New Schools Already Have Repair Backlog

The air conditioning fried, the soap dispensers broke, and an entrance is boarded up — in a brand-new school building that technically isn’t even finished yet.

Teachers from Engineering & Science University Magnet School (ESUMS) reported those maintenance issues at the most recent Board of Education meeting, as they warned that their $86 million school building isn’t being kept up.

Their concerns reflect a shift in the district’s capital spending. When the new Barack H. Obama Magnet University School opens next January, a decades-long, $1.7 billion school construction campaign will draw to a close, and the school system will have to figure out how to make all those new buildings last.

“They’re major investments, and you’re letting your equipment deteriorate,” said Charles Elbert, a substitute teacher who previously managed construction projects at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center and checked out worksites for the city’s Commission on Equal Opportunities.

“You have fuel cells over at Roberto Clemente that are not working because you can’t afford a pump. In the school I’m in now, the [heating] units you have, they don’t even make parts for them anymore, and the room was cold. You don’t even change the fans or air filters,” Elbert added. ​“You have brand-new buildings that are not being maintained.”

The district’s operations heads say they know they need to replace some boilers. They know they need to plan for updates to buildings’ fire-suppression sprinklers, swimming pools, and air-conditioning units. They’re thinking of hiring a consultant to update its master plan, last completed in 2003, to help identify priorities and costs for ongoing maintenance.

At ESUMS, an inter-district magnet school for Grades 6 – 12 on the University of New Haven campus, there have already been signs of wear since the school opened in September 2016, teachers added. The school still isn’t finished, because the commissioning agent, BVH Integrated Services, is still checking to make sure everything was built right before turning it over to the district.

The temperature controls aren’t working, sometimes heating some classrooms up past 80 degrees while others are so cold students keep their jackets on. Two of the boys’ bathrooms have been closed down. Plywood is still boarding up a wall facing Boston Post Road, where a drunk driver careened through a fence and into the building early this spring.

Toni Criscuolo, a high-school history teacher — speaking ​“as a taxpayer, as someone who’s concerned with the conditions that our students learn in and our staff teach in” — said at the meeting last week that those repairs should have been done already, especially the hole in the wall that leads to the school’s wood shop.

“That door [to the shop class] is still covered with plywood,” she said. ​“Last Monday, the temperature in there was 59 degrees. The students can’t wear sweaters because of the machinery.”

“Every time we have asked — whether it’s the principal, the teachers or the staff — we’re told the door is on order,” she added. ​“I understand that there are insurance problems, but the health and safety, not to mention the expensive shop equipment in there, is being protected by two plywood doors with some insulation in between them.”

Michael Pinto, the district’s chief operating officer, said that the district had already repaired the fence and landscaping that the driver ran over, but is still waiting for the door’s custom glass-and-steel framing to arrive. He said there was a long delay at first while the insurance claims were processed. He promised the replacement door will be installed over winter break.

Criscuolo said that teachers had noticed problems with the building since the day it opened.

She said the construction manager, Fusco Corporation, didn’t put speakers in the fifth-floor teachers’ lounge. As a result, during an emergency, the teachers walked out to encounter first responders yelling at them, ​“What are you doing? It’s a Code Red!” She said soap dispensers in bathrooms fell off. An elevator malfunctioned, its doors perpetually opening and closing. And pneumatic arms above doors broke, causing one to slam so hard that the door’s metal frame fell off, hitting a security guard in the back — a claim district officials said they’re looking into.

“These are new buildings,” Criscuolo said. ​“As a taxpayer, I am appalled at what could only be seen as the cheap material that has been used, and I beg you to see that those repairs have been done.”

Kirsten Hopes-McFadden, a middle-school history teacher, added that vandalism has closed down two of the boys’ bathrooms, where there are holes in the walls and a ​“destroyed” urinal.

High school boys said that the second-floor bathroom — the only one left for them to use — had gotten so bad that it was becoming a ​“health hazard,” according to John Tauricini. The floor is sticky, and it reeks of urine, they said.

They speculated that’s because of overuse, as that one bathroom has become ​“packed” with students. The walk down three floors also means that students are missing ​“a good chunk of class,” added Thomas Nardini, a senior. ​“It’s frustrating for us.”

Pinto said that tradesmen will be repairing holes and replacing dispensers in the bathrooms by the end of this week.

Pinto added that another company is still checking to make sure the air-conditioning is ​“balanced,” after two sub-contractors that initially put in the school’s controls, Superior Mechanical and Johnson Goodyear, both went bankrupt. Those bills will be paid with a bond that the sub-contractors had to put down before work began, but ​“it’s really messy,” Pinto said.

After the meeting, Superintendent Iline Tracey said that there’s not enough money in the district’s capital budget to keep up with all the expenses.

“The new schools were built without a maintenance aspect worked in,” she said. She added that she’d have staff review all of the district’s warranties to see what repairs might be covered.