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In September 2017, two major earthquakes struck south and central Mexico. These earthquakes produced widespread damage in public and private school infrastructure. In Mexico, all school buildings are classified as essential infrastructure and are expected to attain an immediate occupancy performance level after major earthquakes. However, there is a large variation in the quality of the design and construction practices of these buildings due to age of construction, material quality and availability, and great socioeconomic gaps around the country. In this article, an analysis of the observed damage in public school buildings is presented. The results are analyzed depending on the structural system, construction material, and year of construction. The results showed that damage intensity in seismically designed buildings was significantly lower than that observed in the pre-1985 structures. Load bearing and infill masonry walls were the most damaged structural elements.

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This article deals with the proper numerical simulation of the response presented by an instrumented damaged-retrofitted building using a low computational cost linear-elastic model, using effective stiffness for its reinforced concrete structural members. The purpose is to identify the most appropriate criteria and considerations and to validate them against the actual behavior of the building registered during real earthquakes. Relevant structural aspects like concrete elastic modulus and soil–structure interaction effects are determined experimentally. Special attention is paid to select appropriate techniques to model the complex geometry of the North-South facades wall elements and their related coupling beams. Finally, time-history analyses of 20 March 2012 earthquake (service conditions demand) and 19 September 2017 earthquake (design conditions demand) are performed, both considering and ignoring the soil–structure interaction effects. Results point out that commonly adopted simplifications in numerical models of buildings must be correctly implemented to satisfactorily simulate their earthquake response.