all pupils is non prohibited under the electric current emergency expenditure regulations for the 2014-xv schoolhouse year, Allen said. (The permanent regulations are still existence developed.)

Past its very nature, the new school funding formula does non lend itself to "difficult-and-fast rules," Allen said. Instead, he said the funding law places its "trust and organized religion" in local communities' abilities to place the most advisable investments to meet the goals outlined in the accountability plan.

Randall Putz, a Bear Valley Unified School District board member, described the ambiguity inherent in the school funding law equally both a "blessing and a curse." Putz, who participated in a Centre for Cities & Schools webinar on the LCAP'southward healthy school facilities goal earlier this month, said the 2,600-student district in Large Bear Lake will receive a $1 1000000 upkeep increment for the 2014-15 schoolhouse twelvemonth. About 68 pct of the rural school system'south students authorize for free or reduced-priced dejeuner, the criteria for categorizing low-income students.

Like many California school districts, Behave Valley Unified funneled deferred-maintenance dollars to assistance salve academic programs and pedagogy positions and as a result, he said, the district's seven schools are in disrepair. At present, deferred maintenance is part of the base per-student funds each district receives from the state.

"How are we going to create better concrete atmospheric condition for our kids, if that'southward the only additional money we are getting?" Putz asked, referring to the supplemental and concentration funds.

A Defensible Plan

Joe Dixon, assistant superintendent for facilities and governmental relations for the Santa Ana Unified School District, agrees that school districts must exist permitted to tap into their supplemental and concentration grants to accost their facilities needs, specially in districts with high percentages of disadvantaged students. Dixon also serves as chair of the Coalition for Adequate School Housing, a nonprofit made up of commune administrators that supports statewide efforts to fund K-12 schoolhouse structure.

To assist districts quantify their repair and maintenance needs with greater accuracy, Dixon is developing a comprehensive "good repair" evaluation tool. Dixon is working on the evaluation tool with the Center for Cities and Schools and the 21st Century Fund, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit defended to modernizing public schools to support loftier-quality education. Santa Ana Unified received an $83,000 California Endowment grant to develop the facilities evaluation organization.

Dixon said this newly developed tool is much unlike than the Facility Inspection Tool (FIT), a ranking and scoring organisation that about districts utilise to evaluate whether their schools are clean, safety and functional. Dixon calls the state tool a "snapshot" of a school's physical condition on one specific day, whereas the "good repair" tool provides a five-year program to address a school'south maintenance and repair needs, and includes cost estimates.

Dixon'south goal is to assist districts develop a detailed financial plan that is "defensible and makes sense." He plans to pilot the tool in a handful of districts this summertime and will make the tool available statewide by yr's end.

"Buildings take a lot to practice with kids learning," he said, adding that some research studies have plant that healthy school facilities can boost educatee accomplishment.

During a recent visit to San Bernardino's Lincoln Elementary School, which one time served 1,600 students yr-round and now enrolls 910 students, Assistant Master Cynthia Nicolaisen said her school is a gathering identify for local residents.

"This community sees this schoolhouse every bit a park," she said, adding that on weekends families picnic at the school.

But the school'southward field is uneven, with patches of dirt and brown grass. Thieves ruined one of its two soccer goals by attempting to dismantle the metal bars and sell them. To brand practice, Nicolaisen said students pile up their jackets for makeshift soccer goals.

John Peukert, banana superintendent for facilities and operations for the San Bernardino City School District, said the district has had a $1 billion investment in new structure and modernization of existing facilities since 2004. Prior to the investment, more than than 40 of the district'south schools had been operating on a twelvemonth-circular schedule. The final four schools running year-circular volition begin a traditional schedule in the fall and two new schools are slated to open by 2015.

Peukert explained that the 50,000-student district, where 85 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-priced dejeuner, qualified for land hardship and modernization school construction funds. Every bit a consequence, Peukert said, the schoolhouse system'southward facilities are in far better shape than school buildings in other California districts.

Yet, as land coffers shrunk and school funding decreased in 2007, Peukert said San Bernardino, much like other districts across the state, postponed maintenance to support academic programs, leaving some older buildings in disrepair. The commune's $1.7 million for facilities repairs and improvements includes painting, cobblestone repair and landscaping.

"The LCAP will actually help salve this community," Peukert said. "This new funding formula will bring equality where there wouldn't be equality."

Karla Scoon Reid covers Southern California for EdSource.

This report is part of EdSource's Following the School Funding Formula project, tracking the implementation of the Local Control Funding Formula in selected school districts around the country.

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