California and the West : Seismic Risk Studies Lacking for Many Private Schools : Safety: Scrutiny and retrofitting efforts vary widely from campus to campus, experts and officials say. Many structures do not conform to stricter building codes.

By TIM REITERMAN

Sept. 10, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Fifteen years ago, a state panel issued an urgent warning: Private schools housing hundreds of thousands of California children were built to less rigid seismic standards than public schools and needed to be evaluated for hazards.

Later, after the 1994 Northridge earthquake, a state Seismic Safety Commission member declared, “Children in private schools are at a greater relative risk. . . .”

Nonetheless, neither the state nor private schools have ever fully assessed the quake resistance of the buildings that house 630,000 students--about one in 10 of the state’s pupils in kindergarten through 12th grade.

Interviews with dozens of educators, engineers and state experts reveal a rough patchwork of seismic protection in the nation’s largest collection of private schools.

Most officials say they conduct quake drills and stock emergency supplies, and some--including the Roman Catholic dioceses in Los Angeles and Orange counties--have conducted costly structural studies and retrofitting.

But others--such as an association representing hundreds of Protestant schools--have not assessed their buildings, or have made piecemeal seismic repairs because of financial constraints.

Unlike public schools, private schools can even legally be located on or near earthquake faults. One Berkeley school has been housed for several years in a historic former public school believed to sit on the Hayward fault.

“I think private school buildings throughout the state need to be evaluated,” said Tom Tobin, who pushed for a survey in the late 1980s as seismic commission executive director. “We will find that these buildings will overwhelmingly perform well in quakes, but a significant number will threaten the lives of kids. . . .”

Ron Reynolds, head of the California Assn. of Private School Organizations, said he favors a survey if it would lead to state help. “It is important to get a handle on the magnitude of the need so it can be addressed,” said Reynolds, whose group represents three-quarters of the private schools.

Legislation passed by both houses and sent Thursday to the governor would allocate funds for evaluating thousands of older public schools--but not private ones.

The bill addresses what experts say is a lurking danger in public schools. Although no schools have collapsed in recent quakes, many were built according to now-outmoded codes or designs that have fared poorly.

Private schools, some experts say, may be even more vulnerable because they were not built under the stringent controls of the Field Act, adopted after schools crumbled in the 1933 Long Beach quake.

Instead, they have been subject to the same local commercial building rules as theaters or retail stores. A 1986 law toughened review of new private school construction, but it did not address several thousand schools built before then.

Seismic protection for private schools is complicated by their fragmented organizations, limited resources and constitutional issues such as equal protection and separation of church and state.

Such matters surfaced in the mid-1980s when a committee formed by the state’s seismic commission concluded there was evidence of “great variability in the quality and seismic safety of buildings housing private schools.”

Private school groups feared that state intrusion could compromise their independence, and that a study could subject them to liability or force them to undertake costly seismic work that could cause some to shut down.

“One of my positions was if it’s not broken, you don’t need to fix it,” said Joseph P. McElligott, former education director of the California Catholic Conference in Sacramento.

After years of meetings, records show, private school leaders warmed to the proposed study. But the effort evaporated after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in Northern California. “We were swamped because of the quake,” said Tobin, the former seismic commission director. “The same thing happened with Northridge. . . .”

Study Sought for 2 Decades

Legally separate, California’s public and private schools still have one thing in common: No one knows the seismic condition of the buildings.

For two decades, state officials have sought a study of the 60,000 public school structures. The closest thing to a statewide study was a recent UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism survey of about 100 Southern California and Bay Area districts for The Times. Officials concluded that at least a thousand buildings had unrepaired seismic hazards.

Assembly Bill 300, introduced by Assemblywoman Ellen Corbett (D-Hayward), would provide $500,000 to begin surveying pre-1976 public schools without wood frames and all tilt-up buildings, which can have weak wall-to-roof connections.

When it comes to the state’s 4,300 private schools, no one even knows the number of buildings. But engineers say they have encountered some with the same structural problems found in public schools. These include tilt-ups, non-ductile or brittle concrete frames, and wood frame buildings with weak designs.

Private schools--more than two-thirds of them church-affiliated--use buildings ranging from old mansions and houses of worship to modern complexes.

The 1902-vintage Pasadena Christian School is one of the 441 Southern California schools operated by the Assn. of Christian Schools International, the nation’s largest Protestant school group.

Although some schools sustained past quake damage, the association has not evaluated the earthquake resistance of buildings and does not believe all its members have, either.

Officials said they would not object to an assessment if the state would pick up the tab. However, Northern California director Rohn Ritzema added: “I feel it is unnecessary based on the last 10 years’ experience. We had little exposure. . . .”

Perception of Risks

The seismic response of Catholic schools, with 245,000 students, varies from diocese to diocese--based on finances, local earthquake history and perception of risks.

The Diocese of Orange commissioned a study that identified about three dozen high-risk school buildings, and about the same number at moderate risk. More than a dozen retrofits--the largest costing about $350,000--are completed or underway.

“I am asked almost daily by pastors, laypeople and parishioners: ‘Is all I am going through worth it?’ ” said construction manager Brian Arii.

The Northridge quake damaged almost 100 sites in the largest diocese, encompassing Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. In response, engineers and architects quickly assessed all schools, damaged or not.

Repairs and upgrades cost about $24 million, including $9 million in federal funds. “It has been said the quake is a blessing in disguise because it got a lot of work done,” said Brother Hilarion O’Connor, diocese construction director.

By contrast, the diocese covering Riverside and San Bernardino counties has not evaluated its 31 schools. “Whoever was in charge in the past was comfortable with the [building] standards,” said John Skora, director of facilities.

Like some dioceses, San Diego has been doing seismic evaluations and repairs only when it renovates schools.

One retrofitted school was part of a church that was visibly tilting. Another school, slated for interior remodeling, wound up needing almost $2 million in seismic fixes.

Still, construction services director Joel King said he feels no urgency to fully examine all diocese schools. “Most of our schools are one- and two-story wood and stucco, which perform quite well in quakes,” he said.

Engineers say wood frame buildings, though they generally have fared well in quakes, can still harbor hazards. Single-story classroom buildings with long rows of windows sometimes lack the strength to resist ground motion.

Experts say past performance does not guarantee future security because each temblor is different. And they note that since 1906, no major urban quake has struck during school hours or reached great magnitude or duration.

With state guidance, private schools have emphasized eliminating nonstructural hazards, such as poorly secured light fixtures, and improving emergency response by conducting duck-and-cover drills. “They have water, food and [other emergency supplies] on hand in case of an earthquake,” said Joel Koerschen, whose association represents 80 Lutheran schools between Bakersfield and Chico.

Although engineering evaluations generally are not required unless a private school is undergoing major renovations, earthquakes have prompted some inspections.

Many Baptist schools in Los Angeles hired an independent building inspector to examine their buildings after Northridge.

At Los Angeles Baptist Junior/Senior High School, daylight could be seen through the roof of the reinforced masonry gym and it had to be retrofitted. “It was built to city codes in the 1970s,” said business manager William Rodgers. “But some of those codes were not sufficient.”

Harvard-Westlake School in Coldwater Canyon had no structural damage after Northridge. Yet as a precaution, officials later constructed two new buildings 50% above code, one at a cost of $15 million.

Many private schools do not have the resources of 1,550-student Harvard-Westlake and have been strained by government requirements for asbestos abatement, handicapped access and the strengthening of unreinforced masonry buildings.

A number of private school leaders foresee no constitutional problems if the state helps with a seismic survey because it is a public safety issue, like fire protection.

“We all get lulled into a sense of security because there is no disaster happening,” said Gerry Thompson, director of education for the state’s 120 Seventh-day Adventist schools. “I am sure that if [educators] are aware of what the needs are, individual congregations would make the necessary retrofitting.”

Seismic commission Executive Director Richard McCarthy is skeptical that lawmakers would pay for a survey but says private schools should be checked. “Some would be collapse hazards [in a quake],” he said. “Some would have damage and some would be fine.”

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Private Schools by the Numbers

At least one in 10 California schoolchildren attend private schools, which some experts say could be more vulnerable to earthquakes because they were not constructed under the same stringent quality controls as public schools. Here is a statistical snapshot of the state’s private schools, kindergarten through 12th grade:

Number of schools: 4,310*

Total enrollment: 628,746

Full-time teachers and administrators: 50,531

Statewide enrollment by school type:

Church-affiliated: 433,704

Other religious: 67,092

Secular: 127,950

Number of schools by affiliation:

Roman Catholic: 711

Seventh-day Adventist: 119

Baptist: 216

Assembly of God: 90