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The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 requires employers to provide employees with a work environment that is free from known dangers. But the same standards do not always apply to public school children.
Safe and secure environments do not exist in some schools in Northern Nevada. For example, students and teachers in one Washoe County school have been given strict orders not to make holes in building walls since that could release dangerous levels of asbestos into the air. Lead was discovered in the flooring and asbestos in the subsurface of the gym floor in the same school.
Washoe schools are also experiencing severe overcrowding and are forced to turn any space available into makeshift classrooms. For example, a copy room is being used for English Language Learner students; a section of a school library is now classroom space and closed off to library users; and a prop room is being used as the school’s art room.
The root of the problem is the funding mechanism in the Washoe County schools. In Nevada, school districts are responsible for finding the money to renovate or build schools. There are few readily available funding sources for needed school repairs or expansions.
That’s why voters in Washoe are being asked to approve a ballot measure, Save Our Schools, to permanently increase the local sales tax from the current 7.725 percent to 8.264 percent. This tax increase could potentially raise $781 million over 10 years, all of which will be used for school construction and renovation.
If the measure fails, there will be no improvements made to aging schools and no new construction to ease overcrowding. Schools will be forced to host double sessions to accommodate all students. Some students will begin their day at 6 a.m. (or earlier if they require transportation to school) and will finish at noon. The second session will most likely begin at noon and finish at 6 p.m.
The Washoe County School Board has attempted to deal with overcrowding in the schools by:
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Approving $333,000 for the purchase of portable classrooms for two schools;
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Permitting Alice Smith Elementary School to adopt a multi-track schedule as part of it’s management plan;
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Providing Loder Elementary School with $250,000 to convert a boiler room into a classroom;
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Approving $40,000 to purchase computer carts to convert a computer lab into a classroom and create a mobile computer lab;
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Permitting Silver Lake Elementary School to move 5th graders to Cold Springs Middle School and Lemon Valley Elementary School to move 6th graders to O’Brien Middle School.
Learning environments matter. When schools are filled with dangerous contaminants, are much too cold or too hot, are severely overcrowded, or experience other facility issues, it can be difficult for children to learn. Nevada public school children need safe and secure schools.
Educate Nevada Now supports Washoe’s Save our School initiative and urges Washoe voters to support their public schools.
More information about school facilities is available in this Guinn Center report: Nevada School Facilities Construction and Maintenance
https://guinncenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Nevada-School-Facilities-Construction-and-Maintenance-February-2016.pdf
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