After months of debate, Dearborn Public Schools is going all-in on a $1.5 billion bond request on the November ballot.

The money would be used to build several new schools and add onto and renovate existing ones. The bond would be for 30 years, but the four-phase construction plan would take 20 years.

Mike Esseily, the district's new superintendent as of July 1, called the bond a "massive opportunity" for students but also the Dearborn community.

"You're practically getting a brand new district at the end of this," he said.

The Interim Joint Committee on Appropriations and Revenue said in a meeting Wednesday that it examined Kentucky’s school construction funding system as lawmakers look for ways to control rising costs that have stalled projects across the state.

Committee members heard from the Kentucky Department of Education and the School Facilities Construction Commission about how the state plans, finances and prioritizes construction projects. The SFCC provides an equitable distribution of state funding for school construction and technology based on the unmet needs of Kentucky’s 171 school districts.

From a new national governance framework to enterprise-scale rollouts in some of the nation's largest school systems, districts increasingly focused on stewardship, sustainability, and accountability in the management of public facilities.

LOS GATOS, Calif., July 1, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- For decades, many school districts treated community use of public school facilities as a largely administrative function governed by policies written years, or even decades, earlier. During the 2025–26 school year, that began to change.

Henrico County employees, including school staff, have reportedly been asked to conserve electricity after the Virginia county, home to multiple data centers, said its power costs for government and school facilities would rise by nearly 25 percent starting July 1, adding an estimated $5 million in the next fiscal year.

County Manager John Vithoulkas told employees in a June 26 email that the rate paid for electricity “will increase dramatically” and that the county anticipates additional increases “in the years ahead,” according to 404 Media and the Henrico Citizen.

WASHINGTON, June 30, 2026 /3BL/ – Five leading national organizations announced today they are joining forces to convene the Healthy Schools for Healthy Kids Summit, a first-of-its-kind national gathering focused on advancing a health-first vision for America’s schools.

Should California spend nearly $200 million helping public schools install healthier and more efficient heating, ventilation, air-conditioning, and plumbing systems? Or should it send the money back to the state’s biggest utilities so their customers can pay roughly a dollar less on their monthly bills over the course of a single year?

That’s the choice that California lawmakers must make in the coming months.

The next State Superintendent of Public Instruction won’t be managing the California Department of Education anymore.

The department’s control will shift in January to a new Director of Education, who will report to the governor, under a deal announced Friday as part of budget negotiations between legislative leaders and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

For seven years, Kelly McCue has taught kindergarten at C.C. Meneley Elementary School — the same school where she once walked the halls as a kindergartener herself. 

Now, she's preparing to say goodbye.

During a June 4 farewell carnival organized by the Gardnerville school's Parent-Teacher Organization, McCue joined families, students and former classmates in marking the school's final weeks before closure.

In an interview with The Nevada Independent, McCue said the moment was deeply personal.

"This place feels like a second home to me," she said. "The idea of it closing is heartbreaking."

The South Dakota Attorney General’s Office has issued an official opinion clarifying that public school districts must follow state competitive bidding and design-build procurement laws when entering into construction contracts valued at $100,000 or more. The opinion explains that districts may not use cooperative purchasing organizations to bypass these statutory requirements.

Thousands of New York City students have helped remake their drab asphalt schoolyards into vibrant, green spaces that they actually want to play in over the summer.

The students acted as junior landscape architects. Through a hands-on design process, they made up wish lists — with wants like a swimming pool, chocolate fountain, merry-go-round and koi pond — and whittled them down to what was realistic. They measured and mapped out their play areas and incorporated feedback from teachers, parents and neighbors, who all voted on the final design.

(Anchorage, AK) – Wednesday Governor Mike Dunleavy signed the State of Alaska Fiscal Year 2027 budget into law, providing needed investments in school infrastructure and additional funding to districts to offset increased energy and related costs.

CHARLESTON – West Virginia has lost the enrollment equivalent of six full counties in a single year, a crisis state Board of Education President Paul Hardesty warns will lead to financial disaster unless state leaders modernize the school aid formula.
In a conference call Wednesday morning, Hardesty said continuing declines in student enrollment, an antiquated school aid formula, and an increase in the number and costs of special education students has accelerated the closure of schools and other hard financial decisions in counties.
 

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WCHS) — State education officials released numbers Wednesday suggesting more public school closures are on the horizon as enrollment numbers continue to decline in West Virginia.

An estimated 5,000 students left public schools during the 2025-26 academic year statewide, according to a statement from the West Virginia Department of Education.

The statement said those numbers indicate at least 8-to-10 schools will shutter by the end of the next school year.

If the Idaho Legislature follows Scott Herndon’s plan for eliminating property taxes, public schools would miss out on over $400 million.

Herndon, who in May won his primary election against Sen. Jim Woodward, R-Sagle, said he wants to get back to the founders’ original vision for America: true private property ownership.

He led the charge at last weekend’s Idaho GOP state convention to add a plank to the party platform calling for the elimination of property taxes and a replacement with “revenue sources that do not place a lien on a citizen’s home.” 

The North Carolina General Assembly routinely enacts legislation—sometimes referred to as the “UNC Omnibus” bill—that amends statutes affecting the UNC System and authorizes financing for capital improvement projects within the UNC System. This year, the UNC Omnibus bill was introduced as House Bill 1123 and became law as Session Law 2026-9 (S.L. 2026-9) when Governor Stein signed it on June 19, 2026.

The law primarily addresses the UNC system, but also includes several changes to statutes governing public building construction that apply to local governments immediately. This blog post summarizes the key changes that local governments need to know.

Texas public school enrollment dropped by nearly 76,000 students this year. Falling birth rates, regional demographic shifts, and the expansion of alternative education options are all contributing to the decline, with the new Education Savings Account (ESA) program poised to add further pressure. Districts are consolidating campuses, cutting programs, and reducing staff. These cost-saving measures will have lasting consequences for students, families, and communities.

The Texas House Committee on Public Education is now examining the issue through an interim charge on the state of public education with a focus on enrollment trends pertaining to the stability of the school finance system. The testimony heard during the committee's first interim hearing confirmed what many Texans already sense: We are at a crossroads.

Denver Public Schools is looking at what to do with some vacant school buildings. Due to declining enrollment and subsequent budget issues, the district closed or restructured 10 of its schools last year. Six buildings are now vacant, and there could be more in the near future.  

Rather than sell or let the buildings sit, they're coming up with different ways to keep and repurpose them. 

K-12 school districts are gaining access to a suite of tools for monitoring air quality and energy and water use at their schools in a program launched by technology company Attune.  
The company enlisted the help of the International WELL Building Institute, Center for Green Schools, Green Schools National Network and the 21st Century School Fund to select 14 school districts to receive its technology in a program it calls the Future-Ready Facilities Grant. 
The recipients get access to the company’s smart monitoring technology, data dashboards and implementation support, the company says.

More than a dozen Delaware public schools, mostly in New Castle County, are operating at less than 60% capacity, according to data from the Delaware Department of Education. 

Five of those are more than half empty.

The phenomenon of half-empty school buildings has prompted Delaware’s House Speaker Mimi Minor Brown (D-New Castle) to question whether they — or other underutilized government facilities — could be repurposed into different types of community facilities. 

Over the past five years, several Virginia localities have generated just $119 million total from a targeted sales tax to fund school construction and maintenance, fueling calls to expand the tax statewide.

When lawmakers first established the tax in 2021, a state survey showed over half of Virginia’s schools were more than 50 years old, with replacement costs in the billions.

House Education Committee Chair Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, said the totals further emphasize the need for the commonwealth to do more to address aging buildings.