Why Should Delaware Care?
This May, school districts statewide completed their first facility evaluations that looked at mechanical systems and structural concerns. Spotlight Delaware found there were more than 1,200 repair notes ranging in severity across the state, including HVAC issues, leaks and more in the aging facilities.
As Delaware begins to grapple with how to change funding of public education to improve student support, another major funding hurdle is emerging: deferred maintenance that is piling up at schools statewide.
A first-of-its-kind statewide evaluation of school buildings completed this year by the Delaware Department of Education has identified more than 1,200 needed repairs, ranging from minor issues such as cosmetic deterioration to major needs like leaking roofs, outdated dehumidifiers, malfunctioning air conditioning, and more.
Today, it’s common for students to attend schools that were built during the Great Depression in some parts of Delaware.
While Delaware’s 19 school districts tracked their own facility needs in the past, Senate Bill 270 directed the Department of Education to develop a statewide facilities evaluation tool in order to get a holistic view of the state’s schools.
Each district was required to submit its evaluation along with a board-approved repair and maintenance plan to the Delaware Department of Education in May. All districts compiled, except for the Colonial School District in New Castle, which in a letter to the state said that it “requires a significant amount of time and energy to complete.”
After analyzing the responses from each school district obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, Spotlight Delaware found there were more than 1,200 repair notes — ranging in severity from minor to major — across the state.
Spotlight Delaware then toured older schools within three districts to assess the state of Delaware’s public schools’ facilities. While each felt the tool would provide the state with a better understanding of what districts’ facilities look like, they also expressed financial concerns over being able to meet the needs of their buildings, students and staff.
‘A story of haves and have-nots’
Leading all districts in terms of total repairs identified was the Brandywine School District, with 235 total issues at school buildings.
Brandywine’s Director of Facilities John Read knows residents will walk past a school and completely miss the dedication of the district’s maintenance team, but older schools like P.S. du Pont Middle School — which was constructed in 1935 — still need extra attention, dedication and funds.
“Just fixing the bricks on the gym, no one knows we do it, no one cares. They walk by and it looks good from the curb. But just fixing the bricks in the gym is $200,000. That was 10% of our money that I had last year,” Read said.
But P.S. du Pont, which was renovated in 2007, is an example of what the district can do with older schools, Read said.
One of the areas where Read believes the district exceeded efficiency expectations was the building’s updated HVAC system, which they’ve used since 2003 in almost all of their buildings.
The district placed “six tractor-trailers worth of equipment” in the attic rather than the roof, because equipment on the roof will have an 18-year lifespan compared to a 35-year lifespan indoors, Read said.
The equipment changes the building’s air six times every hour through an energy wheel.
“On a 20-degree day, this wheel will bring the air to 55 degrees for free,” Read said. “It takes the energy out of the air I’m throwing away, and applies it to the air coming in.”
Although the district’s HVAC system prepared it for the COVID pandemic, there is still concern over the inability to dehumidify three buildings, including P.S. du Pont Middle and Carrcroft Elementary School.
Carrcroft’s system is also limited in its ability to use either heat or air conditioning for extended periods of time, meaning that once the setting is changed is must run to the end of the season, Read said. It impacts the comfort of the school for about 11 school days each year, but fixing the issue would cost the district millions, he added.
A funding question
In order to build a new school, add an expansion or complete a substantial renovation, school districts must seek out state funding and get approval from the Department of Education through the Certificate of Necessity (CN) process.
If state officials approve a request, then 60% of a project cost would be funded through state bonds but districts also have to secure a 40% local contribution through a referendum vote.
The Brandywine School District recently submitted a Certificate of Necessity request for major renovations at Mount Pleasant elementary and high schools.
The district said $76.3 million would be needed for Mount Pleasant Elementary to be completely renovated. The school, which is older than P.S. duPont Middle, is a story of haves and have-nots, according to Read.
Although the building is healthy, the equipment is at the end of its lifespan. The facilities team has had to repoint and repaint the gym walls multiple times because of leaks, all windows need to be replaced and not all classroom sizes match the state’s standard.
“We’re putting lots of band-aids on these larger problems that we have in our school,” Mount Pleasant Elementary Principal Matthew Auerbach said. “You can’t even get to sections of the roof without breaking more tiles in order to get there. We can’t open the windows in some rooms.”
Some of these issues, like the difference between class sizes, have caused disparities within the school.
Not all of the school’s kindergarten classroom sizes meet the state’s recommendations, and teachers in those classrooms often have cluttered and limited space for typical elementary school features like community carpets or playsets.
Brandywine is hopeful that a full renovation could help improve morale and get Mount Pleasant Elementary to the same quality as other schools.
“I know that the money for the renovation would at least get us to the standard of what our community expects, what our teachers expect, what our students should be provided,” Auerbach said.
Storage rooms become classrooms
At schools like Georgetown Middle School, which was constructed in 1930, custodial teams are needed on days when schools are closed to address different problems, like replacing ceiling tiles or installing whiteboards.
The Indian River School District was second to Brandywine with 154 repair notes. Supervisor of Buildings and Grounds William “Joe” Dooley is concerned about being able to meet the repair needs of the district’s older buildings because there isn’t enough minor capital project money available.
Delaware’s Minor Capital Improvement Program consists of projects costing less than $1 million, and the program is reviewed annually by school districts. Minor capital improvements include roof, window, door and HVAC replacements, among other projects.
The limited funding has caused Dooley and the district’s custodial teams to become more creative with the grants they receive to avoid spending more minor cap money on repairs.
“If I can use grant money that doesn’t come out of that minor cap money to replace windows in the front of the school, and it’s clearly within the entitlement writings of the grant, then I want to do that,” Dooley said.
The accumulation of issues across the district takes precedence over things that might affect a school’s sense of community, Georgetown Middle Principal David Carter said.
“Our building is so old that our colors are blue and gold, but the colors in the hardwood are no longer blue and gold,” Carter said. “We’re 15 schools, and so unfortunately, other things will take precedence over some of the things that can just help with the climate of your building.”
Issues like a lack of classroom and storage space are a common theme throughout Indian River’s older schools. The concern for space is growing as more people move to communities like Millsboro.
Both Georgetown Middle and Millsboro Middle School have needed to retrofit existing storage areas into classrooms to meet the needs of their students.
“This was never intended to be a classroom,” Millsboro Middle School Principal Bradford Breasure said while stepping inside a triangular-shaped classroom. “When I first came to Millsboro Middle, a long time ago, it was just literally a storage room. There was a desk in here and a whole bunch of stuff, and then it was a special ed coordinator’s office. And then we said, ‘We gotta make this a classroom.’”
These smaller classrooms converted from storage rooms typically fit around 10 students inside. Breasure added that challenges like spacing issues are all he’s known, and he needed to make the space he had work.
Millsboro Middle only has one true storage space for its school. Part of that room is taken up by moving boxes, as the students and staff will be moving into a new building next school year. Their current building will be empty for a year, before being transitioned to an elementary school.
That transition will also cost the district money, as the toilets are too big for younger students, the furniture isn’t set up for kindergarteners and there is no playground, Dooley said.
Adding up the costs
The state of some districts’ schools can be identified through the total cost of renovations compared to the cost of building a new school.
Doug Henry, Seaford’s supervisor of buildings and grounds, was told by his architect that the cost of renovating the district’s middle school would be $70.8 million, but the cost of building a new middle school would be $72.1 million without interest.
“That tells you right there where we’re at,” Henry said. “At some point, it’s just cheaper to build a building than it is to maintain.”
Seaford School District had 118 total notes.
Henry said one of the district’s largest issues is humidity. Seaford currently has unit ventilators bringing in outside air before a separate, standalone dehumidifier pumps it back out. Although the buildings are healthy, it can be difficult for the dehumidifiers to keep up on days with high humidity.
“I think that right there is one of my biggest things that I’m trying to get to. But the problem with that is you got to figure how much renovation would go on for that to take place,” Henry said. “So you’re talking about all the ceilings in the building being torn out, sprinkler systems being added … it’s like a major cost at that point.”
Many of Seaford’s schools have been renovated, the most recent being Central Elementary School in 2022, but most of the work done was cosmetic.
Seaford Middle School was last renovated in 2001, but the pipes are still that of a 96-year-old building. Today, it holds the majority of the district’s repair notes.
Along the side of the middle school, windows are starting to pop out of their frame. It’s something the district has previously tried to address through repointing, but it’s believed the water damage is coming from somewhere in the basement’s structure.
Henry said the windows, along with the time and measures it would take to address the issue, is a large reason why it would be most cost-efficient to replace the middle school with a new building.
Seaford’s newest school is Blades Elementary, which was gutted and redone in 2002. Blades doesn’t have all of the same issues as a building with an 80-year-old structure, but its HVAC system is already outdated.
A step in the right direction
The Delaware Department of Education wasn’t aiming to give districts scores based on their responses to the surveys.
Instead, the department wanted to “review the first year, see where [districts] are in the second year and work to support the schools to continue to address the issues,” said Jamie Mack, an education associate at the Delaware Department of Education.
Mack added the department wasn’t looking at the evaluations from a cost basis at this point, they were instead looking at where the main issues are for each district and how the department can provide support and connect districts.
District officials said they believe the tool is a step in the right direction and are grateful for the help they’ve received from the department through enhanced minor capital money. But they’re still concerned about the funding needed for addressing necessary repairs.
While minor capital money includes anything under $1 million, anything over that threshold consisting of one or more construction projects is considered a major capital improvement. A district looking to implement major capital improvements would need to submit a request to the state to get approval and go through the necessary referendum process to secure a local contribution.
“If the state denies that [request], we either have to not do those projects or we have to do the amount of minor capital money, and that gets tough to do because there’s not enough minor cap money available to do all the stuff that we need to do,” Dooley said.
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