The status of our School Buildings
The start of a new school year means confronting another daunting reality of public education in America, outdated facilities. You’ve probably seen the news coverage about Richmond VA school buildings with HVAC problems or leaky roofs. Our Richmond Public School (RPS) family knows the status of our school buildings. I often get texts or emails from staff and parents complaining about roof problems, buildings that are too warm or too cold, and bathrooms/water fountains not working. These have also been covered by our local media many times. The vast majority of our buildings are very old and need significant overhaul. Common problems include HVAC problems, leaking roofs, and door/window repairs.
In 2024, RPS conducted its first facility condition assessments for all properties in our portfolio. This assessment included an audit of every single building and was a vital first step before repairing or rebuilding our physical infrastructure. This assessment shows that the maintenance costs for 2025 alone is $36.6 million. When you scroll further down the page you’ll find linked individual audits for specific schools.
Below is a chart showing how much RPS has gotten for school improvements over the last several years. These numbers are from the official Richmond Public School budget documents. Search for “capital improvement” to find the section of the budget that covers school maintenance.
School Maintenance Funding
You can see that RPS maintenance has been funded well below what’s needed for upkeep. There is a significant, systemic, and chronic financial gap between what we need to maintain our facilities and what we are appropriated. The result of this is that our facilities keep degrading as needed repairs have to be ignored and triangulated due to limited dollars.
Our partners in City Hall and City Council have worked hard over the last several years to boost Richmond Public School funding. However, there’s a structural funding problem that has to be solved. Doing more with less should be a temporary tactic not a permanent strategy! The Richmond region has seen significant economic growth over the last 10 years. Lots of wealth has been created and we have to make sure that this wealth is invested in improving our schools.
We know that the Commonwealth of Virginia has been UNDERFUNDING public k-12 education for many years. According to JLARC:
“Virginia school divisions receive less K–12 funding per student than the 50-state average, the regional average, and three of Virginia’s five bordering states (figure). School divisions in other states receive 14 percent more per student than school divisions in Virginia, on average, after normalizing for differences in cost of labor among states. This equates to about $1,900 more per student than Virginia.
Virginia divisions receive less funding than what three Virginia-specific funding benchmark models suggest is needed to provide students a quality education (figure). Depending on the benchmark, Virginia school divisions were estimated to need 6 percent to over 30 percent more funding. Between 73 percent and 89 percent of the state’s school divisions receive funding that is below benchmarks, depending on the model and assumptions used.”
In the coming days I will post more about how we can make sure the wealth created in Richmond and Virginia can be equitably invested in our schools and kids.