There are 4,418 school buildings in Washington, and half of them are more than 50 years old. Among these relics — some of which date from the early 20th century — nearly 1,000 have never reported any modern update.
In some, leaky roofs have teachers pulling tarps over their computer equipment to shield it from rain dripping from the ceiling. In others, kids are wearing coats in their classrooms because the boilers don’t work. A story in last weekend’s Seattle Times profiled Wahkiakum High School, where chemistry experiments must be held outside because the science lab has faulty ventilation.
This is a bitter inequity laid bare — a point at the center of Wahkiakum School District’s lawsuit now before the Supreme Court — and two bills under consideration in the Legislature attempt to ameliorate the problem. Both should be supported.
But neither is adequate. They’re too little, too late, the result of legislators ignoring a problem hidden in plain sight: Washington’s program for helping to pay for expensive school construction and renovation projects is available only to districts where voters agree to pick up most of the cost, usually through capital bond issues. For dozens of tiny, rural districts without a sufficient tax base, that’s a nonstarter.
In those places, school construction bonds fail again and again. As a result, though the Legislature has earmarked more than $5 billion for school construction since 2009, nearly $1 billion of that money has never been claimed. Even as pipes burst, heating systems stumble, and science lessons must be modified because basics like running water aren’t guaranteed.
For a state that purports to value education as its paramount duty, that is a scandal.
Senate Bill 5126 would tackle the problem by offering small districts grants of up to $5 million to pay for immediate renovation needs. But it has stalled in the House.
On the House side, SHB 1044 is more future-focused. It would create a school construction program for the 147 Washington districts with fewer than 1,000 students. But it requires that they contribute half the cost of approved projects.
Sen. Mark Mullet, who leads the senate’s capital construction committee, says passing both bills would represent a “Shaquille O’Neal-sized step forward.”
Neither, however, offer help to districts with 1,500 students or even 2,000. And both raise a fundamental issue: If Washington’s constitution says the state is obligated to offer an ample education to all children, who should pay for the buildings necessary to provide that education?
This question was not directly answered when the state Supreme Court closed the books on its landmark McCleary school funding case in 2017. And Tom Ahearne, the attorney who brought that lawsuit, is suing again on behalf of Wahkiakum. Any school program reliant on local funding is inherently inequitable, he argues, because less wealthy residents can’t contribute as much as the more affluent. The upshot: Children who live in low-income areas are shortchanged.
A decision on Ahearne’s suit is unlikely before the end of this school year. In the meantime, the Legislature must pass laws ensuring that all communities — of whatever size — can provide functional, modern facilities for their kids.
Discussion about this post