With 60% of its $75 million solar energy system down, Mount Diablo Unified School District is left with questions about maintenance, repairs and financial losses.

For years, the district has operated what it says is one of the nation’s largest solar energy systems for a kindergarten-12th grade school district. Installed in 2010 using bond money, the system has generated about 11 megawatts of energy annually and saved the district about $17 million in general fund dollars.

A recent inspection by SunUp Solar Tech Service, a solar operation and maintenance company, found that 43 of the district’s 77 inverters are offline. Inverters are key elements of a solar energy system that take direct current electricity and turn it into alternating current electricity, which is the type of energy used by the power grid, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Without the 43 inverters, the district is losing out on about 7,860 kilowatts of electricity, or nearly eight of the 11 megawatts promised in the past.

A Vermont school has spent millions of dollars toward eliminating toxic PCB contamination, but the problem hasn’t gone away.

The solution in Burlington was a new school building that opened this year and that may be an option for North Country Union High School, but the big question remains: Who would pay for it?

School officials have worked to keep PCBs out of the air students are breathing, but the fixes can only go so far and they are turning to the state for help.

North Country High School Principal Chris Young said the district added air purifiers in classrooms after PCB contamination was discovered at the school in 2024.

“As we took more and more tests, we realized the scores and the results coming back were worse and worse, especially when we were testing in the summer months when the PCBs seemed to be at the highest levels,” Young said.

The Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) Board of Education met on August 25 with one item on the agenda.

That one topic of discussion was the Resilient Schools Proposal. With declining enrollment for some years and more projected in the future, BVSD is looking to make changes.

The board made no decisions at this meeting. The meeting was planned to hear the proposal developed by staff and for the board to ask questions. 

Superintendent Dr. Rob Anderson spoke first, saying that he is proud of the process they have developed. “We listened first to our community, and in the world of school closures and consolidations unfortunately that is unique.”

Assistant Superintendent of Operational Services Rob Price led the presentation on the proposal. He said, “This is not about failing schools. It is about adjusting our systems to better serve our students.”

Guam's public schools are facing an estimated $427 million in repairs and improvements, a backlog that lawmakers say underscores problems that go far beyond getting classrooms ready for another school year.

The figure emerged during a legislative oversight hearing on the Guam Department of Education, where lawmakers pressed department officials on aging facilities, sanitation inspections, maintenance staffing and whether schools are getting the long-term attention they need.

GDOE's Facilities and Maintenance Division has about 72 employees and remains largely reactive, responding to problems as they arise rather than having enough personnel to perform preventive maintenance.

The New Haven Board of Alders is requesting citywide inspections of New Haven Public Schools after direct site visits and mounting reports of health and safety hazards, according to a letter sent out Friday.

The board has submitted a formal request to the New Haven Health Department, Office of Emergency Management and New Haven Fire Department urging health, fire and emergency preparedness inspections of the school district’s facilities.

Committee members observed non-functioning HVAC systems and extreme temperatures, active leaks and water damage, visible mold, rodents, damaged exit signage, missing stairwell railings, non-functioning doors, utility outlets and eyewash station problems, unsafe exterior sidewalks and curbs, and persistent bathroom and odor problems, according to the Board of Alders letter.

There's a high school in Boston that continues to struggle with renovations.

A window project at English High School in Jamaica Plain was supposed to be finished in the fall of 2025. It dragged on into the school year. Now, as another school year is about to begin, the project still isn't done.

Scaffolding and cranes continue to line the streets around the school, where natural light has been blocked from some classrooms. Window coverings have been added for safety.

Within more than $313 million of statewide school debt that went up for sale Thursday, Rock Hill school officials have a plan they believe will save taxpayers money and improve aging facilities. The Rock Hill school board approved a plan Tuesday to borrow nearly $33 million as part of a South Carolina Association of Governmental Organizations bond package. That program allows school districts to borrow up to 8% of their total assessed property value without needing a bond referendum.
While that debt typically goes to capital and maintenance needs, the Rock Hill district intends to use it to pay off long-term debt. Coupled with a new maintenance reserve fund policy, district CFO Kevin Madden sees a more nimble and less costly way to fund school capital needs moving forward.
 

Moscow patrons will have the long-awaited chance to overhaul their schools this fall after trustees put a seven-year, $9.37 million per year plant facility levy on the November ballot Wednesday night.

The vote followed decades of complaints over the nearly 90-year-old high school, years of discussion over how to update facilities, months of planning by a facility committee, and weeks of presentations to the school board.

If the levy, totaling $65.6 million, passes, it will kick off the first phase of a decade-long plan to convert the district’s middle school into a high school. The second phase, building a new middle school, would require a second ballot measure.

City leaders say passing a 1% sales tax could be “transformational.”
The first day of school brought the usual excitement for Richmond Public School students and families. But for school leadership, it underscored the long-standing challenges of maintaining an aging school division with a limited capital improvement budget.

Across the city, children are learning in buildings that range in age from decades to centuries old. 

In the city’s Northside, the RPS community is dealing with a delayed start due to mold found at Barack Obama Elementary, and suspected mold at both Frances McClenney and Bellevue elementaries. Meanwhile in the city’s Southside, on top of aging infrastructure, schools there are facing continued overcrowding. 

Several schools will lack proper air conditioning by the start of the school year on Monday, meaning some students may have to be moved to temporary classrooms, as temperatures for the first week are projected to reach the mid-80s.

Chief of School Operations Paul Whyte disclosed the information Wednesday at a Board of Alders Education Committee meeting at City Hall.

The meeting centered around readiness for the upcoming school year. Fair Haven Alder Sarah Miller asked Whyte for a rundown of schools without air conditioning.

Whyte reported that Truman School students will continue to learn without air conditioning, noting that the system “has been down for multiple years.”

Today, Mayor Muriel Bowser joined DC Public Schools (DCPS), the Department of General Services (DGS), District leaders, and community members to celebrate the first day of pre-K at DCPS and cut the ribbon on the newly modernized J.O. Wilson Elementary School in Ward 6.

The $90.9 million modernization nearly doubles the size of J.O. Wilson, transforming the original 55,000-square-foot building into a nearly 100,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art learning campus. The project was completed on an accelerated 18-month construction schedule, beginning in January 2025 and finishing this summer.

Durham Public Schools is set to discuss replacing boilers at three schools as aging systems become increasingly difficult to maintain.

Hillandale Elementary School, Oak Grove Elementary School and Riverside High School all need new boilers, according to district information. The existing systems have deteriorated with age, and routine maintenance is no longer enough to keep them operating reliably.

"I think that it's a little old," DPS student Tania Patterson said.

The proposed replacements come as the average Durham school building is 59 years old. Boilers heat water or generate steam to provide heat and hot water for school buildings.

More than 10,800 K-12 schools representing more than 7 million students across the United States now use solar energy, helping schools lower electricity costs, invest more resources in students and strengthen their communities, according to a new report from clean energy nonprofit Generation180.
The sixth edition of “Brighter Future: The State of Solar & Battery Storage in U.S. K-12 Schools“ finds that total solar capacity on K-12 schools has more than tripled since 2016. Together, these schools have more than 2.4 GW of solar, enough to power more than 450,000 homes.
 

Portland Public Schools is fighting a stack of lawsuits over Benson Polytechnic High School's construction, with subcontractors claiming they are owed millions of dollars and the district accusing its own general contractor of causing serious construction errors. The career and technical education magnet school in northeast Portland, which enrolls about 1,000 students, reopened in fall 2024 after a modernization that ballooned from an original $269 million budget to a final cost of $410 million, a $141 million overrun.

More than 100 Houston ISD schools are still operating far below capacity — even after the district closed a dozen campuses last school year, according to district data released this summer.

Last year, HISD closed or consolidated 12 campuses, citing larger-than-expected enrollment declines and aging facilities. But more than 100 schools that opened their doors this school year are operating under 60% capacity, according to 2025-26 district data. 

State-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles has said HISD could lose $50 to $60 million in state funding every year due to enrollment declines “unless things drastically change.” He said in February the district also could have closed up to 40 campuses based on aging facility conditions alone, which often prove costly to repair and replace.

Jacksonville Elementary School, closed since last week for professional mold cleaning, will remain closed through Friday.

The school has been closed since Wednesday, Aug. 19, after tests revealed elevated mold levels in several parts of the building.

The Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District has since received the results of air quality testing and has “been given the green light” regarding the air inside the building, according to a Wednesday afternoon statement from the district.

The school remains closed, however, as it waits for replacement parts for its dedicated outdoor air systems, according to the statement. A dedicated outdoor air system is a type of HVAC unit that circulates fresh outdoor air into the building after filtering, dehumidifying and conditioning it.

St. Louis Public Schools presented a revised proposal Tuesday to close 14 schools by next year, down from an initial plan to shutter 20 buildings.

The district is trying to stabilize its future in the face of declining enrollment and state funding as well as increased competition from charter schools. It's navigating a projected $41 million deficit for this school year and is expected to run out of savings by 2030 if a plan to significantly curtail spending isn’t put into place, according to the Missouri State Auditor’s office.

The new proposal dubbed the “A+ portfolio model” expands traditional structure for schools, which include pre-kindergarten through fifth grade elementary schools, six through eighth grade middle schools and high schools that serve ninth through 12th graders.

The district will also introduce some schools for pre-kindergarten through eighth grade students.

Eleven elementary schools are slated for closure, including Hamilton, Ashland, Ames, Hickey, Wallbridge, Carver, Columbia, Patrick Henry, Meramec, Monroe and Shenandoah.

Students are back in classrooms across Philadelphia, but this school year also marks the beginning of major changes for the School District of Philadelphia — from a multibillion-dollar facilities plan and school closures to a nearly $300 million structural deficit and a continued push to improve student achievement.

Superintendent Tony Watlington, now beginning his fifth school year leading the district, sat down one-on-one with CBS News Philadelphia to discuss where the district is headed and what families should expect in the years ahead.

The school board has approved a $3 billion facilities plan that includes closing 17 schools in the coming years. The plan will affect communities across Philadelphia, including Kensington, and Watlington acknowledged how difficult the prospect of a school closure can be for families.

"I would not want my own child's school to close. Period. The end," Watlington said.

Rural schools are asked to solve national problems with local resources. They are expected to close readiness gaps they did not create, respond to poverty they cannot control, and provide opportunities students may not receive anywhere else. Yet these expectations are often placed inside buildings designed for a different era of education.

The physical school environment is usually treated as an operational concern: square footage, maintenance, compliance, safety and cost. Those matters are real. But they are incomplete.

A school building is also an instructional system.

In my rural Midwestern school district, we drew on research in learning environments and early literacy development to create a new 108,000-square-foot elementary school that serves 900 pupils across 932 square miles.

We used the Opportunity-by-Design Framework, which connects physical design to instructional capacity, student experience, measurable outcomes, and equity impact.

Montgomery County Public Schools has seen declining enrollment over the past year, and officials expect that trend to continue.
That’s prompted school officials to study possible closings and consolidations of elementary and middle schools.
According to an enrollment update included in a presentation at the MCPS Board of Education meeting on July 16, the student population for the 2026-27 school year is projected to reach 150,746 students.