Schools

Four Hollywood Schools on State's Earthquake Hazard Report

Academic Performance Excellence Academy, Helen Bernstein High, Joseph Le Conte Middle School and Magnolia Science Academy 5 made the list, according to an investigative report by California Watch.

Four schools serving Hollywood students might not comply with modern earthquake safety standards, according to data from the Division of the State Architect.

Academic Performance Excellence Academy, Helen Bernstein High, Joseph Le Conte Middle School and Magnolia Science Academy 5 were included in California’s list of public school buildings that may potentially fail to meet sufficient building standards, leaving them vulnerable to earthquakes.

A 19-month California Watch investigation released Thursday uncovered holes in the state's enforcement of seismic safety regulations for public schools. Some schools may have been inadequately retrofitted, while more recent construction projects may not have received final state certification.

In a 2002 seismic safety survey done by the DSA, a regulatory body that oversees the construction of public schools, more than 650 schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District were designated as Category 2. These projects “require detailed seismic evaluation to determine if they can achieve life-safety performance," according to the website of the DSA.

The 2002 survey, ordered by Assembly Bill 300, looked at schools constructed prior to 1976, when the California Building Code went into effect. Those schools may not have been constructed with modern safety standards. A specific list of Category 2 schools was sent to each district in 2008, with a request to inspect the schools, update the paperwork, or retrofit as necessary.

“After the list was released, we looked at all the buildings we had, and there were several things to do," said Neil Gamble, director of maintenance and operations for LAUSD. "First was an evaluation of the building structure and the building construction and determination of how close it is to a fault, and then prioritization—as far as those buildings are concerned, taking into consideration age, occupancy and everything else.”

According Gamble, three schools in the district were located within 50 feet of fault lines. Two schools, Burbank Middle School and Osceola Elementary, have been retrofitted. The third, University High, is in construction now.

California Watch is reporting four outstanding projects at Joseph Le Conte Middle School involving repairs to the shop building, administrative and auditorium building, physical training building and classroom building.

Details on repairs needed in the Helen Bernstein Complex at Academic Performance Excellence Academy and Helen Bernstein High as well as Magnolia Science Academy 5 were unspecified in the California Watch report. Hollywood Patch will continue to report on these as information becomes available.

District officials assured Patch that there are no significant safety issues, although the district still has not provided adequate documentation to the state that the rest of its schools are safe.

"We absolutely consider safety to be one of our highest priorities, the safety of staff and students,” Gamble said. “We don't open schools unless we are convinced that they are safe."

Eric Lamoureux, the acting deputy director for the Department of General Services, which oversees the DSA, agreed. “The districts have made the choice that they believe it is safe to occupy, and they haven't done that in a vacuum,” he told Patch.

As mandated by the Field Act, school officials must meet with architects and inspectors before and during construction of any school. Architectural plans must be inspected and approved, and the state requires on-site inspectors during the construction process.

The Field Act was ground-breaking legislation that regulated school structural standards for seismic safety. It was created a month after a 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck Long Beach on March 10, 1933, killing 120 people. The earthquake, which hit at 5:55 p.m., damaged or destroyed dozens of schools. The death toll would likely have been much higher had the quake occurred during the school day.

California Watch’s review of data from the DSA’s office shows 20,000 school projects statewide have never received final safety certifications required under the Field Act. In the crunch to get schools built within the past few decades, state architects have been lax on enforcement, California Watch reports.

A separate inventory completed nine years ago found 7,500 seismically risky school buildings in the state. California Watch reports that only two schools have been able to access a $200 million fund for upgrades. The funds were provided under Proposition 1D, a 2006 ballot measure that set aside money for schools from the kindergarten to university level for the repair and construction of facilities.

“We have one building that fits the criteria for that, and we are pursuing Prop 1D funds for that school,” Gamble said.

The AB 300 Category 2 designation is not the only way schools are running afoul of state regulation. The LAUSD also has a number of school building projects listed as Letter 3 or Letter 4, state designations that indicate buildings have not received final certification by the DSA, according to the California Watch report.

No Hollywood schools  are currently on this list.

Both the district and the DSA’s office told Patch that there were a number of reasons a project would fail to meet the documentation criteria, while maintaining structural integrity.

Find out what's happening in Hollywoodwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In some cases, changes to the original plans were made during construction, which requires another layer of documentation, although on-site inspectors would have signed off at the time. In other cases, districts may have outstanding bills with the contractor or inspector and are unable to get the necessary documentation. There is also an added fee involved with reopening a project that has been given a Letter 4, with no benefit to the school.  

According to California Watch, one Northern California school in Letter 4 went without fire alarms for more than a decade. Other Letter 3 and Letter 4 schools are simply missing the necessary paperwork for architectural sign-off.

“We don't believe there are any significant safety issues with any of the Letter 3 projects,” Lamoureux said. “Letter 4 projects, by definition, had a safety or structural deficiency issue noted during construction. On those projects, we don’t have any information that the issue was resolved, so we have no way of knowing right now whether the issue is still present or not."

“We've looked preliminarily at the files. We don’t believe, at least with the information we have, that they present an egregious situation,” he said. "If it was an egregious situation, we would consider taking that project forward to the Attorney General or local District Attorney.” The DSA  has no authority to take any action once construction has stopped.

Projects that closed with a Letter 4 designation cannot undergo further construction until documentation is provided that the required improvements have been made. Without expansion plans or state funds to support such work, schools have little incentive to change their Letter 4 status.

Check back with Patch as we continue to investigate the compliance of Hollywood schools with California's earthquake 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. Read more about Patch's collaboration with California Watch.

Find out what's happening in Hollywoodwith free, real-time updates from Patch.


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