Investigation Finds Glendora School Buildings May Pose Seismic Safety Risks

Every school day, about 500 Kindergarten to fifth grade students are dropped off to attend school at .

But according to a 19-month investigation by California Watch, which was released Thursday, the school is one of nine campuses in Glendora red-flagged with buildings lacking required seismic safety certification under the Field Act.

California began regulating school architecture for seismic safety in 1933 with the Field Act, but data taken from the Division of the State Architect’s Office shows 20,000 school projects statewide never got final safety certifications. In the crunch to get schools built within the last few decades, state architects have been lax on enforcement, California Watch reported.

Without these mandated certifications, children, teachers and staff have been allowed to occupy buildings that may include serious safety hazards and may not withstand a major earthquake.

California Watch’s investigation yielded thousands of uncertified projects across the state, including dangerous lights, windows and fixtures hovering above children in classrooms, missing wall anchors, malfunctioning fire alarms and poor welding.

A separate inventory completed nine years ago found 7,500 seismically risky school buildings in the state. Yet, California Watch reports that only two schools have been able to access a $200 million fund for upgrades.

And instead of resolving the problems, state regulators issued warning letters and failed to follow up with the schools.

“This is a crisis,” Steve Castellanos, the California state architect from 2000 to 2005, told California Watch. “I think there has been a failure in the system.”

The lack of building oversight and inspections in California schools began as former Gov. Pete Wilson (1991 to 1999) farmed out critical inspections to private contractors instead of state employees. To deal with budget cuts, the state architect’s office was reduced from 400 hundred employees to 189 during Wilson’s term.

Since then, the office has struggled to keep up with the massive school building boom encouraged by a $6.7 billion bond measure for K-12 schools in 1998. Stringent construction reviews for thousands of school building projects fell by the wayside.

School building projects listed with these deficiencies were categorized as either AB300 or Letter 3 or 4 schools. The Department of General Services deemed AB300 projects unable to withstand future major earthquakes and are in immediate need of further structural evaluation. Letter 4 projects were identified by the state architect as the most potentially dangerous of the uncertified projects, while Letter 3 projects are missing required documentation.

The state architect’s office lists nine schools within Glendora categorized as either Letter 3 or 4 projects, or on the AB300 list.

An interactive map developed by California Watch details the schools' deficiency and their proximity to fault lines and potential seismic hazards.

Six schools – , , , , h and – had projects on the AB300 list. , , , Sellers Elementary and Whitcomb High School all had projects categorized as Letter 3.

According to Eric Lamoureux, spokesperson for the Department of General Services, Letter 3 projects do not necessarily mean there is a safety hazard involved, and that the project may be missing paperwork or paid fees for certification.

Stanton Elementary was the only Glendora school among about 200 other state schools identified by the Department of General Services with a project still on the Letter 4 list, the most serious of the uncertified classification.

Lamoureux said that the concerns involved in some Letter 4 projects may be "health and safety" issues. He added that some of these projects may have already been resolved, but the department does not have any documentation on record to reflect the change.

Lamoureux said the department will send letters to each district’s superintendent to notify them of their Letter 4 projects, including Glendora Unified. Lamoureux said school districts will have the opportunity to reopen the project for certification.

According to California Watch, when the organization began asking about uncertified schools last spring, then-State Architect David Thorman ordered his staff to examine records of about 1,100 schools listed as Level 4 schools. Soon after, the office began downgrading schools to Letter 3 without visiting the schools to conduct a field investigation, according to interviews and records.

When California Watch conducted their investigation, two other Glendora Unified schools -- La Fetra Elementary and Glendora High School -- had projects categorized as Letter 4. At some point, they were downgraded to Letter 3.

Patch contacted district officials at Glendora Unified and Charter Oak Unified seeking comment. With schools currently on Spring Break, district officials have not been able to provide comment at the time of this publication. School officials are currently analyzing data and information for further comment.

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.