A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Washington, D.C. 20202

July 2000

Dear Friend of Education:

I am pleased to announce the U.S. Department of Education's first ever Building Better Schools Week, a new initiative to promote safe, healthy and modern schools for America's children.

On August 21, I will be launching this effort when I release the U.S. Department of Education's annual Baby Boom Echo Report in Las Vegas, Nevada, one of the fastest-growing school districts in the country. This event marks the fifth year of our reporting on the Baby Boom Echo, the tremendous growth in school enrollments that began in 1984 and is expected to continue through the coming decade. This year's report focuses on the widespread nature of this growth, affecting urban, suburban and rural communities throughout our country.

Half of our 80,000 public schools have at least one building feature -- such as the roof, electrical system, or fire alarm -- that is inadequate. To highlight this need, the U.S. Department of Education will work with local schools and educators, parents and community leaders in Building Better Schools Week. During the week of August 21-26, events across the country are being encouraged to draw attention to the need for school modernization, renovation and repair. According to a recent report from the National Center for Education Statistics, our schools need $127 billion in repairs. Eleven million students attend schools with at least one inadequate building, and 3.5 million students attend schools that need major repairs or replacement. A fact sheet summarizing the key findings of this report, entitled Condition of America's Public School Facilities: 1999, accompanies this letter. The full text of the report is available on the Department's School Construction web site.

This Administration is deeply committed to helping communities respond to the challenges of modernizing their schools. That is why we have called on Congress to pass two school construction proposals: $24.8 billion in School Modernization Bonds and $6.5 billion in Urgent Renovation Loans and Grants, to modernize and repair thousands of schools nationwide. A description of these programs and the way they would work to help modernize our nation's schools is included with this letter. I also believe that parents, teachers, education leaders and a broad range of community members must be actively involved in planning and designing schools to make them centers of communities. To help schools and communities work together to achieve this goal, we have published Schools as Centers of Community: A Citizen's Guide for Planning and Design, which is available on the U.S. Department of Education's School Design Web page.

Those who work day to day to improve education for our nation's children know about the needs facing communities throughout America. However, many people are not aware of these urgent needs, and many communities lack the tools and resources to respond to these needs. Building Better Schools Week provides a new opportunity for us to work together to educate our communities about both the national need for school modernization and the unique needs facing many local school districts as they accommodate growing numbers of students.

In order to highlight the needs of your local schools, I suggest you do the following:

• Organize various "bus trips" for community members and the media to visit 3-4 schools that need to be upgraded or to demonstrate overcrowding.
• Organize a school forum/town hall meeting with members of the community -- parents, students, PTA members, business leaders, educators, retired citizens and others -- in order to showcase the need for school construction, renovation and repairs.
• Write an op-ed article or letter to the editor addressing the need for repairs and renovations in your local elementary or high school.

If you decide to participate, I have attached registration forms that you may complete and return so that we can send you material as it becomes available to assist your efforts. The U.S. Department of Education will provide media support, publications and other assistance as part of this national effort. For more information on Building Better Schools Week or U.S. Department of Education resources to help educate your community about the need for school construction, please visit our School Construction web site.

Please join me and educators across the nation to make Building Better Schools Week a success.

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