Durham CAN School Facilities Campaign Action Agenda

Issues, Questions, Challenges

Assembly, May 3, 2009, Pearsontown Elementary School

 A number of studies have shown that many school systems, particularly those in urban and high-poverty areas, have decaying buildings that threaten the health, safety, and learning opportunities of students. Good facilities appear to be an important precondition for student learning, provided that other conditions are present that support a strong academic program in the school. A growing body of research has linked student achievement and behavior to the physical building conditions and overcrowding. Environmental conditions such as peeling paint, crumbling plaster, nonfunctioning toilets, poor lighting, inadequate ventilation, and inoperative heating and cooling systems can affect the learning as well as the health and the morale of staff and students.

Over the last eight months, Durham CAN engaged hundreds of diverse community leaders in learning about the impact of school facilities in the Durham Public Schools (DPS) education system. With the endorsement of the DPS Superintendent, several CAN teams visited almost every school in the district. Our leaders met with parents, students, principals and teachers. We documented the most pressing needs, and identified district wide patterns that now inform our priorities. Research-Action Teams comprised of leaders from a diverse mix of faith, education, and other nonprofit institutions met with School Board members and administrators, to assess the feasibility of our proposals. CAN leaders developed the following Action Agenda after hundreds of hours of discernment and research in each area. The Vision statements and Action Proposals that follow were adopted by the CAN Strategy Team, and will guide the conversations with the School Board in the coming months. 

URGENT AND SPECIFIC NEEDS:

After touring the facilities and meeting with diverse stakeholders, it became clear to us that some facilities require urgent attention by the District. Those needs are specific to each school and have been discussed with the Assistant Superintendent for Operational Services. 

• ACTION: Durham CAN calls the Durham School Board and its administrators to take action on those items and report to CAN during our Delegates Assembly.  

DISTRICT WIDE PRIORITIES

HEATING AND AIR CONDITIONING

It has been widely documented that faulty classroom temperature and air circulation are one of the worst problems in public schools in the US today. Problems may be caused by poor design, but often stem from subsequent construction changes, inadequate maintenance and the fact that many schools' heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems are simply inefficient and outdated.

 A good ventilation system is an effective means of keeping both toxic and nuisance materials out of the air. Indoor ventilation problems began attracting attention during the energy crisis of the 1970s, when buildings were sealed more tightly to reduce air leakage and minimize costs required to heat or cool air drawn in from outside. Common practice among building owners during the 1970s was to decrease ventilation rates from 15 cubic feet per minute per person, a standard recommended by the American Society of Heating and Refrigeration and Air- Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), to an average of 5 cubic feet per minute per person. Imagine the effect on learners in rooms where the air exchange is reduced by two-thirds while maintenance remains absent or sporadic at best. Not all children suffer the same way when air inside a classroom becomes unhealthy or marginally so, yet children as a group are considered most vulnerable to environmental contaminants because they have higher breathing and metabolic rates than adults and less fully formed biological defense mechanisms.

We consistently heard complaints about heating and air conditioning systems during our visits to the schools. Almost every parent, student or principal we spoke with showed some concern about the extreme temperatures (too cold or too hot) in our school buildings. They wished they could control the school temperature and understand how "downtown" makes such decisions. It is not uncommon to find open windows in the summer or the air conditioning running during the winter.

• ACTION: Durham CAN calls for an independent assessment of the DPS central cooling and heating system. The assessment should indicate what it would take for the inefficient system to be improved. 

PRE SCHOOL CLASSROOMS

Experts agree that a critical contributor to school achievement is the implementation of effective early education programs that ensure that our youngest students arrive at kindergarten ready to learn. But, not only our children need to be ready for school, our schools must also be ready for our children.

Many Durham Public Schools house early childhood education programs for pre-school age children. In the year 2000, The NC Department of Health and Human Services (NC DHHS) and the NC Department of Public Instruction (DPI), signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) intended to ensure the continuity and consistent quality of the early childhood education services provided to the citizens of the State. The objective of the parties was to ensure that all children in public school early childhood programs be assured facilities that comply with the childcare licensing requirements of North Carolina. Their charge was to design a plan to help preschool programs in public schools to become licensed. The MOU was signed by the two departments to recognize the fact that these programs should be licensed to assure that they meet minimum health and safety requirements.

The certification process is a simple and voluntary process that starts with a free of charge Request for Pre-Licensing Certification offered by the NC Division of Child Development (DCD). The State provides the school system with a consultant that helps the district prepare for licensure. Schools submit approved inspections showing their facilities meet sanitation codes, and all applicable building codes. Building Inspections conducted on public schools are done according to the codes that were in place when the building was constructed. Many schools are older and those codes have been updated.

The Division of Child Development requires all child care facilities receiving an initial license meet the codes in place at the time of application. It is also important to note that most public schools were designed, constructed and approved to care for school-age children and when they begin serving preschool-age children they have altered the intended use of the building and different codes should be met. DCD requires that only the primary spaces be monitored for this inspection in public schools. Only the classroom or space used by the children in the licensed program the majority of their time in care will be designated as primary space. A school could apply for a license once the inspections are complete and receive an on-site compliance-monitoring visit within 4-6 weeks of application. Depending on the needs of the programs, and if everything is found to be in compliance at the time of the visit, a temporary license could be issued immediately. In order to receive the most points on a rated license, staff must have experience working with children.

• ACTION: CAN calls for the School Board to start the licensure process in compliance with the DPI and NC DHHS Memorandum of Understanding.

TECHNOLOGY

Issues regarding technology and equity were raised repeatedly. School principals make a great deal of decisions at the specific school level. Often times the decisions are based on budget capacity and the principal's interest or knowledge on the issue. Those principals that value technology have resources and/or mobilize parents to fundraise for state of the art technology. Unfortunately not every school shares the same fortune, thus adversely impacting our children.

• ACTION: Durham CAN calls for DPS to adopt a centralized process of decision-making for the allocation of technology resources, to assure equity among all schools in the district. A centralized process has the potential to be the most cost effective and most equitable method for equipping all schools with the latest technology.

 EXCEPTIONAL STUDENTS

Durham Public Schools has programs in place to ensure that exceptional students have equal opportunity to learn and develop. The system currently serves approximately 4,000 exceptional students through a variety of initiatives. Exceptional students include those with autism, deaf-blindness, deafness, developmental delay, serious emotional disability, hearing impairment, intellectual disability, multiple disabilities, other health impairment, orthopedic impairment, specific learning disabilities, speech and/or language impairment, traumatic brain injury and visual impairment.

Families of exceptional students and community leaders feel strongly about the need for better ties among parents, community institutions, teachers and DPS decision makers. The intentional connection among leaders from different sectors has the potential to bring about resources, parent involvement and programmatic alignment and equity.

ACTION: Durham CAN calls the Durham School Board to assemble a " DPS Exceptional Children Task Force" charged with

1. better connecting parents and the district's decision makers,
2. improving the quality and alignment of existing programs,
   
3. developing baseline minimum standards at all schools, and
   
4. tapping into available resources for exceptional students.