Budget shortfalls and declining enrollment have driven a spate of recent school closures in Idaho — a trend that’s disproportionately impacting vulnerable student populations.

It seems to be an unintended consequence, as trustees are not closing schools based on a student body’s demographics, academic performance, income levels, or other such factors. Instead, they are taking into account a building’s location, condition, and enrollment numbers.

Even so, struggling students are most likely to be displaced. It’s unclear how closures will impact their education, as national and local experts have differing opinions. 

As more school leaders grapple with difficult financial decisions, they may be looking to this first wave for answers. 

In the past six months, at least seven school districts have announced or considered school closures. That’s just 6% of all traditional school districts statewide, but it’s an about-face from overcrowding issues that have plagued school districts like Idaho Falls and Middleton.

These communities are on the frontlines of budgetary woes that are increasingly impacting schools in Idaho — and nationwide — as leaders confront a fiscal cliff driven in part by expiring COVID dollars. 

Impassioned discussion surrounded a split Arlington School Board vote on Thursday to approve a $570 million Capital Improvement Plan for the next decade.

At issue in the 3-2 vote on the 2025-2034 CIP were disagreements over Arlington Public Schools debt service as well as a plan to relocate the Montessori Public School of Arlington (MPSA) to the current Career Center building.

Board members Miranda Turner and Mary Kadera cast dissenting votes. Other critics of the CIP include the Arlington County Council of PTAs, the current chair of the Joint Facilities Advisory Commission (JFAC), several former chairs of JFAC and four former chairs of the Facility Advisory Committee to the School Board.

School Board Chair Cristina Diaz-Torres defended the plan, which includes $302 million for long-range renovations, $120 million for major infrastructure projects, $73 million for construction of the Grace Hopper Center and $45 million for relocating MPSA. However, she reiterated concerns that APS lacks sufficient funding to meet community needs.

As state leaders prepare for an intense final week of trying to pass an on-time state budget, the status of Pennsylvania’s many aging and deteriorating school buildings remains a driver in the big-dollar negotiations.

The infrastructure question is linked to the outcome of a Democrat-driven proposal for a massive, $1 billion-plus increase in K-12 education spending, which was triggered by a court finding that the current basic education funding system is unconstitutional. That proposal has already been approved by the House. 

Rep. Joe Ciresi, D-Montgomery and chairman of the House Basic Education Subcommittee, said final approval would have a ripple effect on infrastructure.

“It frees up other monies in the school districts that they can put into the buildings,” Mr. Ciresi said.

At the same time, Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, has proposed a separate $300 million for school environmental repairs. Top lawmakers from both parties agree it is worth considering some repair money this year — following a total allocation of $175 million last year — to help with things such as asbestos abatement and furnace replacement.

The Guam Department of Education is making progress in reducing the heat in classrooms across the district, GDOE Superintendent Kenneth Erik Swanson said, but there continues to be an issue with funding for lease maintenance support.

The superintendent reported to the Guam Education Board last week that 1,111 air-conditioning units have been installed.

“(The) contractor has begun the second round of installations for classrooms that require two split units. Some new units have begun failing, and the contractor is repairing or replacing (them) under the terms of the contract. The installation contract should be complete across the system by the beginning of the next school year, with two years of warranty service to follow installation of new units. Each school has identified units that are failing and were not considered in the initial contract for replacement. (Capital improvement projects) estimates an added 300 units will require a new procurement process to replace,” Swanson reported.

Behind the joint campus of Western Greenbrier Middle School and Rupert Elementary School, engineers with CMTA have transformed once-empty fields into renewable energy sources. A solar array nearly the size of a football field sits directly beside 81 geothermal wells which are all around 500 feet deep. And that’s just the beginning. 

“This project touches every school in Greenbrier County,” says Jason Tyler, Construction Manager for CMTA. “We’re really proud to be part of it.” 

In total, Greenbrier County Schools (GCS) is spending $14 million on the comprehensive energy savings project. They will receive a $2 million credit as part of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and will save $500,000 annually on their utility bills. 

In the coming days, Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to confirm his commitment to place a state school construction bond on the November ballot.

What he hasn’t committed to yet — but must decide in the next 10 days — is whether to reform a method of sharing state matching money that has long favored property-rich districts over their property-poor neighbors.

Along with a June 27 deadline to write ballot language, Newsom and legislative leaders face the threat of a lawsuit challenging the legality of the present system that ignores vast inequalities in districts’ ability to upgrade and repair schools. The public interest law firm Public Advocates filed its warning, a 21-page demand letter, with state officials in February. Public Advocates is calling for a new method that shares more state bond proceeds with districts that need more help. Their proposal focuses only on repairing and renovating facilities, not new construction. 

The possibility of litigation drawing attention to funding inequalities would endanger the chances that a bond would pass — just when the state will run out of distributing the last matching money from the last bond, eight years ago. That would leave the state with no funding to help districts meet the rising cost of school construction.

Connecticut lawmakers will attempt to rescind a recently-enacted change to contracting rules surrounding school construction following pushback from Gov. Ned Lamont, legislative leaders said Monday. 
The governor and lawmakers are currently negotiating the agenda for a two-day session beginning June 26, which they mostly agree will focus on technical fixes to banking regulations and the assessment of local car taxes.
Among the items being pushed by Lamont is the repeal of a new law allowing construction managers on state-funded school construction projects to bid and perform work on smaller subcontracts that they are supposed to be overseeing. 
 

WASHINGTON — One D.C. leader wants answers about a construction project that could mean no outdoor green space for students for years. 
D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) has plans to establish a "swing space" for Drew Elementary School during planned renovations. A swing space is a series of trailers meant to house the entire school while construction takes place.
That swing space is planned to be in the field outside JC Nalle Elementary School.
After WUSA9's reporting on parents whose children attend Nalle Elementary, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson is calling for more clarity surrounding the DCPS plan.
He sent a letter DCPS Chancellor Lewis Ferebee demanding answers and strongly encouraging a pause on the project and construction.
"This loss is unacceptable and the lack of notice to the community is worse," Mendelson said in the letter. 
 

Christmas keeps coming a bit early for some Leon County School sites in the form of a five-year capital improvement plan.

"I made a commitment that our southside schools would look like our northside schools," Leon Schools Superintendent Rocky Hanna said. "This is part of making good on that promise."

The $180 million equitable promise, dedicated exclusively to Title I schools for renovations and improvements in the district's five-year Capital Outlay Plan, is projected to be fulfilled by 2027.

The multimillion-dollar improvements will not only help improve the aesthetics at these schools, but also potentially help boost enrollment numbers. The top-shelf improvements come as the district rebrands itself to compete for students against private and charter schools.

While many area school systems have already dismissed students for summer break, some, like Boston Public Schools, don't officially end the school year until Friday. That's a problem for the 10 BPS schools without air conditioning that must stay open during this week's heat wave, with the exception of Wednesday, the Juneteenth holiday.

BPS leaders have not announced any closures for the final two days of school. Spokesman Max Baker said the ten schools without air conditioning are too old to install cooling systems in and lack the infrastructure to support the energy demands.

He said in a written statement that the impacted schools have received fans to use in classrooms. "Students in these schools will receive cool treats, courtesy of our Food and Nutrition Services team," he added.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) — State officials are blasting Providence Mayor Brett Smiley’s administration for allegedly mismanaging major school construction projects and potentially jeopardizing millions of dollars in funding.
In a scathing letter obtained by Target 12, R.I. Department of Education chief operating officer Mario Carreño told Smiley: “RIDE is deeply concerned by the city’s inability to properly track and manage facilities funds, anticipate cash flow, and pay vendors in a timely manner for several of the school constructions projects underway.”
Carreño put the blame squarely on Providence’s Public Property Office, which he said has had 10 different directors over the last six years, a period that stretches back into Jorge Elorza’s administration.
The office “seems unqualified to manage these critical projects,” he wrote.
The letter ticks off a variety of accounting issues that RIDE has seen in Providence, from rapid shifts in project budgets to questionable requests for reimbursement. Carreño warned that the city is now at risk of losing over $8 million in state funds that expire at the end of this month, despite being urged repeatedly to claim the money.
Additionally, Carreño said due to the failure to complete projects at Classical High School and Pleasant View Elementary School by June 30, the city stands to lose $7 million in housing aid reimbursements included in the mayor’s most recent budget proposal.
 

Eighth-grade graduates walked the stage May 16 as family members cheered them on, filling rows in the front of the Healy public school district’s auditorium.
School board members were seated at the side of the stage to congratulate the students — all three of them. Celebratory cake and punch waited outside.
The three on stage that day were enjoying what will likely be one of Healy’s final graduation ceremonies. Healy is the state’s smallest school district and it is living on borrowed time.
Healy is an extreme example — one that caught lawmakers’ attention at the end of the legislation session — but it foreshadows the challenges that rural districts and state officials will have to confront in the near future as student populations dwindle.
Eight other K-12 Kansas public school districts have fewer than 100 students. Another 28 districts have fewer than 200 students. The state has no blueprint for dealing with the declining student enrollment.
 

Denver’s Board of Education voted unanimously Thursday evening to pass a policy on school consolidation and closures, paving the way for Superintendent Alex Marrero to again recommend school closures to combat declining enrollment.

The policy comes as Denver Public Schools, the state’s largest district, projects 6,338 fewer children will attend its schools within the next five years, with K-12 enrollment expected to reach 69,819 pupils during the 2028-29 academic year, according to the presentation DPS officials gave the school board earlier in the week.

Marrero on Thursday referred to potential school closures as “right-sizing” the school district.

The school board’s policy sets guidelines for Marrero to use should he propose another round of school closures. The previous school board was reluctant to close schools when Marrero first suggested shuttering 10 schools almost two years ago, but eventually voted in 2023 to close three schools because of low enrollment.

Under the policy, schools of any size are eligible for consolidation or closure — not just those with low enrollment.

An interactive website that gave families crucial information about the physical condition of Philadelphia public schools went down last month.
The site contained data on 211 schools, more than two-thirds of which were found to be in “unsatisfactory” or “poor” condition, according to a previous analysis by the Logan Center. Parents could use the site to see the results of their school’s latest inspection and which aspects of the school were in the best and worst shape.
The district is currently developing a “warehouse” for data on all schools’ academics, environments, educational suitability, safety, maintenance, and enrollment, among other data points, said Alexandra Coppadge, the district’s head of communications. They anticipate it to be completed by December.
The website going down “is deeply problematic,” said City Councilmember Nina Ahmad, a member of the Education Committee. “This lack of information is very disempowering, and I think our constituents just feel like, what is going on?”
 

There’s a lot of work to be done on Guam Department of Education school facilities, but as of Thursday, depending on who you asked, some repair projects were still stuck between the governor’s office and the Office of the Attorney General.

"The refurbishment project seems to be in a critical phase, with essential documents currently under review by the attorney general and the governor. It's clear that the ongoing conflict and uncertainties are causing delays, which in turn affects the timeline of the project's completion,” GDOE Superintendent Kenneth Erik Swanson told The Guam Daily Post on Thursday.

GDOE is one of the agencies that has been caught in the middle of an ongoing dispute between the AG and the Office of the Governor over the AG’s duties as they pertain to legal representation of government agencies.

Voters in Warwick approved $350 million in bonds in 2022 to replace Toll Gate and Pilgrim High Schools, but rising construction costs are impacting the price tags.

"We have had to make some alterations so that way we can get those schools done within the $350 million price point," said Warwick School Committee Member Shaun Galligan. He added, "For Toll Gate, we had to change up the initial design to minimize the excavation costs, so we had to follow the lay of the land over on that side of the city."

In November of 2022, voters approved a bond measure to build two new high schools on the fields of the existing schools.

Since then, construction costs have spiked across the nation.

The USD 253 Board of Education approved an emergency maintenance purchase after a recent condenser failure at Logan Elementary during a meeting Wednesday evening.

Superintendent Allison Anderson-Harder said a twenty-ton condenser unit had multiple parts fail at Logan Avenue recently. As the condenser unit is over 30 years old, parts have become difficult and expensive to find, and in some cases, would have to be machined specifically for the application.

Replacing the condenser would include a 21-week lead time, meaning that the work would not be completed until October, long after the school year resumes in August. Instead, the board approved replacing the condenser and the air handler with heating capability while cutting the lead time down to under eleven weeks for $137,699

The members of the Guilford County Board of Education weren’t happy at all with the amount of money Guilford County Manager Mike Halford proposed for Guilford County Schools in his recommended 2024-2025 fiscal county budget.

 It was $47 million shy of what school officials had asked the county for, so, at a Tuesday, June 11 work session in the Old Guilford County Court House, school leaders explained to the commissioners why they needed more money for both ongoing operations and school maintenance.

Just last week, in a lengthy public hearing, school staff, students and school advocates made the case passionately to commissioners that the county’s school system needs more money – however, the cozier, more relaxed June 11 work session allowed school leaders their chance to make a final plea to the commissioners in an afternoon work session.

Usually, the school officials spend this final school/commissioner work session each year making their case for more money for school operations – and they did that this year too. They spoke of a need to increase salaries to retain teachers and also a need for more pay for “classified workers” such as bus drivers, cafeteria staff and janitors, among other operations’ needs.

Classes at a small West Virginia school will be relocated this fall, two years after the town's contaminated groundwater was added to a national cleanup priority list.

Wetzel County Schools Superintendent Cassandra R. Porter announced the move Tuesday for students, faculty and staff at Paden City High School. They will relocate to existing schools in nearby New Martinsville when classes resume in August.

“A safe learning environment for our students is fundamental and imperative,” Porter said in a letter to faculty and staff.

In March 2022, federal environmental officials placed Paden City’s groundwater on the list of Superfund cleanup sites. Untreated groundwater contained the solvent tetrachloroethylene at levels higher than the federally allowed limit.

Tetrachloroethylene is widely used by dry cleaners. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said the contaminated area is around the site of a dry cleaner that closed more than two decades ago in the Ohio River town of about 2,500 residents.

According to the EPA, tetrachloroethylene is a likely carcinogen and can harm the nervous system, liver, kidneys and reproductive system.

Anchorage School District officials and local elected leaders broke ground at Inlet View Elementary School on Monday before a crowd of dozens of teachers, students and neighbors.

A new school will be built over the next year and a half alongside the existing building in South Addition. Supporters of the project, including Inlet View parent and teacher Beth Daly-Gamble, say the upgrade is vital. The current school, built in 1957, is overcrowded and old.

“The rooms are small, we have tiles coming up from the floor all the time,” Daly-Gamble said. ”We call building maintenance probably every single day from things that are falling apart and our sewage backed up two years ago into the playground area, and sat like that for a while.”

The school also does not have a sprinkler system or a separate cafeteria. Students eating lunch share a room with other students taking gym class.

The new school will have more space.