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Beaverton Schools

Seismic Reports and Upgrades

Structural steel
Seismic brace
Structural steel

Beaverton School District has a special opportunity—perhaps even a responsibility. Our community approved a very large capital construction bond program in 2014 that includes building three brand new school buildings and replacing four more. In order to better support our community during an emergency, our District has determined that we should build these seven schools to exceed building code requirements in certain critical aspects in order to respond to The Oregon Resilience Plan... This report summarizes that effort and provides the conclusions we reached. It is imperfect, and will only affect seven of our 50 schools and only seven of the 1,200 public schools in Oregon. But we must start somewhere.

-Excerpted from the BSD Resilience Planning Report

Seismic Upgrades

Seismic upgrades at Aloha High School

In the mid-1990s the Beaverton School District conducted a district-wide investigation of the seismic stability of its schools and subsequently began a targeted program to seismically upgrade and improve them, generally in conjunction with other related projects such as roof replacements.

Building upon work from previous bonds, this project is scheduled to improve the seismic performance of five schools that remain in need of high priority seismic upgrades: Beaver Acres Elementary, Cedar Mill Elementary, Cooper Mountain Elementary, Aloha High School and Beaverton High School.

Seismic upgrades generally involve improving structures by installing additional lateral force resistance systems.  These systems are to keep the building from collapsing in the event of an earthquake.

The District is working to leverage additional funding by pursuing grants available through the State of Oregon. 

Budget: $14,544,000
Funding: 2014 Bond
Schedule: varies site-by-site

  • Beaver Acres ES 2020
  • Cedar Mill ES 2019
  • Cooper Mountain ES 2021
  • Aloha HS 2019 - 2020
  • Beaverton HS 2018
Decorative line

Seismic Assessment Report

Parents have inquired about the recent Seismic Assessment report and the District’s plan of action to address the recommendations in that report. The Seismic Assessment report was published in April 2019 and all four volumes are available on the District website. The report contains an evaluation and rating of each school and students, staff, and parents can look at how their school is expected to fare based on the standard performance criteria. To our knowledge, Beaverton School District is the only District in Oregon with this level of seismic detail for each of its schools and facilities.

The report uses a color coding to indicate the expected performance of each zone within each building. As you review the report and look for your school or facility in Volume 4, please note the following summary of the color codes: 

During or after a major seismic event, the zones showing in Red and Orange are expected to see the most structural damage, including the highest risk of collapse or partial collapse. Zones marked in Yellow meet the Life Safety performance criteria of ASCE 41-17. These zones of the building may see significant structural damage but partial or total collapse are both unlikely. Green zones will see little to no structural damage.

Graphic listing four categories of seismic risk

Volume 4 was previously unavailable on the website for safety and security reasons; however, the District intentionally removed the schematic floor plans for all schools to that this Volume can be made available online. Staff and parents can still view the original Volume 4 report in person and upon request at the District main office. Please contact the Facilities Development staff at 503.356.4364 for more information. 

Using the April 2019 report, the District is developing and prioritizing seismic upgrade projects for the next Capital Improvement Bond. The focus of this effort will be developing seismic upgrade projects for schools that fall into the Red Zone (Less than Collapse Prevention Performance Level). These projects will help improve these schools to be above life safety performance  objectives and be better equipped to limit damage in the event of an earthquake. These seismic projects will need to be prioritized along with other potential bond projects that include new capacity schools, replacement schools, modernization, and other capital improvement projects.  

There is no change to the District's recommendations on earthquake preparedness and following the instructions for "Drop, Cover, and Hold On." The District participated in the Great Oregon Shakeout earthquake drills on October 14, 2019 to review and refresh all students and District employees on "Drop, Cover, and Hold On." For more information please see the BSD Public Safety Earthquake Preparedness webpage and the Great Oregon Shakeout.  

Steel x brace during school construction

New and rebuilt schools have steel cross braces at critical points throughout the buildings, helping them withstand a large-scale seismic event.