By Nikki Baker and Rosie Grant
Every day that students and staff enter New Jersey schools, they face conditions that can cause illness or injury and that make it harder to teach and learn. New Jersey’s 2,500 school buildings are on average 50 years old and are four times more densely populated than a typical office building.
Age, overcrowding and deferred maintenance have strained ventilation, heating, plumbing and electrical systems, as well as the physical structures themselves, to their breaking point. This wastes energy and creates unpleasant to downright dangerous conditions for our children and the staff who serve them.
We don’t need to speculate about what happens once these stressors become too much for our aging schools to handle. Simply look at Public School Number 3 in Paterson, which is 124 years old! It is one of 17 school buildings in Paterson that are over one hundred years old. On July 28, staff arrived to find a ceiling that contained asbestos had collapsed. Fortunately, no immediate injuries were reported, but the estimated clean-up time was 16 weeks, roughly half of the school year.
The 302 students in the K-8 school and their teachers had to report to three different buildings when school started in September. This relocation created headaches and confusion for students, parents and administrators. Students, expecting to be sharing summer stories and taking classes with friends, are now divided across the city, while their parents and administrators have had to make last-minute adjustments to ensure safe and reliable transportation to the various locations.
This incident is a travesty that has disrupted the school year for students and school staff and could have resulted in a tragedy if children and staff were present at the time of the ceiling collapse. This is just one example of numerous real-world consequences of negligent funding practices to facilities by the state, especially in districts that serve students in the state’s most economically distressed communities.
For decades, the New Jersey Schools Development Authority (SDA), formerly the Schools Construction Corp., which is responsible for school construction projects in our neediest districts, has been underfunded by the state. This year Gov. Phil Murphy allocated $75 million to the SDA. However, the latest SDA needs assessment report shows that the state must, conservatively, invest $5 billon to replace the 50 aging school buildings in SDA’s purview. That figure does not account for inflation and potential site costs.
Many local school districts and municipalities do not have the tax base to cover the cost of necessary repairs and school construction alone. The state must fill these gaps to ensure a thorough and efficient educational environment that is also safe for its students and workers. We cannot continue to ignore these looming issues by simply waiting to tackle these problems in the future. It will only require the state to spend more money down the line and subject more children and school staff to substandard facilities.
For over two decades, since the landmark Abbott v. Burke ruling, the state has had a constitutional requirement to ensure a safe and healthy educational environment for students by providing direct financial support in its historically underserved districts. The state must meet this constitutional obligation.
Parents, students and communities want to understand why, in one of the richest states in the nation, in one of the richest countries in the world, we still have so many crumbling school buildings and facilities that are creating an inequitable and dangerous learning environment for so many of our state’s children.
More than 20 years ago, the state Supreme Court mandated a thorough and efficient education for all New Jersey students. The proverbial “can” is still being kicked down the road while the need escalates by the billions each year.
“Amidst the aging walls of our schools, the future of education and the well-being of our dedicated union members hang in the balance,” says Paterson Education Association President John McEntee. “Neglecting the upkeep of our educational institutions not only hampers student learning but also compromises the working conditions for our committed union members. It’s time to invest in the foundations of knowledge and empower those who shape the minds of tomorrow.”
Every child and education professional in New Jersey deserves a modern and safe school facility regardless of ZIP code. In the FY 2025 budget, we must do better.
Nikki Baker is an organizer for Health Schools Now at the New Jersey Work Environment Council (NJWEC). Visit njwec.org to learn more. Rosie Grant is the executive director of the Paterson Education Fund. Visit paterson-education.org to learn more.
References and resources
Healthy Schools Now
Education Law Center
NJ Schools Development Authority
njsda.gov