Helena voters appear to have narrowly approved $283 million in bonds by fewer than 400 votes after early results showed the efforts failing. 

Lewis and Clark County election officials said midday Wednesday that they had counted all but a handful of votes. A tally the office provided then indicated the Helena School District’s $240 million high school bond was passing by a 361-vote margin and the $43 million elementary school bond was passing by a 382-vote margin. Nearly 22,000 votes were cast.

While the bonds will pay for the renovation of Capital High School and the new versions of Helena High and Kessler Elementary School — impacting about 2,660 students — it will also mean additional taxes on the homes that house Helena’s 32,000 residents.

Lynchburg City School leaders have presented a plan on how they will utilize $60 million in capital improvement funds to help better the buildings where their students learn and their teachers work.
Both the Lynchburg City School Board and city council held their first official joint meeting Tuesday evening at their IT Conference Center. LCS Superintendent Dr. Kristy Somerville-Midgette spoke about her plans for the division's strategic plan and use of the capital improvement money.
The superintendent said the board is placing bids out for a company to help them address the strategic plan, as their previous one is now outdated.
"We want to make sure we have the right company here to make sure we can address our goals for all students and also follow the Virginia State Code," Dr. Somerville-Midgette said.
Before moving into the $60 million capital improvement plan, Dr. Somerville-Midgette explained that the work done to help ensure her students and staff had a safe and operable place to learn and grow was admirable.

MONTANA - Rural schools in Montana continue to grapple with funding needs despite the release of federal Title funds earlier this summer. Superintendents acknowledge the assistance but emphasize that the financial boost does not address all ongoing challenges.
Les Meyer, Superintendent of Frenchtown School District, highlighted the primary concerns. "Probably the biggest thing is our people and then and our buildings and infrastructure. It those two things is where we would have our biggest concern. You're going to have to provide, you know, student services. You have to provide curriculum, you got to provide support services. So all of that is encompassed into our people in our building," said Meyer.
Frenchtown faced staffing shortages at the start of the year, with 19 staff members retiring or resigning. Hiring for roles like custodians and bus drivers is still ongoing. In Glasgow, the return of Title funds helped maintain the budget, but aging infrastructure remains a significant issue.
Brenner Flaten, Superintendent of Glasgow School District, expressed concerns over their facilities. "The high school building opened in 1969. And our middle school is even older than that by about almost ten years. I think that's probably one of the biggest things that Montana is focusing on right now is what are we going to do about our infrastructure," said Flaten.
 

Community members in the Seneca Valley School District are speaking out against proposed renovation plans for the district's intermediate school.
The district says it weighed five options for renovations at the intermediate school and their top choice includes a partial building renovation, additions, and a connection to the senior high school.
The renovation plans cost could come at a cost of more than $165 million.
District leaders say they're considering an 11 mill tax increase over the next two years.
Members of the community had a chance to share their concerns at a public hearing on Monday evening.
"Taxpayers have been footing the bill for years," one person said. "Adding to that school, this school, then this other school. You keep adding. It's never ending."
"You have to look at the people that are in this town that are on a fixed income," another person said. "There's gotta be other options than spending that much money."
The district argues that the renovations are needed to improve outdated facilities in a fast growing school district.
The building was built in 1964 with limited renovations in 1991, 1996, and 2001.
 

HOLYOKE — During the Aug. 27 Massachusetts School Building Authority Board meeting, the Board of Directors approved up to $46 million for 10 Accelerated Repair Projects for schools in seven districts, including three projects in Holyoke.

According to MSBA, the accelerated repair program “focuses on the preservation of existing assets by performing energy-efficient and cost-saving upgrades, which will result in direct operational savings for school districts.”

It is offered by the state for specific work on windows, exterior doors and roofs.

The main goals of the Accelerated Repair Program are to improve learning environments for children and teachers, reduce energy use and generate cost savings for districts.

State Treasurer Deborah B. Goldberg, MSBA chair, explained, “The Accelerated Repair Program allows us to make critical repairs to more schools in less time. By improving the learning environment for our children, the program also makes schools more energy efficient and generates significant cost savings.”

As the Edmonds School District opened its doors to students last week, multiple water fountains and sinks were still out of use.

That’s because these water sources tested above state standards for lead earlier this year. At numerous locations throughout the area, measurements were dozens of times higher than the level permitted in public schools, or 5 parts per billion (ppb).

The school district’s experience underscores how a building’s plumbing and fixtures can leach harmful substances into the water, even in places like Edmonds where the water supply itself passes safety standards. Despite significant nationwide progress, lead in the water should be on the radar of people concerned with their health, experts say.

“Even very small increases in blood lead levels can result in serious harm,” said Dr. Bruce Lanphear, a professor at Simon Fraser University, who researches lead poisoning and early childhood health. “We should be treating water lead levels above 5 ppb as an urgent problem that needs to be dealt with.”

The Edmonds School District is following state health guidance and replacing plumbing and faucet parts in the locations that exceeded the standard. But that may not be enough to ensure lead-free water, national lead experts say. That’s because simply fixing one component in complex piping can lead to a “whack a mole” approach, leaving the door open for future exposure.

A suburban Pennsylvania K-12 school served its community faithfully for decades. From the ground, its brick façade appeared solid and well-maintained, but when facilities managers noticed some surface cracking, they took the proactive step of commissioning a comprehensive façade assessment. The evaluation revealed that extensive shifting had occurred over time, a common issue with buildings from that era where two factors often converge: the natural corrosion of steel components and archaic construction methods that didn't fully account for differential material movement.

This scenario illustrates both a challenge and an opportunity facing educational facility managers today. While campuses may appear stable on the surface, building systems naturally evolve over time, and proactive assessment can identify developing issues before they become expensive emergencies. The question isn't whether aging educational facilities need attention. It's how institutions can transition from costly reactive maintenance to strategic asset management in a way that protects both budgets and communities.

After past programmatic moves that it acknowledged can disrupt student learning, The New School of Montpelier is setting down solid roots on the college green in Montpelier. 
With last year’s purchase of Bishop-Hatch Hall at 41 College Street and Alumnx Hall at 45 College Street from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, The New School can create “stable places” for students, according to Elias Gardener, the school’s executive director. 
Gardener noted that The New School’s students “often are diagnosed with autism or have experienced trauma and are extremely dependent on predictable consistency.” 
The New School of Montpelier, a worker co-operative, is a Vermont Therapeutic School approved by the State Board of Education, Gardener said, with its tuition set by the Vermont Agency of Education. The school was founded in 2005 for 16 children with “complex challenges in central Vermont foster care homes,” whose educational needs the local public schools could not meet. “All of our students receive special education services identified on Individual Education Programs and placed by public schools.” 
 

Over 50 Indianapolis charter and private schools have applied to share transportation and school building resources as part of a new pilot program.

The application submitted to the Indiana Department of Education is from TogetherEd, an Indianapolis-based nonprofit that assists charter schools. It lists a collective of 28 independent charter schools and 22 charters affiliated with the IPS Innovation Network as applicants, as well as the Oak Academy’s three private school campuses.

The pilot is supposed to help charters tackle some of their biggest challenges as they have grown in Indianapolis. As smaller entities, they have limited purchasing power for services such as transportation. And with historically limited access to property tax funding, they have frequently struggled to acquire and maintain building space.

Schools and school districts can opt into the pilot, which is statewide, to create independent boards that oversee school facilities and transportation across all pilot participants.

As part of the facility pilot, the schools would explore creating a catalog that tracks all available facilities across school partners, according to TogetherEd’s application. They would also consider coordinating the procurement of services and equipment — such as furniture, HVAC systems, and lab supplies — on behalf of multiple schools for potential cost savings through shared purchasing power.

Comstock Park — As sophomore Violet Swartz looked around the newly renovated high school cafeteria during the first week back to school, she noted that the use of the school’s signature green brought the space together and made it feel cleaner and more welcoming.

“I love the floor options,” she said. “You have four-person tables and you have tables for bigger groups.”

The cafeteria is just one of Comstock Park’s completed projects from a $59.46 million bond approved by voters in 2023. The projects included the renovation of Stoney Creek, the district’s oldest building, and new technology in every classroom across the district. 

“I am super-excited to share our new high school kitchen, serving area and café with all of our students,” said Melissa Alley, Comstock Park’s food service director. “These updates give us the opportunity to serve more options and showcase the great meals we prepare, including even more fresh fruits and vegetables.”

Five years after voters approved a bond measure to fund renovations for schools in Tacoma, and two years after breaking ground on the project, class at Oakland High School is now back in session – now, as Oakland Secondary School. The school at 3319 South Adams St. was built back in 1912, first as an elementary school that eventually transitioned to a high school. Over 100 years later, the building was in need of repair as high school students struggled to use an aging facility initially designed for much younger students.
Voters in 2020 approved a $535 million school bond that could be put toward school building renovation projects for seven schools, and Oakland was the oldest school and only high school on the list, The News Tribune previously reported. After breaking ground on the project in 2023 and after temporarily holding class in an elementary school in Tacoma’s McKinley neighborhood in the meantime, hundreds of students have finally returned to the school’s original location, and principal Shaun Martin said he’s seen how excited they are to be in a brand-new space. Few current Oakland students had the experience of attending class at the location prior to the renovation, Martin said. He did meet several parents on the first day of school, Sept. 3, who had themselves attended the school, and were excited to see the changes.
 

On June 27, 2025, Assembly Bill (AB) 121 went into effect, amending Government Code section 66007.  The same statute was amended earlier this year by Senate Bill (SB) 937, requiring collection of developer fees at the final inspection stage of development (i.e., at the time a certificate occupancy is issued) for certain residential development projects.  Among other exceptions and nuances, SB 937 allowed collection of impact fees for school facilities at the earlier permit stage, but only if the school district has adopted a five-year facilities master plan pursuant to an outdated procedure under a State program that is no longer being utilized.  AB 121 clarifies this exception by instead tying the facilities master plan requirement to the State’s current School Facility Program.

Background
The Mitigation Fee Act permits a local agency, including a school district, to charge fees “as a condition of approval of a development project” to address the impact of new development on the agency.  The Mitigation Fee Act generally requires public agencies to wait to collect those fees until the date of the final inspection or the issuance of the certificate of occupancy.  However, the Education Code allows earlier collection of school impact fees; in fact, cities and counties are prohibited from issuing a building permit without certification that school impact fees have been paid.  As such, school districts have traditionally collected fees at the building permit stage, rather than the final inspection stage of development.

The Maine Department of Education (DOE) has a proposed list of 95 school construction projects needed throughout the state, and the Dike-Newell School sits at the top of the list.
"Over half of the school is needing to be demolished," RSU1 Superintendent Patrick Manuel said, explaining the problems with the building after it was badly damaged by an arson fire in 2022. "There were deficiencies at the school to begin with, though it was ranked 50 the last time that we applied."
Below this school on the list are schools in St. Agatha, Old Orchard Beach, Standish, and Carmel. The Maine DOE has been working on this list for 18 months, with a team of officials visiting schools across the state and ranking the schools based on how badly they need the state-funded project.
"There's some technical criteria about the building, how it's constructed, whether it's sprinkled, through structural issues," said Scott Brown, the director of school construction programs for the DOE. "There's an enrollment, overcrowding section, section that includes portables ... and so we use that data and that criteria to do evaluations of the application in each school."
 

Rep. Paul Tonko, D-N.Y., and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., on Wednesday reintroduced bipartisan legislation aimed at protecting students, teachers and others from poor indoor air quality by expanding the role of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 
The Indoor Air Quality and Healthy Schools Act, first introduced in July 2024, would require a nationwide assessment of indoor air quality in schools and childcare facilities and give schools and childcare centers tools to improve IAQ conditions. 
“No one should have to suffer the consequences of poor indoor air quality, least of all our kids and students seeking an education at school,” Tonko said a statement. “Our bipartisan Indoor Air Quality and Healthy Schools Act protects the health of our communities by establishing science-based guidelines and delivering effective tools and best practices to minimize indoor health risks.” 
The bill would update, expand and codify the work of EPA’s Indoor Environments Division and direct the agency to develop and recognize one or more voluntary certifications for buildings designed, operated and maintained to prevent or minimize indoor air health risks. 
 

A Rogers public school that recently reopened after being damaged by severe weather last year received a $20,000 grant Thursday to restock the library’s Spanish-language books lost in the storm. 

Greer Lingle Middle School sustained around $18 million in damage following fatal storms that spawned multiple tornadoes across north Arkansas during the 2024 Memorial Day weekend, according to Jason Ivester, communications director for the Rogers School District. Students were relocated to temporary classroom trailers on another campus for the 2024-2025 academic year before being welcomed back to the renovated campus in August. 

Most of the district’s buildings had debris around them and no power immediately following the storm, Ivester told the Advocate last year. The schools that took the most damage were Northside Elementary, Westside Elementary and Lingle, he said. The disaster had a “damaging impact” on students and their families, but adversity pulls people together, Lingle Principal Erik Sokol said.

“I would never want to go through it again, but I have a different level of gratitude and appreciation for our students and their families and our community and what we’ve been able to persevere through, and we had an outstanding year,” Sokol said.

Atlanta Public Schools (APS) is considering closing or repurposing some of its buildings — and it wants your input.
District leadership says 50,000 students are enrolled in its schools, though its budget is meant to accommodate 70,000 students.
“The 50,000 is with charter, and so you can almost take the 10,000 [charter students] out because they’re in other seats. We’re between 20-30,000 empty seats across the district. And so that’s just inefficient, and we would like the dollars to go to students and not buildings,” said Tracy Richter, vice president of planning services at HPM, a firm hired by APS to oversee the redistricting process.
Richter hosted one of several public meetings on Thursday to allow parents to weigh in on their students’ futures. He said the district is being forced to look at possibly closing some schools and repurposing some of the buildings.
Superintendent Dr. Bryan Johnson told a group during an Aug. 29 meeting that he knows the possibility of changing where your children go to school is not an easy conversation to have.
“I want to be clear that nothing has been decided,” he said. “We know this is a very difficult, frankly, conversation. I want to be clear, [it’s] not one that I want to have, but one that we responsibly have to have.”
 

Oakwood Schools is headed in a new direction with a possible expansion of its building renovation and upgrade plans.
“We are pivoting, not pausing,” Superintendent Neil Gupta said. “Our facilities planning work is still moving forward on a new track, and because of unexpected news from the state, we now have an opportunity to potentially do more than originally planned.”
Voters in May strongly backed a 4.75-mill, 33-year bond issue to make a significant investment in the district’s educational facilities.
The initial plan for the second phase of Oakwood City School District’s master facilities plan called for 85% of the $40 million bond to cover renovations at Harman and Smith elementary schools. The rest would go toward targeted projects at Oakwood High School/Junior High School and Lange School.
However, the district has not yet issued the bonds after receiving word over the summer from the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission that Oakwood would be eligible in 2026 — five years early — to receive a 29% state share of eligible project costs.
 

In early June, the Richmond School Board was presented with five different repurposing ideas for the Clark Springs Elementary School building, right before students and staff were set to vacate the building and move into the fully restored Fox Elementary School. 

But at Tuesday’s School Board meeting, the RPS administration offered a new recommendation: temporarily doing nothing with it. 

The building, like many other properties in the division, is in need of maintenance upgrades. Superintendent Jason Kamras told Board members the building requires a new HVAC system, and likely require asbestos abatement during that process. 

Those changes would cost the division $4 million, more than double the district’s budget for maintenance this year.

“I cannot in good conscience recommend to the board that we spend $4 million on a facility that does not currently have students and staff,” he said.

Although the Board was not voting on what to do with the building, members made their opposition to Kamras’ mothballing recommendation clear. 

Over the past few months, the Twin Falls School District has been busy upgrading multiple schools with millions of dollars in upgrades.
“When you’re a student in a classroom and its 95 degrees it’s kind of difficult to learn in those conditions,” said Superintendent Brady Dickinson.
Dickinson said Harrison and Morningside Elementary Schools both had failing roofs and the worst heating and cooling systems in the district, which is why they were the first on the list.
“Those were started here this last spring, and now we’re bring on Lincoln Elementary and so work is going to be going here right now and then next year we’ll be attacking Robert Stewart which will be the largest of the projects we will complete,” Dickinson said.
Canyon Ridge High and Perrine Elementary also got new roofs, and Perrine will get AC units until its new HVAC system is installed next year.
“Most of our schools in need were built in the 1950’s, 60s or before that. So, when they were constructed, it was a time before modern HVAC systems were being utilized,” Dickinson said.
“So, you’re talking about substantial upgrades to be able to add modern HVAC and so these are going to take us a few years to complete so we are going through a cycle where the systems are the closest to the end of, they’re life cycle are being replaced first,” Dickinson said.
Superintendent Dickinson said eight schools will undergo renovations. These improvements, which total almost $36 million, are funded by the school modernization fund.
 

South Carolina lawmakers are considering legislation to repurpose vacant and unused school buildings across the state, saying the properties could help drive economic development and provide new services in rural areas.
At a recent committee meeting, lawmakers discussed paving a path for these properties to be transformed.
Many districts own old school buildings that have sat empty for years. The proposal would require districts to report all unused properties, giving the state a comprehensive list. Lawmakers say selling or repurposing the buildings could help fund new school construction while also benefiting communities.
“The buildings that could be repurposed in these rural communities that were the old school houses can now be, even if it's just a couple days a week, a medical access where public-private partnership perhaps could be sought after to help bring access into these healthcare access to these rural areas,” said Rep. Mark Smith, R-Charleston.