A new report released Wednesday by the Vermont Agency of Education highlights the deteriorating conditions of Vermont’s decades-old school buildings — a situation that could force lawmakers and school officials to make difficult decisions in the future.
That report, compiled by the French inspection and certification company Bureau Veritas, does not show in-depth information about any schools; instead, it is a precursor to a more thorough assessment that has not yet begun.
But the data “indicate an aging portfolio of key systems across the state of Vermont,” the authors of the report wrote, raising the specter of increased construction and renovation costs in the future.
With coffers full of federal pandemic aid last year, Vermont’s legislature passed a law directing the state Agency of Education to conduct a statewide study to determine how well the state’s school buildings were holding up.
Now, the first phase of that study is complete.
For about the past six months, Bureau Veritas has been gathering information from surveys sent to local school officials around the state. The data represents 305 public schools and 384 school buildings from every district and supervisory union in Vermont.
Those buildings are 61 years old on average, the study found, and have gone an average of 22 years without a major renovation.
Of those 384 buildings, 196 were known to have hazardous materials present, according to survey results, while officials suspected their presence in another 52 buildings. The report did not specify which hazardous materials officials were asked about.
Roughly 80 buildings had “Indoor Air Quality Issues” while about 50 had “Fire / Life Safety Issues,” although it’s unclear what those issues were.
The report’s authors also calculated a metric known as the Facilities Condition Index, which describes, in a percentage, how much of a building’s or building component’s lifespan has been used up.
A brand new building would have a Facilities Condition Index of 0%, while a building that has reached the end of its lifespan would have an Index of 100%.
Statewide, Vermont’s schools have an average index value of 71.4%, meaning, on average, the state’s schools have about 30% of their useful lifespan left.
Of the state’s roughly 60 public school districts and supervisory unions, 24 have average index values above 75%, while eight have average index values of about 80%.
Some components of school buildings — roofing, heating and plumbing, for example — are also faring worse than others.
Vermont schools’ windows, elevators, plumbing and HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) systems all have index values of over 75%. But central heating, electricity and safety systems are all in better condition, having not yet exhausted 70% of their lifespan.
The districts and supervisory unions with the worst school building conditions are the Orange Southwest School District (index value: 90.5%), Windsor Central Supervisory Union (89.2%), Mt. Mansfield Unified Union School District (87.8%), Essex North Supervisory Union (87.3%) and Montpelier Roxbury Public Schools (85.6%).
But the authors of the report cautioned against reading too much into those figures.
“It is routine to see well-maintained systems performing longer than their expected useful lives; as well sometimes systems can be in worse condition than age would indicate,” the report reads.
In testimony to the House Committee on Education on Wednesday, Vermont Secretary of Education Dan French told lawmakers that public schools often have high “depletion rates” because districts maintain their buildings for many years.
“It just means that there’s going to have to be some system replacement,” French said. “But the analogy the vendor described to me — it’s like brake pads on your car. If they’re 70% gone, they still work. At some point, you just have to be careful.”
State officials plan to begin a more in-depth assessment of Vermont schools in the fall. But the takeaway is that Vermont schools are likely going to need a significant amount of work in the coming years.
“We know there’s some work to do with facilities,” French said.
And that doesn’t even take into account possible rehabilitation to deal with PCBs — a class of toxic chemicals, widely used in construction, that state officials are required to test for in schools.
Two years ago, high levels of PCBs forced school officials to shutter Burlington High School and move students into a retrofitted shopping mall for classes. The district is now hoping to build a new high school, at a cost of roughly $230 million.
Environmental officials expect to begin testing all of Vermont’s schools for the chemicals starting this spring or summer, although lawmakers are considering pushing back the deadline for completion until 2026.
School officials worry that, if the chemicals are found in buildings elsewhere, districts across the state could be forced to evacuate their buildings and spend millions of dollars on rehabilitation.
But, as schools grapple with declining enrollment and the prospect of steep construction, renovation or rehabilitation bills in the future, lawmakers and local school districts members may be forced to answer some tough questions: Which schools are worth investing in, and which should be closed?
“If you consider yourselves, as the General Assembly, being the homeowners of all these different buildings, there’s going to be a prioritization,” French told lawmakers. “And there’s some you’re not going to want to put money into.”