Victorian School to get the necessary funding for repairs

#refurbishment #schoolbuilding # governmentgrant #facilities

A COCKERMOUTH primary school has been awarded a major Government grant to carry out repairs to its buildings.

Fairfield Primary School in Cockermouth has been awarded £151,000 in condition improvement funding from the Government to carry out repair works to its Victorian buildings.

The works are due to start next year.

The news that the primary school had been successful in securing the Government funding was welcomed by Workington MP Mark Jenkinson, who paid a visit to the school over the summer holidays.

“Condition improvement funding is essential to maintain schools,” Mr Jenkinson said.

“Fairfield Primary School is located in an old building with a significantly sized roof.

“It was important that repairs to this structure were carried out and I am pleased that this funding from Government has enabled these works, ensuring that the school is able to put more of their money into the education of their children.”

Fairfield Primary School headteacher Chris Steele said that the school has been working to secure the funding to replace Fairfield Primary School’s Victorian ceilings and roofs for a couple of years.

“We were unsuccessful in the first round of condition improvement funding this year,” Mr Steele said.

“However, through this most recent round we have been granted the funding.

“We have received £151,000 to remove and replace the roof and ceiling of our lower building.

“This will help our school significantly as we will be able to update the classrooms in the building.

“It will create a much nicer environment for the children.”

It is hoped that renovation work on the Cockermouth primary school’s other Victorian building will commence in 2022.

Source: News & Star

School Building has long noted the high incidence of fires in our school buildings, a study by Zurich confirms this risk

#firerisk #schoolbuldings #sprinklers #parliamentarypetition

In what’s described as “the most comprehensive analysis of its kind to date”, Zurich analysed the fire risks posed at 26,866 primary and secondary schools in England. The research found that the average school posed a fire risk 1.7 times greater than for non-residential buildings (with a fire risk score of 0.58 and 0.33 respectively according to Zurich’s model).

When compared to 2.9 million non-household properties, schools were also three times more likely to fall into the ‘high’ fire risk category (58% versus 20%) as defined by the study.

Data scientists analysed 33,000 fires from the last six years to identify factors that increase the likelihood of a blaze from which they then produced a fire risk score. These factors include listed status, the presence of cooking equipment and the size of the building itself.

Despite being far riskier than average when it comes to fires, many schools also lack the equipment needed to prevent small fires from becoming major disasters. Of more than 1,000 school inspections carried out by Zurich, 66% of the locations were rated as having ‘poor’ fixed fire protection systems, such as sprinklers, which are proven to significantly reduce the damage caused by fire. Just 14% were rated ‘good’ or ‘excellent’. A further quarter (24%) were judged to be ‘poor’ for fire detection measures, such as smoke detectors and fire alarms.

Causes of school fires   

Firefighters have been called to nearly 2,000 school blazes in the last three years. Malfunctioning appliances or equipment, faulty electrics, arson and kitchen blazes are among the leading causes of school fires. Larger fires in schools cost an average of no less than £2.8 million to repair and, in some cases, the repair bills run to over £20 million.

Bigger and older schools, including those with a canteen, and secondary schools – which have more complex and dangerous equipment – were identified as being particularly at risk. A correlation between poor OFSTED ratings and greater risk of fire was also identified in the analysis.

The findings have led Zurich to launch a Parliamentary petition designed to urge MPs to change the law on sprinklers in schools. While sprinklers are compulsory in all new or major refurbished school buildings in Scotland and Wales, this is not the case in England. In fact, they’re presently fitted in fewer than one-in-six new school buildings.

Tilden Watson, Zurich Municipal’s head of education, stated: “An alarming number of school buildings pose a high fire risk, yet many are poorly protected against a potential blaze. Unless Government ministers bring England into line with other parts of the UK, where sprinklers are mandatory, large fires will continue to blight schools. This is harming the education of children and putting lives at risk.”

Watson continued: “Burned out schools and classrooms cause major disruption to education, with repairs leading to months or even years of upheaval. They also result in the loss of spaces which local communities rely on out of school hours. As well as protecting pupils, sprinklers drastically reduce the extent of damage when there’s a blaze, often confining the fire to a single room. This allows children back into schools and classrooms quicker as well as saving taxpayers’ money.”

Further, Watson said: “Countless young people have already had their schooling upended by the Coronavirus pandemic. We cannot allow school fires to further disrupt young people’s education and jeopardise their futures.”

Case for sprinklers “compelling”

Nick Coombe, protection vice-chair and building safety programme lead for the National Fire Chiefs Council, commented: “The case for sprinklers is compelling. Of almost 1,000 fires over five years in buildings where sprinklers were fitted, our research found they controlled or extinguished blazes in 99% of cases. We want to see a greater inclusion of automatic fire suppression systems, including sprinklers, across the built environment. Sprinklers can dramatically reduce fire damage, making the re-opening of a school much easier. This not only minimises the disruption to education, but also the impact on families, the community and the wider educational establishment.”

According to Zurich’s analysis, seven million (7,036,327) primary and secondary school children are taught in the 58% of buildings that are at a high fire risk. In June, Boris Johnson pledged £1 billion to fund a decade-long school rebuilding and repair programme and a further £560 million in early August. Based on large fires alone, Zurich estimates that the repair for school fires could hit £320 million over ten years – a significant portion of the Government’s slated investment.

Zurich wants the Government to ring-fence some of its promised investment to improve the resilience of schools at high risk of fire. Insurers work closely with schools to help them manage their fire risks, but the installation of sprinklers minimises the dangers from the outset.

Tilden Watson concluded: “It costs far more to repair fire-ravaged schools than it does to install sprinklers. Even so, cash-strapped schools cannot be expected to pick up the bill. The Government’s COVID-19 investment is a critical opportunity to ensure schools are more resilient to fire. Unless Government ministers change the law on sprinklers, much of this funding will be wasted on repairing the fire damage that sprinklers could have easily prevented. The Government should also gather and disclose more data on school fires to help fully understand the risks they pose as well as their wider financial and social impacts.”

Connah’s Quay High School in Flintshire, north Wales, was saved from a potentially disastrous blaze when a laser-cutter caught fire. Around 1,000 pupils had to be evacuated one lunchtime when the fire broke out at the secondary school in June last year. The school’s sprinkler system quickly extinguished the fire and contained the damage to a single room, thereby allowing pupils to return the next day.

Emma Dale, Connah’s Quay High School’s business manager, said: “Without sprinklers, the damage could have been devastating. Sprinklers are a cost-saving measure, not an expense. They save the cost of rebuilding and repairing schools and can pay for themselves in lower insurance premiums.” Speaking at the time of the blaze, a spokesperson for the North Wales Fire and Rescue Service added: “This incident clearly highlights the importance of sprinklers in helping to avoid the spread of fire.”

Detail underpinning the study 

Zurich’s analysis looked first at all non-residential property in England, starting with identifying the 33,000 properties where a fire had occurred in the last six years (sourced via Freedom of Information requests to County Councils). By using a range of available data sources (mostly open data) on those properties, Zurich’s analysts were then able to assign more than 160 attributes to each property (eg listed status, size, shape and indicated cooking equipment present, etc).

Machine learning techniques then identified which factors were most commonly aligned to buildings that suffered a fire and scored all non-residential buildings from 0-1 in terms of risk score, with the Top 20% (ie those scoring 0.556 or more) deemed ‘high’ risk. Then the team analysed the data on 26,866 schools in England (78.2% of all primary and 67.2% of all secondary schools). This showed scores of 0.556 or higher in over 58.6% of schools analysed.

The average fire risk score of all non-residential buildings was 0.33 versus 0.58 for schools (ie nearly twice the risk).

Source: FSM (Fire Safety Matters)

Seismic II has been selected as one of the UK’s key demonstration projects in offsite construction.

#mmc #schoolbuilding #lightsteelframe #emissions

The school campus has a number of facilities that have nothing to do with education

#schoolbuilding #china #debt #luxuryconstruction

China’s top disciplinary authorities are investigating a case in which a county in Northwest China’s Shaanxi Province spent over 700 million yuan ($101 million) to build a luxury middle school shortly after it had been lifted out of poverty, triggering public concerns over formalism in lower-level governance, media reported Tuesday.

According to a report published by the Xinhua News Agency on August 13, Zhen ‘an county, a deeply impoverished county in Shaanxi, had just been lifted out of poverty in 2019. Although the county has annual fiscal revenues of less than 200 million yuan, it spent 710 million yuan on a “luxury middle school,” leaving the county deep in debt.

According to the report, the county government now has to repay at least 50 million yuan in loans every year for the next 12 years.

The school campus has a number of facilities that have nothing to do with education, including a traditional style gate, a four-layer fountain, 16 stone carps, a 50-meter-long, 15-meter-drop waterfall cluster, pavilions, rockery, trestle road and stone arch bridge.

The report drew wide controversy online, with many netizens questioning whether the campus is a school or a holiday villa.

Design on the campus began in 2015 and construction started in 2017. On July 31, the campus was officially put into use, with senior students moving in to the campus and beginning their summer classes.

Following the public controversy, the school has suspended the classes and all students have left the school. Outsiders are not allowed to enter it.According to media reports, the four-layer water fountain is being dismantled, and several large excavators were seen operating on the campus and a number of muck trucks entered and left the campus gates. Police were on duty around the campus and passers-by were not allowed to stop and take photos, China News Week magazine reported on Monday.

In addition to the fountain, the gazebos near the falls are also being removed, the magazine reported.

The Xinhua report said the design could be related to the county’s recent development plan, which aims to build Tang Dynasty-style architecture to boost local tourism and cultural exchanges.

In response to the media’s questions, Jia Jiangang, head of Zhen’an county, said that the new campus aimed to solve the problem of large class sizes in urban schools. The project’s approval and financing were in line with policy and regulations, and all procedures had been completed, he said.

Source: Global Times

This report from the US points to Ventilation as critical in the fight against Covid-19

#ventilation #construction #schoolbuildings #covid-19 #Maintenacemanagers #localauthorities

Every Thursday at 11 a.m., Tulsa’s school facilities director, Sue Ann Bell, appears live on the district’s Facebook page to show parents the extraordinary and very expensive efforts her staff is making to fight off the coronavirus when students return.

In one episode that’s garnered more than 2,000 views, Bell, along with a Spanish-language translator, walks the glistening hallways of Anderson Elementary School, detailing how her staff has repeatedly scrubbed the walls, floors, lockers, and door handles, installed Plexiglas around the front office secretaries’ desks, and placed signage in the hallways urging students to stand six feet apart, wear a mask, and wash their hands.

She then enters the school’s now spaced-out library where a janitor hoses down chairs with BioSpray, a hospital-grade disinfectant known to kill 99.9 percent of bacteria.

“We want to be ready,” Bell says, staring into the camera.

America’s schools are on average more than 44 years old, aging buildings that can host thriving colonies of bacteria, lead, and mold. Kids are often taught in classrooms that are either freezing cold or burning hot. Flu outbreaks are frequent.

Now, administrators are being asked to fight off the coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, a much more contagious and lethal airborne disease than the flu.

Over the last couple of months, directors of school facilities have gotten a crash course on the dynamics of building-air ventilation, personal protective equipment, and effective cleaning chemicals. They’re also wading into public relations work, deployed by their bosses to be the messengers-in-chief on health and safety protocols.

Bell, who manages a sprawling portfolio of real estate, has seen all sorts of things during her 25 years tending to Tulsa’s 82 schools, including tornados, floods, and dust storms. (“You never know what Mother Nature is going to throw at you,” she said.)

See Also: What Needs to Change Inside School Buildings Before They Reopen

But nothing, she said, comes close to the coronavirus. The research keeps evolving, the guidance keeps changing, and parents’ fears keep ramping up.

“I’m working seven days a week trying to prepare for this,” Bell said.  “My mind is constantly asking, ‘What are the areas that we’re not thinking about?’ and that’s what keeps me up at night.”

Days before schools were set to open for hybrid learning, Tulsa’s school board voted to keep buildings closed until the local infection rate declines.

Air Ventilation Needs Are ‘Urgent’

The coronavirus, several researchers have concluded, spreads more rapidly in crowded, poorly ventilated areas where there’s heavy breathing or shouting and can stay in the air and on surfaces for several hours.

With students returning to school, even in smaller groups on a part-time basis, experts have raised concerns that school buildings will only exacerbate infection rates.

The hallways are narrow, classroom space is limited, and students, loud and rambunctious, touch everything, including each other. Not all schools are, or will, require students to wear masks, despite compelling evidence that face coverings are one of the best preventions against spread of the virus.

Districts have been required by states to overhaul their cleaning strategies and they’ve pledged to more frequently deep-clean buildings.

Their primary concern, though, is air ventilation.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office said in a report in June that, in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, more than 41 percent of school districts need to update or replace their heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems in at least half their schools.

“The need is urgent,” said Corey Metzger, the chair of the schools team for ASHRAE’s epidemic task force. ASHRAE, a professional group for heating, refrigerating, and air-conditioning engineers, has put out guidance for schools to prepare for the coronavirus.

Metzger runs an engineering consulting firm in Ames, Iowa, that designs schools and helps school administrators keep their buildings up to code. This summer, he said, several districts have asked his team to help upgrade ventilation systems, a process that can run anywhere between 50 cents to $50 a square foot. Others see the price tag, gawk, and decide to open up their poorly ventilated schools anyway.

Cash for Facilities Is Scarce

All the readying it takes to reopen school buildings comes at a steep price many districts can ill afford.

Spending on facilities is one of the most inequitable and insufficiently funded corners of school finance.

A study in 2016 showed that the average school needs more than $4.5 million worth of repairs. Because more than 80 percent of capital costs are funded locally, whether a district has money to upgrade a building depends mostly on whether the surrounding taxpayers think it’s a good idea.

With districts facing sizeable budget cuts in the coming months, many administrators have either frozen or cut their school building maintenance costs, a less noticeable measure than teacher layoffs.

In 2015, voters in Tulsa passed a $415 million bond for the district, which serves a student population that is more than 80 percent low-income and 59 percent Black and Latino. A panel that monitors the spending of that bond this summer expanded its rules to allow for administrators to upgrade several of their schools’ ventilation systems, which cost the district around $2.7 million.

The district this summer also purchased 148 static sprayers, each costing $1,500 each, and $650,000 worth of new cleaning supplies, chemicals, and hand sanitizer, said Nolberto Delgadillo, the district’s chief financial officer. He said he also anticipates having to pay for staff training and possibly overtime hours for maintenance workers.

The district this year has already cut $20 million from its budget and, without an infusion of federal emergency aid from Congress, anticipates more cutting soon.

Communications Is a Big Part of the Job

Bell and the district’s communications department decided to start the Facebook live sessions after hearing concerns among parents that school buildings won’t be safe.

During the sessions, which last around 20 minutes and take place throughout the city, Bell talks to bus drivers, maintenance workers, and HVAC contractors about ways they plan to prevent the spread of the virus.

She opens doors to show cabinets stocked with containers of disinfectant wipes now accessible to teachers, walks through classrooms to show spaced-out desks, and describes all the new chemicals they use to keep buildings germ-free. Throughout the sessions, which have garnered thousands of views, parents pepper her with questions about reopening plans.

“We want families to know that we’re doing things differently this year,” she said.

Source: Education Week