Elkhardt Middle School is a fresh reminder of the increasingly shabby and dilapidated condition of most of Richmond’s school buildings — a condition that the mayor’s office and City Council have yet to seriously address despite repeated reports and warnings in recent years.

Set to be shut down this Thursday night, with students, teachers and staff moving 10 miles north across the James River into the vacant Clark Springs Elementary building, Elkhardt on South Side reflects the stark reality the city is facing — the need to provide big money to keep Richmond’s school buildings usable, a reality that no longer can be papered over with rosy talk about bike races, baseball stadiums and football training camps.

The closure of Elkhardt, with all the upset and inconvenience it is visiting on families, comes just two weeks before the release of another school facilities report — the seventh in the past 12 years — that once again is expected to document the magnitude of the problem and make the case for essential investments in the aging buildings that largely have been ignored in favor of developing a few new buildings most students cannot attend.

And it comes just after the School Board sent Mayor Dwight C. Jones a detailed request for at least $30 million to pay for critical building needs in the fiscal year that will begin July 1.

That money, if the mayor proposes in the budget and council approves, would go to replace failing heating and cooling systems in 43 buildings and leaky roofs on 15 buildings and end serious basement leaks and moisture problems in eight buildings. Some of the buildings need mitigation in all areas.

And over the next four years, the board has notified the mayor that it would need at least $20 million additional for similar work on the buildings that are not included in the first round.

That’s just part of the bill that taxpayers face; equally important overhauls of aging plumbing, wiring, lighting, walls and windows are not part of the requests. Those items would need a whole new level of funding.

While the Elkhardt crisis is being addressed, Richmond Schools Superintendent Dr. Dana T. Bedden is keeping his fingers crossed that nothing else pops up at another building that would create another emergency. And it could easily happen given the state of the buildings.

Some examples: J.L. Francis Elementary has only one old boiler to heat the building and that boiler could go; the Technical Center buildings’ heating and cooling equipment is in poor shape and any failure could hamper the center’s use; and the air handling equipment in George Wythe High, which barely works, would create serious problems if it goes down.

So far, Mayor Jones has been mum publicly about any plans he might have for providing big dollars for existing schools ahead of the release of the facilities report, now set for Monday, Feb. 23, at a joint meeting of the council and School Board.

He did not acknowledge what appears to an 800-pound elephant in his upbeat State of the City address in late January nor in the February email issue of “Building the Best Richmond,” in which he touts the “resurgence” of the city under his leadership.

His real commitment will be spelled out when he delivers his new budget proposal to the council in early March and spells out how much he wants to provide to the school system.

At the same time, council has tried to prepare by passing a resolution calling on the mayor to set aside $2 million a year to be used to cover the cost of borrowing $30 million for school building needs — even though that may fall far short of the actual funding requirements.

In a 2013 report, consulting engineers hired by the School Board went through every building, detailed every problem and estimated that an $80 million infusion would keep the buildings usable.

In the case of Elkhardt, the School Board had made the middle school a top priority to be replaced based on its age and condition, in a report on building needs in 2007. That recommendation was pushed to the sidelines when Mayor Jones and the council decided to replace Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School.

The current problem with Elkhardt is the result of leaky steam pipes that enabled health- threatening mold to thrive and spread, forcing the School Board and Dr. Bedden to shutter the building to protect children and adults from potential lung damage.

At this point, the School Board’s proposed capital budget calls for spending more than $3.5 million on Elkhardt to replace the boilers, pipes and roof and to seal a leaky basement. Thomas E. Kranz, the assistant superintendent who oversees buildings and operations, has since indicated more work may need to be done, including removal of floor tiles made with asbestos. That could hike the cost, he indicated.

This will be the second time Clark Springs has become a temporary home for another school. Last spring, Fairfield Court Elementary had to be packed up and moved there to allow for emergency roof repairs.

The decision to send students to Clark Springs as a replacement space was worked out between the school administration and Elkhardt’s leadership team, which wanted to keep the school together.

Not everyone is happy about the decision to cram more than 500 middle school students and adults into a building that was designed for a maximum of 550 smaller children ages 5 to 12.

Mr. Kranz acknowledged that “it will be a tight fit” to put so many larger people into a building with 26 classrooms — at least six fewer than Elkhardt — but he said that Elkhardt’s officials believe they can make it work.

Tichi L. Pinkney Eppes, the 9th District School Board member whose district includes Elkhardt, is urging parents to “bear with us through this inconvenience.”

Her hope is that everyone will be able to return to a revamped Elkhardt next fall. She said she will advocate to make that happen unless the community gains a commitment for development of a new middle school that would replace both Elkhardt and Thompson.

In a letter she sent Wednesday to Dr. Bedden, she also urged the superintendent to test other old school buildings for mold to make sure there will not be another Elkhardt and to enlist city health district and volunteer health care professionals to perform checkups on all Elkhardt students, teachers and staff to ensure the mold has not created health problems.

She also recommended to Dr. Bedden that he and his staff make themselves more available to families during this kind of emergency. She called on him to improve communications with parents, many of whom have felt left out of the decision to close Elkhardt and move the operation to Clark Springs. Parents, she said, are now concerned about whether Clark Springs will be ready for the students and whether transportation will be handled well.

She also urged Dr. Bedden to offer transfer options that would allow students to fill vacancies at other middle schools as an alternative to going to Clark Springs and to provide tutoring and extra programs “to make sure this middle-of the-year emergency does not affect the learning or performance” of Elkhardt students on upcoming state Standards of Learning tests.

Ms. Pinkney Eppes also urged Dr. Bedden to address the “considerable concern and uncertainty regarding the future of Elkhardt” and ensure the community has some input before decisions are made about renovation or replacement of the building.