Thomas Breen file photo
Outside of Fair Haven School in September, amid school-closing heat.
The school district currently has 12 repair workers to cover 56 buildings — posing perhaps the largest roadblock to keeping schools open amid heat waves.
The Board of Alders Education Committee discussed the dearth of maintenance workers in New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) at the committee’s Sept. 27 meeting.
The meeting occurred a few weeks after numerous school air conditioning systems failed to function during record-hot temperatures, leading the school district to send all kids home for the day.
According to NHPS spokesperson Justin Harmon, the district employs three electricians, three carpenters, two plumbers, two steam fitters, and one painter, with two unfunded and vacant positions among the district’s planned maintenance and repair staff.
In addition to employees specifically trained to make repairs, each school building has a building manager and an assistant building manager in charge of generally supporting school facilities, and the district also employs 186 contracted part-time custodial cleaners along with more than a dozen other custodial staff members.
Those employees cover 41 school buildings as well as other properties owned by the district — amounting to a total of 4,390,940 square feet, Harmon wrote in an email after the meeting.
At the September alder committee meeting, Supt. Madeline Negrón said that when she first started her position at the helm of NHPS this summer, she was shocked that the district did not have more staff to make building repairs
“I almost died when [NHPS Chief Operating Officer Thomas Lamb said] you only had one painter and one plumber. I said, ‘What? For 41 schools?’” she recalled.
“We need more staff,” echoed teacher’s union president Leslie Blatteau later in the meeting — not just teachers, but tech support and maintenance workers too.
NHPS Chief Operating Officer Lamb presented a breakdown of how the district has budgeted the latest round of federal pandemic-relief ESSER funds to improve school building conditions.
In total, the district has allocated almost $13 million of the $80 million it received in a third round of ESSER funding. While some of that money has been spent, $8.8 million of the ESSER funding remains available to spend on facilities.
The bulk of that money — over $6.7 million — has covered, or will cover, improvements to HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) systems.
Laura Glesby Photo
When Madeline Negrón (second from right) learned from COO Thomas Lamb (far right) that schools had 1 painter and 1 plumber, she exclaimed, "What? For 41 schools?"
NHPS
Lamb told alders that the district is catching up on years of disinvestment in school buildings. Maintenance at NHPS has often operated according to a “run-to-failure” strategy, he said — meaning that maintenance is performed only when equipment fails.
His goal, he said, is to move the district to a “condition-based” approach, which uses real-time data to assess how various pieces of equipment are functioning and prioritizes fixes accordingly.
Negrón told alders that she plans to conduct an assessment of all the school’s buildings, examining where resources need to be allocated and probing big-picture questions like “how many facilities are we gonna be able to maintain?”
Downtown/East Rock Alder and Education Committee Chair Eli Sabin brought up the heat wave closures earlier in the school year. What changes need to be made so that “when we say schools are going to be open, schools are gonna be open?” he asked.
Negrón said that closing schools was a hard decision, but that “The safety of our kids and our staff has to come first.”
“People are in suffocating buildings. We can’t have that,” she added.
Dangling Sound Panels Still Unaddressed
Education Committee alders in September.
Alder Sarah Miller brought up safety concerns she had raised to the district about the conditions at Fair Haven School, an elementary school in her ward.
She had reached out that week to school administrators, including leaks, mold, and broken playground equipment. The school auditorium was in particularly poor condition, she said, with “large pieces of sound panels dangling above the seats,” broken chairs, ceiling damage, and non-working lights.
Sarah Miller Photo
Hanging sound panels, broken lights, and ceiling damage in Fair Haven School's auditorium on Friday morning.
Shortly before the meeting, Lamb responded with a list of how facilities staff members would address the issues she raised. He noted in the email that some of the problems may stem from “significant roofing design issues with the bell tower,” and said that the school district is working with an architect and engineer to address them.
Regarding the dangling sound panels, he wrote, “The facilities team has reviewed the situation with the hanging panels in the auditorium with a contractor and this is being scheduled as soon
as possible. This too will require scaffolding to reach the areas needed.”
Negrón echoed that when she toured Fair Haven School recently, “I immediately knew what you were talking about” and called her colleagues to emphasize the need to address conditions in that building particularly.
Miller emphasized at the time that the school district has been working to address her concerns. “I think this really illustrates how big the problem is,” she said. She stressed that alders are willing to work with the district to find more resources for facilities.
She later asked, “I don’t see how you could possibly do all that with the staff that you have. Is that correct?”
“That is absolutely correct,” Lamb responded.
On Friday morning, according to Miller, students were filing into the school’s auditorium for picture day, where the sound panels remained unsecured.
Every school should have staff capable of repairing and maintaining the building. Instead of having specialized electricians, HVAC technicians, painters, carpenters, custodians. etc, why not hire Jack/Jill of all trades building superintendents and assistant(s) for each school who can do all of the above for the majority of the basic tasks that need to be done, with the exception of using an experienced contractor for the more complicated and technical tasks that require certification and more specialized licenses and training.