"In communities across the country, overcrowding, or outdated school facilities affect the quality of education available to all student. Many schools need major repairs due to significant plumbing, heating, or lighting problems. Inadequate electrical wiring and telephone lines prevent school districts from using state-of-the-art educational technology."

• According to a 1995 U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) study, 60 percent of schools have at least one building feature that needs major repairs.
• The same GAO study found that 46 percent of schools have inadequate electrical wiring for computers and communications technology.

(Excerpted from December 1996 NSBA Issue Brief)

"Sometimes school buildings themselves can be a major obstacle to technology acquisition. With about a third of all U.S. public schools constructed before World War II and another 40 percent built in the 1950s and 1960s, the majority of American schools simply are not wired for the electronic connections technology requires.

"For that reason, your district’s technology plan should include plans for retrofitting current schools and designing and building new ones. You may want to consider incorporating your district’s master facilities plan and your technology plan into one overall strategic plan. In other words, don’t let you facilities plan focus only on new roofs, new carpeting, or new classrooms without being certain that technology needs are met as well."

"If your plans are well thought out, your district can accomplish technology retrofits while doing routine maintenance and repair work. If, for example, your plan call for replacing the heating or air-conditioning in an older school, you can, at the same time, provide for the greater ventilation and cooling requirements most high tech equipment requires."

(From NSBA's Becoming a Better Board Member)

In this Module:

In the Toolkit: