Burlingame Schools Identified For Potential Seismic Safety Risks

Three Burlingame schools have been flagged for potential seismic safety risks by the California Division of the State Architect.

, and failed to meet state seismic safety standards for projects completed at the schools per the requirements of AB 300, according to a 19-month investigation released Thursday by California Watch, which uncovered holes in the state's enforcement of seismic safety regulations for public schools.

The schools received letters alerting them of this safety breach beginning in 2008.

While ending up on the AB 300 list of potentially seismically risky schools can indicate dangerous safety issues, it can also signify a simple lapse in certification paperwork, even if safety upgrades have already been made.

Additionally, the designation could mean schools failed to receive certification in the first place, regardless of the safety of their structures, which is what Assistant Superintendent and Chief Business Official Robert Clark said is the case for the Burlingame School District.

"It's my understanding [that] paperwork was not completed on those projects," Clark said. "It's not about the work, it's not that the buildings are unsafe, it's just that the paperwork was not completed."

He said the issue with the projects in question is that the architects and supervisors overseeing them failed to sign off on the final paperwork and now must be tracked down.

"The state is very picky about having the people who supervise the work sign off," Clark said. "Our architecture firm has been working...for months trying to get the architects at that time to sign off on some final paperwork."

Clark said finding these original architects and supervisors has proved difficult, as some have moved away or even passed away. District officials are working to get a current inspector to review the projects.

Clark's statements coincide with the projects' Letter 3 designation. This means the district failed to submit one or more final documents to the DSA at the project's completion.

According to the California Watch report, projects found under AB 300 that are potentially at risk in Burlingame include work involving the kindergarten area, administrative offices, wing one classrooms, wing three classrooms and the multi-purpose room at Franklin Elementary School and the media center at Burlingame Intermediate School.

 Both of these schools additionally sit close to fault lines, increasing their need for seismic safety and escalating their risk of failure in the event of an earthquake.

Seismic safety legislation picked up steam following the 1933 Long Beach earthquake, after which the state legislature passed the Field Act. The act set minimum structural standards for K-12 facilities, as well as requirements for extensive paperwork filing certifying the seismic integrity of school buildings.

However, data taken from the DSA's office shows 20,000 school projects statewide never got final safety certifications. In the crunch to get schools built within the last few decades, state architects have been lax on enforcement, California Watch reported.

In 1999, the state Legislature passed AB 300, demanding a seismic safety inventory of California’s public schools conducted by the Department of General Services (DGS).

 In 2002, the DGS, in conjunction with the DSA, released its findings of 9,959 California schools. The resulting report, “Seismic Safety Inventory of California Schools,” discovered more than 7,500 schools needed further seismic evaluation. California Watch reports that only two schools have been able to access a $200 million fund for upgrades. 

Using these findings, the state notified schools breaching seismic safety standards. However, some schools may not have realized they needed state certification in the first place.

 If a school project in California costs more than about $33,000 to build, or if it has “structural issues” such as wall, beam or other load-bearing architecture of any kind, then approval from the DSA is required, explained a local schools inspector with more than 15 years of experience working with Peninsula schools. He asked that his name not be used because he still works regularly with the districts.

 Often, he said, the problem is that districts “just don’t know” this is the case.

For example, a school district’s maintenance department might build a baseball dugout or retaining wall, or even just repave a parking lot. Generally, the inspector said, districts assume such small-scale projects are OK to build with state approval, which is not the case.

 However, San Mateo Union High School District (SMUHSD) architect Todd Lee of Greystone West argued that rather than the schools failing to produce proper paperwork,  it is the DSA’s records that are incorrect and outdated.

 “Their inventory list is not up to date,” he said. Burlingame High School is a part of SMUHSD. Lee said the district's schools uphold state seismic safety standards. 

This story was produced using data provided to Patch by California Watch, the state's largest investigative reporting team and part of the Center for Investigative Reporting. 

To view the interactive map, click here http://projects.californiawatch.org/earthquakes/school-safety/