Portland Public Schools is widely known for dangers such as lead-tainted water and old, risky buildings that are unlikely to withstand an earthquake.
But its schools – and the children in them – also face pervasive fire hazards, an analysis of district records shows.
Up-to-date alarm systems, complete fire sensor coverage or other life-saving equipment required by Portland Fire & Rescue standards are missing at 60 of the district's 89 schools.
At dozens of schools, large spaces that pack in crowds of children, such as auditoriums and cafeterias, don't have heat or smoke detectors. If a fire started in one of those massive rooms, no one would know until the smoke eventually reached the nearest detector or someone spotted the fire. District leaders say they can't readily identify which schools lack that basic fire detection equipment.
Portland Public Schools knows the risks. In 2009, a fire engulfed Marysville Elementary. All 500 students, faculty and staff made it out unharmed, but the fire left the community traumatized.
School fires are "an immediate disaster that can happen really fast, and then everything changes," said Lana Penley, Marysville's principal. "Having experienced it, absolutely, it is a very big issue and one that should be at the forefront of everything that is getting addressed."
For more detailed information, see our project page.
District leaders acknowledge they need to do better and say they are making strides.
Interim Chief Operating Officer Courtney Wilton and Deputy Chief Executive Officer Yousef Awwad, who stepped into their roles within the last year, say they inherited a district awash in deferred maintenance. Former Superintendent Carole Smith and school board members repeatedly prioritized keeping teacher jobs over fixing buildings.
"There is a very high likelihood that kids would get out of the school if there is a fire," Wilton said. "But I'm not going to say it's adequate because there are a number of buildings where we need to do a better job."
Now the district is asking the public to pay for what it has put off. It's seeking the largest school construction bond in state history -- $790 million.
Even if voters green light the bond, however, most Portland schools still won't be fully outfitted with automatic sprinklers or the very latest alarms. Perfect fire systems in every school, including full sprinkler deployment and all brand-new equipment, would cost $131 million, district officials estimate.
The district's plan is to devote one-fifth that amount, $26 million, of bond proceeds to improving fire safety systems in nearly all schools -- more than enough to do what the fire marshal says is needed in the 60 substandard schools.
The Oregonian/OregonLive obtained and analyzed the fire safety records for every school in the district.
How broad and how deep do the fire safety risks to Portland students run?
In 2014, Portland’s fire marshal mandated that Portland schools add three categories of safeguards: sophisticated modern fire alarm control systems; horns and flashing lights sufficient to alert everyone in the building; and heat and smoke detectors in common areas such as auditoriums and cafeterias.
>> Twenty-five schools still lack all three kinds of safety equipment, putting those schools at greatest risk. Schools in this group include West Sylvan and Ockley Green middle schools and Sunnyside, Sabin, Lent, Rigler and Vernon K-8 schools.
>> Twenty-three schools have a modernized fire alarm control panel but lack upgraded sound and strobe alarms and also are missing fire detectors in their auditorium, cafeteria or other common spaces.
>> Sixteen schools are close to having full fire safety upgrades required under the 2014 deal. They still lack some heat and smoke detectors in common areas, however.
>> Twenty-five schools have all mandatory fire safety equipment and some have more. Faubion K-8 and Franklin High will bring that total to 27 when they open in August with state-of-the-art fire detection and fire suppression systems.
They show that sprinklers are sparse in Portland schools -- even though nearly any school erected in the metro area today would be required to have them in all parts of the building. Portland's typical school was built 70 years ago, long before code required sprinklers. Thirty-three schools lack sprinklers altogether, and 25 more have from 1 percent to 10 percent of their interior space outfitted with them.
Applegate Head Start Center, where 3- and 4-year-olds attend class, is missing smoke detectors in some gathering places, still has an antiquated fire alarm control system and doesn't have a single automatic sprinkler, records show. Five schools serving students in kindergarten through grade eight -- Lee, Lent, Sunnyside, Vestal and Winterhaven -- are similarly under-prepared. The outdated and missing equipment is particularly worrisome at the last three schools, which have two stories, meaning it would take longer to get all pupils out in case of an emergency.
Fixes deferred
How have Portland schools gotten away with being so underprepared for so long?
With then-Chief Operating Officer Tony Magliano overseeing facilities, the district struck a deal with the city's fire inspectors that allowed it to delay complying with fire safety requirements. It said it needed many more years to come up with money to pay for the needed upgrades.
Magliano has since been ousted over his leadership role in the crisis over lead in drinking water.
Unlike many agreements between the district and other government agencies, the deal never went before the school board for a public vote. That's because the agreement did not call for either party to give the other money, district officials said.
Building codes are always changing and, as a result, property owners are usually on the hook only for whatever was mandatory when the building was constructed. But if a building's owner carries out a significant upgrade, that triggers modern code requirements.
In 2014, fire inspectors detected code violations at eight schools. Portland Public Schools made the badly needed upgrades to fire safety systems in three of those schools. But that in turn triggered city requirements to make other related improvements costing about $700,000 per school.
The district said it could not immediately afford to spend millions more doing the same at five other schools with violations.
So Portland Fire Marshal Nathan Takara and Magliano made a pact. The district pledged to incrementally make the required fire safety fixes at 88 additional schools -- but not for six more years, by the end of 2020.
Wilton, who is now in charge of operations, says the agreement was a good call. It held the district accountable to get a lot of important upgrades made, while allowing costs to be spread out so the district could manage them, he said.
The agreement had teeth: If the district were to miss any of the deadlines, the fire bureau could force Portland school officials to immediately make all the required improvements.
Those mandatory safety upgrades fall into three broad categories and were to be completed in phases. First, schools are required to replace outdated fire alarm control panels with newer, intelligent ones that tell responders exactly where signs of fire are detected and send alerts when any detectors aren't working.
At the time of the agreement, all but four Portland schools had old-fashioned fire alarm control systems. By contrast, every Beaverton school is equipped with a sophisticated modern fire alarm control panel.
As a second priority, Portland schools must add or upgrade horns and strobe warnings lights so that children, teachers and staff are properly alerted of a fire. Phase Three mandates, among other things, adding heat and smoke detectors in common areas such as gyms, auditoriums and cafeterias.
Keeping students, faculty and staff safe boils down to having good detection and a way to get out, said Portland Fire & Rescue Assistant Fire Marshal Jim Hanson. A clear exit pathway, which can be achieved without sprinkers, is critical, he said.
Having enough detectors and a panel that pinpoints the precise location of a fire both go toward one of the most crucial fire safety concerns: time.
"A fire can double in size every minute," Hanson said. "So minutes count."
Penley, the Marysville principal, testifies to that frightening fact.
"I still remember walking out in the hallway and thinking 'Why are we doing a fire drill and why didn't I know about it?' Within a minute that hallway was full of smoke. It happened that fast," she said. "I had no idea the speed at which a fire can overtake a building. ... You go from sitting in a meeting to all of a sudden your life changes forever."
Parents often unaware of the hazards
Even the most plugged-in parents in Portland schools tend to know almost nothing about how unprepared their schools are for a fire, The Oregonian/OregonLive found.
Susan Ellis, co-president of the PTA at West Sylvan Middle School, said she wasn't familiar with what her school lacks in terms of fire safety equipment. "It hasn't been brought up," she said.
West Sylvan is missing fire detectors in common areas, a modern fire alarm control system, and alarms and warning lights that are up to code.
At Rigler Elementary, PTA President Noelle Studer-Spevak said she has been concerned about seismic upgrades, but didn't know Rigler had an antiquated fire detection system and lacked some alarms.
"There are so many things that are so pressing, serious problems about staffing and student achievement and parent involvement," Studer-Spevak said. "This is definitely not on our radar."
Just nine Portland schools have sprinklers throughout the entire building. Two more schools will be fully equipped with them when the rebuilt Franklin High and Faubion K-8 School open in August. The schools both will feature sterling fire safety systems throughout.
Schools with more than one floor that lack sprinklers are such a grave concern for the Portland fire bureau that Portland Public Schools had to sign an agreement outlining specific exit plan before any students in kindergarten through grade two would be allowed to go upstairs even briefly at their school. Their home classrooms all must be located on the ground floor, due to the incomplete sprinkler systems. That's a mandate faced by 27 elementary and K-8 schools.
Portland conducts monthly fire drills at each of its schools, regardless of how well each is equipped for fire. Schools with kindergarten, first grade or second grade classes on the second floor are required to do even more: Fire drills are conducted once a week for the first four weeks of school.
"It's reasonable to be concerned, but we are not being truly negligent. We do have inspections by the city fire marshal and we do have a fire and life safety system in place that is fairly effective," said Wilton, interim chief operating officer.
And, Wilton notes, the district has remained on track with its six-year plan, having completed upgrades at 24 schools, come close at 15 and made partial upgrades at 23 more.
The school district hopes to make more improvements to safety at nearly every school by getting voters to pass the $790 million bond next month.
That money would first go toward getting all schools up to the standard mandated by the fire marshal, which Wilton said will cost roughly $9 million. District officials plan to spend the remaining $17 million on the other highest-priority fire safety improvements, such as sprinkler coverage.
The district might be able to spend more bond funds on fire safety improvements as well, if fixing lead in water, lead paint and other hazards costs less than projected, Wilton said.
Portland Public Schools have stuck with old-fashioned fire safety systems despite three damaging fires in the last decade: one at Harrison Park K-8 in 2015, another at Chapman Elementary in 2013 and, most famously, the fire that engulfed historic Marysville in Southeast Portland. The first two fires happened when school was not in session, but the Marysville fire sent hundreds of students, teachers and staff fleeing for their lives and rendered the building unusable for three years.
"I think now of my life as pre-fire/post-fire because it was just so traumatic," said Penley, the Marysville principal. "It's easy to talk about 'A school needs to do this' and 'A school needs to that,' until you really experience a real school crisis. Having experienced it changes all that."
Two-story Martin Luther King Jr. K-8 is one of Portland's highest-risk schools, without a modern fire control panel and with just 2 percent of the building outfitted with sprinklers. Just this school year it had a minor scare with a trash can fire.
Jill Sage, King's principal, said, "I don't feel that there is imminent concern," as the system in place worked. But she added, "This isn't just a nicety. This is really the safety of our children. If we have the capacity to reduce the risk even more, why wouldn't we do that?"
Bond or no bond, Portland Public Schools must finish what's outlined in its agreement with Portland Fire & Rescue.
If the bond doesn't pass, "ultimately it's going to impact what we are going to provide students" in the classroom, Wilton said.
Hanson, of Portland Fire & Rescue, said the district has been diligent about adhering to its agreement to make fire safety upgrades as its budget allows. He said that if parents have concerns about fire safety, they should not hesitate to ask school administrators.
"Put the pressure on them to give you the answers," Hanson said. "That's what I would do if I had concerns about the school. I'm going to go the principal first and then I'm going to go to the administration."
--Bethany Barnes
Got a tip about Portland Public Schools? Email Bethany: bbarnes@oregonian.com
———
©2017 The Oregonian (Portland, Ore.)
Visit The Oregonian (Portland, Ore.) at www.oregonian.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
