At Baker Heights Elementary, everything seems to be falling apart, and it’s Timothy Scott’s job to try to fix what’s broken, whether it’s falling ceiling tiles or a water fountain falling off the wall.
“It could be fixed, it could be fixed, but we’re taking money out of the classroom,” Scott said.
About 12,000 people live in Baker, Louisiana, just outside Baton Rouge. Money is tight, and the population and tax base are shrinking. The infrastructureincluding five school buildings, all built in the 1950s, are crumbling.
In the U.S., the average public school building is now nearly half a century old, and communities like Baker are facing many repairs. Although Congress has allocated more than $1 trillion to rebuild America’s infrastructure in 2021, many schools across the country are becoming increasingly desperate to fund much-needed repairs.
To date, the infrastructure bill has funded more than 40,000 projects across the country. But in many cases, the money is reaching communities like Baker too slowly.
Baker Superintendent JT Stroder says declining enrollment means “it’s hard to do anything.” The infrastructure problems are not limited to the city’s schools, he says.
“You can drive around the community and you’ll see how that kind of matches up,” Stroder said.
“The way a student thinks about his environment and atmosphere influences how he performs academically,” he added.
Overall, America’s infrastructure — from roads to bridges to drinking water — has a grade of C-minus, according to the latest “report card” from the American Society of Civil Engineers. The investment needed to bring America’s schools up to standard is $870 billion, according to the 21st Century School Fund.
Baker Mayor Darnell Waites knows Baker’s challenges firsthand.
“Everything I do is infrastructure,” Waites said. But even though we know what the problems are, ‘it takes money’ to solve them.
“There are a lot of other things going on at the same time,” Waites said. “You want infrastructure, but you want to be safe… so 50% of my budget goes to public safety and everything else goes to infrastructure.”
Much of that funding comes from state and federal funding, Waites said.
Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana played a key role in negotiating the 2021 infrastructure bill.
“During the COVID epidemic, billions were sent to state and local education authorities,” Cassidy said. “But often when the federal government puts in dollars, state and local government pull back and the net amount remains constant.”
Many of these infrastructure problems existed long before the pandemic hit.
In 2016, a flood closed the local high school. Since then, the students have been taught in the secondary school building.
“I would say, I feel forgotten,” said one student. “I’m a little embarrassed to say which school you go to.”
The water-damaged high school will reopen this fall – eight years after the flood.
“We don’t have that experience, like a bigger environment where we can grow and prosper, but I have hope for the future,” said another student.
In many American communities, that’s something else that’s slowly being rebuilt: hope.
Mark Strassmann
