At San Juan Unified’s El Camino Fundamental High School in Sacramento, 36 students sit elbow to elbow with little space or updated equipment for lab work.
Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource
Renovating a high school that swelters in summer and gushes leaks in winter is a priority of a large Sacramento-area district. Replacing an undersized gym with no air conditioning is a priority of a small high school district in Kern County.
The to-do list varies among the hundreds of school districts that have placed construction bonds before voters on Nov. 5, but urgency is what they share in common. In California, the list of school buildings needing attention is long and growing, compounded by climate change that is exposing more of the state to unprecedented levels of heat and unhealthy air.
In 2020, anxiety about an unknown virus, Covid-19, led voters to defeat half of the local bonds on the ballot that year and discouraged…
