Idaho Republican leaders introduced a bill Thursday that would provide $1.5 billion in new funding over 10 years for school districts to repair and replace their aging and overcrowded school buildings — a proposal they said would mark the largest investment in school facilities in state history.
The bill would create the School Modernization Facilities Fund, which districts could use for construction and maintenance needs. It would also provide money through an existing fund to help school districts pay off their bonds and levies, which are used to finance school facilities and district operating costs.
School districts across Idaho have for decades faced challenges to fixing or replacing their aging, deteriorating schools and to building new ones to accommodate growth. Last year, an Idaho Statesman and ProPublica series showed how the state’s restrictive school funding policies and the Legislature’s reluctance to make significant investments in school facilities have challenged teachers and affected student learning. Some students have had to learn in schools with leaky ceilings, discolored water, failing plumbing and freezing classrooms.
During Gov. Brad Little’s State of the State address earlier this year, he announced he wanted to make funding for school facilities “priority No. 1.” He proposed putting $2 billion toward school facilities over 10 years, or $200 million per year.
 

The Paradise Valley Unified School District Governing Board approved on Thursday night to close three schools because of lack of enrollment.

The board voted 4-1 to eliminate Sunset Canyon Elementary, Desert Springs Preparatory and Vista Verde Middle School. The closures will happen for the 2024-2025 school year. The measure also includes redoing the boundaries for Desert Trails Elementary School and Sonoran Sky Elementary School. Hidden Hills Elementary was on the chopping block but the Governing Board voted against closing that school.

Here are the new proposed school changes:
Consolidate Sunset Canyon Elementary students with Eagle Ridge Elementary School
Consolidate Desert Springs Preparatory Elementary School with North Ranch Elementary School, Liberty Elementary School and Desert Shadows Elementary School
Consolidate Vista Verde Middle School students with Greenway Middle School and Sunrise Middle School
Proposed boundary changes:
Reboundary Desert Trails Elementary School east of 56th St. to Pinnacle Peak Preparatory (north of Deer Valley) and Grayhawk Elementary School (south of Deer Valley)
Reboundary Sonoran Sky Elementary School triangle west of Scottsdale Rd. to North Ranch Elementary School

WASHINGTON, D.C. (WFXR)—U.S. Senator Tim Kaine cosponsored a bill to improve public school infrastructure across the country.

The bill, ‘Rebuild America’s Schools Act,’ would help ensure school facilities are safe, healthy, and sustainable and offer positive learning environments for all students. School infrastructure projects developed through the bill would also create over two million jobs across America.

“Our students and educators deserve the safe, healthy, and up-to-date learning environments they need to succeed,” said Senator Kaine. “This bill will help make much-needed infrastructure upgrades to schools in Virginia while boosting our economy and creating millions of jobs.”

School districts can now access uncapped, noncompetitive and unlimited direct payment in lieu of federal tax credits to finance clean energy initiatives like solar panels, ground source heat pumps and electric buses. 

These investments can result in reduced costs and air pollution and provide resilient infrastructure, said those supportive of the new initiative. 

Known as the ”direct pay″ provision in the Inflation Reduction Act, the program allows tax-exempt entities like schools to receive tax-free cash payment for qualifying projects for the tax year their clean energy initiatives were put into service. This funding can be combined with other revenue sources, such as grants and utility rebates, and covers projects that began service after Jan. 1, 2023.

More than 100 schools in England with dangerous concrete will need to have blocks rebuilt or refurbished, the Government has announced.

The Department for Education (DfE) published a final list of 234 schools with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac) on Thursday.

They include 119 of schools where one or more buildings need to be rebuilt or refurbished through the Government’s School Rebuilding Programme.

A further 110 schools and colleges where the presence of Raac was found to be less extensive will receive a grant to help them remove the concrete.

Hundreds of schools and colleges in England have been identified as having the crumbly concrete in some areas of their buildings since the Government first raised the alarm in August last year about the risk of buildings collapsing.

The School Facilities Authority is in search of a new leader after its former executive director, Chad Farias, resigned from his position at the end of last month. 
SFA’s board appointed Riki Fujitani as interim executive director Tuesday. Fujitani previously served as director of the Office of Facilities and Operations’ auxiliary service branch within the Department of Education. 
Fujitani’s effective start date has yet to be determined, said SFA Board Chair Alan Oshima during Tuesday’s meeting. 
“There’s a huge amount of promise and money associated with the SFA at this moment that needs to be back on track as soon as possible,” Fujitani said following his appointment on Tuesday.  
When SFA was created in 2020, it was intended to oversee schools’ capital improvement projects. In a December interview, Farias said the agency has primarily focused on constructing projects for charter schools and the state’s public pre-kindergarten program so far. 
The agency had plans to take responsibility for all of the CIP funds allocated for public school facilities within the next two years, Farias said at the time. 
 

WASHINGTON, N.C. (WNCT) — In Beaufort County, the school system is moving forward with its plans to build a new school.

The Board of Education held a joint meeting with the county commissioners on Wednesday for the announcement. Beaufort County is getting a $42 million grant from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. They applied for the needs-based school grant back in December.

State Superintendent Catherine Truitt was in town on Wednesday, letting the district know they were awarded that grant. It will allow them to build a consolidated school in Washington. This will combine Eastern Elementary and John Cotten Tayloe, creating a pre-K through third-grade school.

“When I saw this application come across my desk, I saw the age of the buildings they are currently in and knew these kids were having to constantly transition between the two buildings,” said Truitt. “I thought to myself this was a special application.”

Beaufort County Superintendent Matthew Cheeseman said this new school will be safer for students with one entry point. It’ll also be a space where students can learn better.

“Going into a learning environment where one it’s all-inclusive inside of the same building, you don’t have to leave one building to go to another to the gym or restroom,” Cheeseman said. “To walk out of buildings that were built in the 1960s and really advance into today’s innovative society is going to be great.”

The Columbus Board of Education has appointed 28 people to a community task force that will make recommendations to the board in four months on which schools to close and consolidate.

Those appointed to the task force represent a cross-section of the community, and include the president of the Columbus teachers union, religious leaders, a Near East Side barber and community leader, representatives of Columbus City Council and Mayor Andrew Ginther, five students and even some nonresidents of the district.

The task force members the school board approved during its Tuesday meeting, in alphabetical order by last name, are:

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — Richmond Public Schools recently rolled out a new facility audit system and a newly proposed budget to help address significant maintenance concerns — but it’s possible the funding simply won’t be there.
From air conditioning to fire alarm issues — Several Richmond families have expressed concerns that their students’ classrooms are unsafe.
Richmond parent Adiel Chavarria, whose children attend Elizabeth Redd Elementary School, said his child became sick due to recent air conditioning problems.
“Kids and teachers stay in the school 100 degrees all day, all seasons,” Chavarria said.
However, Chavarria said Elizabeth Redd Elementary is not the only place he has heard of these concerns, with other schools throughout the city needing repairs.
“We have aging facilities — we’re just severely underfunded year over year,” said Dana Fox, Chief Operating Officer at Richmond Public Schools. “So it’s hard to stay ahead of it.”
 

Byron Center — Before her family moved to Byron Center in 2019, Christie Koester knew she wanted to get involved at the school her two children would attend. 

She planted her seeds of interest in Countryside Elementary’s school garden and volunteered her time to maintain it. In a few short years, her involvement blossomed into forming a horticulturist team of third- and fourth-graders to care for the garden. 

Now, Koester’s green thumb and grant-writing capabilities have helped Countryside receive more green, in the form of $1,700 from the Tanger Kids grant program. 

Funds from the “Growing our Garden, Our Kids and the Community” grant will go towards supplies and educational programs for Countryside’s garden, as well as seeds to continue growing garlic, radishes, pumpkins, potatoes, corn, tomatoes and other fruits and veggies. 

GIBSON CITY — While Jeremy Darnell was careful not to violate state election law by expressly advocating for the passage of a 1% sales tax to benefit his school district and others in Ford County, the superintendent of the Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley school district did paint a pretty picture of what a successful referendum in March could mean during his 19-minute talk Thursday to members of the Gibson Area Chamber of Commerce.

For example, Darnell mentioned the new state-of-the-art facilities built by school districts in other counties in East Central Illinois that have already passed a 1% county school facilities tax — the same tax that Ford County voters will be asked to authorize via a March 19 ballot question.

“When you look at small school districts that are very similar to us and you walk in (to their facilities), you can physically see (the difference),” Darnell told the couple of dozen local business leaders in attendance at Thursday’s chamber of commerce meeting at Mark’s on First in Gibson City. “Go to Westville. Go to Tolono Unity. Go to St. Joe. They’re building these complexes that are just ridiculous — because at some point with this money, you run out of places to spend it if you’re already in good (financial) shape.

“That’s one benefit we have: We’re in really good shape. Our facilities are strong. Can we do some other things that are really cool? Yes. … If we run out of ways to spend (the additional sales tax revenue) … and we can start doing some ‘wants’ instead of ‘needs,’ sure we will. Absolutely. It’s better for our kids.”

After an arctic blast plunged Central Texas into dangerous, subfreezing conditions in January, some parents were frustrated to learn of heating and plumbing issues at 39 Austin schools.
Austin Independent School District officials immediately sent employees to fix the problems once they were discovered, according to the district.
Administrators hope the $2.4 billion bond package that voters approved in 2022 will alleviate many of the issues that surfaced at Austin schools last month due to a combination of the subfreezing weather and aged infrastructure.
The arctic blast enveloped the Austin area Jan. 14-17. Most area students returned to class Jan. 16, a day after the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday.
Because the roads were largely clear of ice, the Austin district decided students should return, though with a two-hour delay. That decision came as schools across the state reported issues with busted pipes and heating equipment, including more than three dozen campuses in Austin.
The district found weather-related maintenance issues at 39 campuses, said Michael Mann, AISD's executive director of construction management. However, none of the issues was severe, he said.
 

On Sept. 29, Gabriel Fontes was on his way to teach 10th grade English when he was met with a river of sewage-infested stormwater at an intersection outside his school. Students and staff at Leaders High School in South Brooklyn were forced to wade through waves of knee-high dirty water to make it into the building.

“The water was brackish and things were floating in it,” Fontes recalled. “I didn’t think the conditions were safe so I spent the morning helping students get home.”

A flash flood that day caused 356 schools to experience flooding that required cleanup, according to the Department of Education (DOE). A citywide state of emergency was declared as half of the city’s subway lines shut down and Brooklyn, one of the hardest hit areas, accumulated more than seven inches of rain. 

FORT SMITH -- The Fort Smith School District plans to spend almost $23 million in the next six years to update district facilities.

Joseph Velasquez, district construction project manager, told board members Jan. 22 a new, six-year plan has to be submitted to the state every three years.

Superintendent Terry Morawski said the plan needs to be submitted, but the projects don't have to be completed according to the timeline, if at all, if the district changes its mind for some reason.

Velasquez said projects remaining in the 2023-24 school year include underground roof drainage at Peak Innovation Center for $250,000; an art space at Peak for $800,000; roof and HVAC replacement at Kimmons Middle School for $3 million; roof replacement at Southside High School for $2.8 million; and roof replacement at Chaffin Middle School for $1.7 million.

He said a lot of the planned roof projects will be covered by insurance funding due to hail damage, which is where the cost estimates originate. Velasquez said more definitive prices will be available when the contractors are hired.

In testimony provided to the state legislature’s Education Committee in recent weeks, the Department of Administrative Services has outlined eligible school building projects in Connecticut, including Priority List Projects in Bristol, Danbury, Hartford, Newington, Stamford and Waterford.  The committee meeting was held in advance of the start of the legislative session, which begins on Wednesday, February 7.

DAS Commissioner Michelle Gilman noted that “projects for three high schools, three elementary schools, two middle schools, two magnet schools, and one Pre-K school. Five are renovation projects, three are categorized as “Extension/Alteration” projects, two are new school projects, and one is categorized as the purchase of a facility.”

Gilman explained that the “proposed Priority List includes an estimated total project cost of $583,320,021. If the legislature and Governor approve, the State’s maximum grant amount for these projects would be $470,235,824. In addition, there are two requests for reauthorization with an estimated project costs of $41,086,326 and a potential grant change of $39,032,010, along with a request for forgiveness of the unpaid balance of a grant due to the State for $202,538.”

Close or keep open a community school? Pay millions or just thousands for repairs and renovations to keep schools going. Trust one consultant more than another, or yet a third analysis?

Those are some of the questions Regional School Unit 16 directors and residents have faced over the past 16 months after the furnace cracked at Minot Consolidated School in September 2022.

The problem ultimately prompted a broader look at not just the district’s three elementary schools in Poland, Mechanic Falls and Minot, but at the entire educational system, including facilities and goals, by citizens and educators alike.

But most dear to the hearts of many was a proposal to close Minot’s school in the immediate aftermath of the boiler break and to consolidate students in the two remaining schools as a long-term cost-saving solution. The plan would have caused the district to reconfigure its elementary education structure in the three towns.

Meanwhile, estimates to fix and perform necessary upgrades to the elementary schools ranged from thousands of dollars to millions, depending on the expert.

SULTAN — On a rainy day at Sultan Elementary School, the hot lunches turned cold.

Those meals were prepared in a tiny kitchen next to the gym. With no cafeteria seating, children at the school of nearly 700 students walked trays back to their classrooms to eat there. In the other half of the gym, separated by a curtain, a P.E. class went on, with about 15 kids shouting and giggling.

The only heat in the gym came from knee-high space heaters.

It was loud, crowded and cold.

Lunchtime is a window into a myriad of problems students deal with daily in the crowded school, where bathrooms are housed in trailers outdoors and whole grades attend class in 18 portables.

Sultan School District leaders believe a nearly $80 million bond measure on the ballot this month would solve problems in this school and others in the district. It will increase property taxes, making it a tough sell to some residents.

The V.I. Department of Education on Friday made public its ongoing efforts in a series of maintenance repairs and improvement projects across public schools in the St. Croix District.
These initiatives, which follow several student-led protests in September of last year, aim to enhance the learning environments by addressing the many deficiencies of the educational structures.
The projects, managed by the district's Operations, Facilities, and Maintenance Divisions, cover a wide range of improvements, according to D.O.E. — from essential maintenance to significant infrastructure upgrades.
 

EAST WENATCHEE — On Jan. 16, it was 58 degrees in Amelia Lehman’s classroom at Cascade Elementary School.
Lehman, who teaches fourth grade, said her students were bundled up in their winter coats as they sat in class. That week, it was too cold outside for Eastmont students to go outside for recess as a bitter cold froze North Central Washington. For kids at Cascade and Kenroy schools, they'd need to go outside anyway if they were going to the library or cafeteria.
Students and teachers at Lee and Rock Island Elementary Schools are familiar with heating and cooling issues. They’re also familiar with security concerns and maintenance problems.
Cascade, Kenroy, Lee and Rock Island are all named in a $117.1 million school construction bond that Eastmont modeled from the community input they gathered after a similar bond failed in 2022.
This bond aims to modernize Cascade, Kenroy and Lee, and construct a single point of entry and replace the roof and HVAC systems at Rock Island. The bond would also upgrade safety and security at all the other schools around the district.
In an attempt to learn more about the building conditions that would be addressed by the bond, NCWLIFE was granted access to all four schools over a several hour period and was given tours of each school.
Throughout the day, NCWLIFE learned about how the buildings are posing challenges to the students and staff inside.
 

SMITHFIELD – Classrooms with outdated furniture, windows and sills, asbestos floors, outdated restrooms and more issues were discussed during a tour of the Smithfield High School and Gallagher Middle School. The tour was meant to show town officials and the budget committee the problems that deferred maintenance causes.

Members of the School Committee, Town Council and department heads from the town and school district met Monday night to tour to identify things that need to get fixed in the next two to three years.

Both schools are plagued with similar issues, such as the need for modern furniture, new windows, and renovations to the intensive special education classrooms. School Committee Chairperson Richard Iannitelli said restrooms in each school are also a top priority.