School District to Evaluate Seismic Safety of Buildings

In light of a recent for public schools, the San Bruno Park School District is embarking on an effort to evaluate whether all of its school buildings are indeed safe enough to withstand an earthquake. 

The school district has already been promised that its schools are safe. However, the buildings showed up on a statewide list of buildings that revealed they might possibly be unsafe in the event of an earthquake. The list was a result of Assembly Bill 300, which was passed in 1999 requiring the state to compile a seismic safety inventory of California’s K-12 school buildings. If the state deemed schools might possibly be unsafe in the event of an earthquake, it would send an AB 300 letter to the school district. 

California Watch reported that thousands of schools showed up on the list and many have remained on the list for years because, in a rush to get schools built within the last few decades, state architects have been lax on enforcement and have failed to make sure buildings received proper certification. 

San Bruno school officials believe that was the case here. 

“We feel very confident that the safety of our buildings is in good shape,” Superintendent Dr. David Hutt said in a recent interview. 

To be sure, Hutt said, the school district has enlisted the help of ZFA Structural Engineers to re-evaluate the buildings. 

In a letter sent to the school district, the structural engineering firm told the district that nine San Bruno buildings were on the AB 300 list. San Bruno Patch previously reported that buildings at and elementary schools were on the list, as well as several projects at other sites. But it wasn’t clear how many projects had been identified. 

ZFA confirmed with the district that eight of the nine projects appear to be seismically safe. The firm is still in the process of reviewing the projects at John Muir and will report back the results to the district. 

Hutt said the goal is to complete the seismic evaluation of the buildings soon so that the district can make a request to the state to get the projects removed from the AB 300 list.