Beyond Air Conditioning: Baltimore Schools Face Nearly $3 Billion Maintenance Backlog

Federal Hill Preparatory Principal Sara Long says she’s grateful that when her school’s 43-year-old roof leaks, the damage is mostly in the stairwells and hallways.

If there’s heavy rain and wind, tiles fall down. Big puddles form. Bits of the auditorium ceiling crumble to the floor. Her concern, she says, is the day when “suddenly it’s happening in a classroom.”

As the lack of air conditioning in many Baltimore public schools garnered recent media attention and finger-pointing from the governor and others, the school system’s other maintenance needs — which affect teachers and students year-round — generate less outrage.

There are aging roofs, rusted pipes, cracking steps and broken elevators — all piling up to a massive maintenance backlog that has swollen to nearly $3 billion. That’s more than double the district’s annual operating budget.

“We do have the oldest school buildings in the state of Maryland. That can’t change from a quip or from a magic wand,” says city schools CEO Sonja Santelises. Addressing the backlog in repairs, she says, is “not going to happen overnight.”

Click here to read the rest of the article written by Talia Richman over at the Baltimore Sun

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