Students and faculty had started their classes in Davies Hall during the 2023-2024 academic school year when it was announced by American River College administration that Davies Hall was no longer safe to house classes or faculty offices—much to the disappointment of those who occupied it. Now that the 2024-2025 academic school year has begun at ARC, the absentee learning facility remains an eyesore, surrounded by a free-standing chain link fence, barring all but the authorized from entering. The building’s ever-growing sprouts of weeds, which are taller than most of the student body, are now jutting from the cracks in the aggregate concrete that flank the condemned structure. This reclamation by nature now represents the telltale signs of a failure in resource allocation.
While students and faculty may have been hoping this problem would be alleviated quickly, the administration says a new building to replace Davies Hall will not be completed for at least another five years. While these acute problems may seem unique to ARC, unsafe infrastructure is a problem that plagues many schools throughout California. Lawmakers in the state are looking to alleviate those issues with a bond measure issued for the purpose of funding such repairs in the form of Proposition 2, which will appear on the California voter ballot this November.
Voters in the state who believe education is a priority for the workforce of tomorrow should vote in favor of Proposition 2. If approved, that workforce would benefit from improvements to safety, financial prudence and the modernization of California schools that would be the result of the additional funding.
The proposition, formally known as the “Kindergarten Through Grade 12 Schools and Local Community College Public Education Facilities Modernization, Repair, and Safety Bond Act of 2024”, aims to address several gnawing repair and modernization concerns that plague California schools, the text of the proposed law highlights.
The idea behind Prop 2 is an effort to address facilities maintenance concerns for K-12 schools, charter schools and community colleges throughout the state of California. This would be achieved through a $10 million bond to be set aside for needed repairs at California schools such as air conditioning, school security equipment, asbestos abatement, lead water remediation, accessibility construction, high-priority roof replacement and any other construction projects deemed necessary.
Just like any other infrastructure costs, maintenance of school facilities would help to mitigate long term costs that would fall into the lap of the California taxpayer. Maintenance costs that when ignored, become dilapidated or in the case of Davies Hall, past the current standards for safe construction.
A 2016 report by the University of California, Berkeley, which reviewed state standards and requirements for K-12 public school facility planning and design, argues that “Adequate annual school facility maintenance investment protects state and local capital investment in the local facility asset, promotes occupant health and safety, and reduces long-term capital costs.”
The takeaway from this comment is that proper and sustained maintenance of school facilities will limit the financial burden to the California taxpayer when repair and maintenance costs are amortized throughout the life of a facility, rather than a school district being subjected to astronomical repair or replacement costs following negligence in maintenance.
Outside of ARC, signs of crumbling infrastructure are present in other Sacramento area schools, and in certain instances create safety issues. A recent CBS 13 article pointed out that the 47-year-old Valley High School in the Elk Grove Unified School District has a cafeteria that has no air conditioning, causing temperatures to remain in the 80s throughout the lunch personnel’s shift. This temperature falls outside of CalOSHA regulation, which states that the working conditions of a facility at or above 82° must have a means of heat illness mitigation, such as air conditioning. The article goes on to say that current heat illness mitigation in the nearly half-century old campus is no longer within CalOSHA safety standards.
A student at ARC would only need to glance toward Davies Hall to recognize the value behind addressing modernization projects. The building, constructed in 1968, was built using now outdated and seismically unsound lift slab construction.
Although the ARC administration has been working with state and private engineers to establish the parameters for seismic retrofit or the complete reconstruction of Davies Hall, the State Facility Program that finances these projects has $3.3 million worth of new construction and modernization projects throughout California Schools that are still waiting to be funded, according to the language within Prop 2. It would be no surprise to find the retrofit or replacement of Davies Hall on this list of pending projects that lack the funding to move forward.
Davies Hall should be a warning of what happens when repair or replacement projects are ignored. Proposition 2 would be an opportunity for the California taxpayer to mitigate those costs for the future and possibly avoid repeating the mistakes of the Davies Hall closure.
