Improving school infrastructure is a top priority for school boards across the nation this year, as thousands of schools built in the 1950s need to be replaced across the country. I am a school board member paying close attention to this issue and I have been horrified to find there is no plan to fix crumbling schools, anywhere. Not at the Federal level and not in the State of Virginia. As a candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates in the 94th District, coming up with a plan for school infrastructure and safety will be a top priority when I get to Richmond.
That’s why the National School Board Association (NSBA) is talking to legislators today about adopting new incentives and investments focused on modernizing and building educational facilities that are designed to meet the needs of students, families and communities. When you include technology, recent estimates place total school facility needs in the US at well over $500 billion, according to NSBA.
Our Virginia NSBA Delegation includes over 20 board members from around the State and we will meet with Senators Kaine and Warner today. My role in the meeting this afternoon is to bring the conversation around to school infrastructure. We will present examples of a school with recurrent flooding problems in Suffolk that needs to be replaced. We will also discuss the impossible situation in Montgomery County where a fellow school board member will describe a roof collapse, requiring emergency funding from the County, which then resulted in a severe drop in its bond rating. So now the county has to wait to 2023 to procure bond funding for any new school construction. In the meantime, the area is booming with young families because of job growth at nearby Virginia Tech. We have our own story of delays replacing a school which resulted in its closing at Huntington Middle School in Newport News.
If localities are tapped out, districts across Virginia have no place else to go to finance the construction of a new school. We need funding sources from the Federal Government which currently only provides around 1% of our school budget in Newport News, Virginia. Let that sink in; we only get 1% of our budget from the Federal Government. NSBA members are advocating for the Rebuild America’s Schools Act, introduced by Congressman Bobby Scott, and the School Infrastructure Modernization Act which would also provide financing options for local School Boards.
I think the most important point to make with our Senators today is that this is our moonshot. This has to be a big, proud moment in the American story when we step up and make the sacrifices to build new schools. We need their leadership to create a national vision of what we can achieve together for our children to have the appropriate place to learn.