Cupertino Schools Fare Well In California Watch Review

Two Cupertino schools are included on a list—developed during a 19-month investigation conducted by California Watch—of public schools that may not be in compliance with seismic safety regulations. But a school official denies that there is cause for concern.

“We’ve done all the voluntary seismic upgrades; all of our buildings have been upgraded since the (AB-300) report came out,” said Erik Walukiewicz, coordinator of safety operations for Fremont Union High School District.

The schools, and are on a list that shows one or more projects not properly certified, according to AB 300, which was approved in 1999.

The law requires the state’s Department of General Services to conduct a “collapse risk” inventory of the state’s kindergarten-through-12th-grade school buildings.

According to a report by California Watch, the General Services department claims public school buildings in California to be the safest in the nation.

But findings conclude "that 7,537 buildings, approximately 14 percent of the total square footage in the state’s public K-12 schools, were not expected to withstand future earthquakes and urgently needed further structural evaluation to gauge needed repairs.”

The new searchable database, developed as part of the investigation, compiles several sets of data describing potential earthquake hazards in public schools across the state. However, red flags could mean anything from a true violation of a safety code to missing a signature from an architect, contractor or engineer, said DSA spokeswoman Gretchen Zeagler.

California began regulating school architecture for seismic safety in 1933 with the Field Act, but data taken from the Division of the State Architect’s Office shows 20,000 school projects statewide never got final safety certifications. In the crunch to get schools built within the last few decades, state architects have been lax on enforcement, California Watch reported. 

“It takes forever to get it certified,” Walukiewicz says.

Homestead and Monta Vista projects listed on the state’s electronic Tracker list indicate several projects are “closed” but “without certification.”

While that may sound alarming to some, Walukiewicz and Zeagler agree that it’s circumstantial.

To get projects certified, in some cases, requires re-opening a project, which Walukiewicz says has a fee associated with it and could cost an already cash-strapped district a lot of money, plus the responsibility of tracking down someone who completed work on the project years ago and doesn’t have the time or staff available to follow through on record-keeping.

“It’s not just money, but time and resources, which amounts to money,” Walukiewicz says. "It’s almost like a fulltime job to bird-dog companies to certify … engineers or architects, they don’t have time to go back and look through paperwork."

While it’s no secret that three of Cupertino’s public schools—Regnart Elementary, Hyde Middle and Eaton Elementary—sit directly on fault lines, and two more are within a quarter mile of liquefaction zones, all were built to pass seismic activity regulations. Liquefaction zones describe an area that can turn soil into quicksand in a violent earthquake.

The AB-300 inventory completed nine years ago found 7,500 seismically risky school buildings in the state. Yet, California Watch reports that only two schools have been able to access a $200 million fund for upgrades. 

Interactive Timeline—See how our 19 month investigation developed in an interactive timeline complete with video, documents and more.

Historical Map of CA earthquakes—See an interactive map of the history of California earthquakes since 1861, including their magnitudes, locations and the damage caused.

This story was produced using data provided to Patch by California Watch, the state's largest investigative reporting team and part of the Center for Investigative Reporting.