Catherine Rusoff
At Baker Heights Elementary, everything seems to be falling apart, and it’s Timothy Scott’s job to try and fix whatever’s broken – whether it’s a falling ceiling tile or a water fountain falling from the wall.
“It could be fixed, it could be fixed, but we are taking funding away from the classroom,” Scott said.
Baker, Louisiana, just outside Baton Rouge, is home to about 12,000 people. Money is scarce and the population and tax base are shrinking. O the infrastructureincluding five school buildings built in the 1950s, is in ruins.
In the U.S., the average public school building is now nearly half a century old, and communities like Baker face many repairs. Although Congress allocated more than $1 billion to rebuild America’s infrastructure in 2021, many schools across the country are increasingly desperate to fund much-needed repairs.
To date, the infrastructure law has funded more than 40,000 projects across the country. But in many cases, money reaches communities like Baker too slowly.
Baker Superintendent JT Stroder says declining enrollment means “it’s hard to do anything.” Infrastructure problems are not limited to the city’s schools, he says.
“You can drive through the community and see how it fits together,” Stroder said.
“The way a student feels about the environment and atmosphere affects their academic performance,” 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 just to bring American schools up to par 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 despite knowing 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 security… so 50% of my budget is for public safety and everything else goes to infrastructure.”
Much of that funding comes from state and federal funding, Waites said.
Louisiana Republican Senator Bill Cassidy was instrumental 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 invests dollars, the state and local pull back and the net sum remains constant.”
Many of these infrastructure problems existed long before the pandemic began.
In 2016, flooding closed the local high school. Since then, students have been taking classes in the high school building.
“I would say I feel forgotten,” said one student. “You’re embarrassed to say what school you go to.”
Water-damaged high school will reopen this fall – 8 years after the flood.
“We don’t have that experience, like a bigger environment to grow and flourish, but I’m hopeful for the future,” said another student.
In many American communities, this is another thing that has been slow to rebuild: hope.
Mark Strassmann
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