An architectural report on the physical condition of the schools in the Harwood Unified Union School District is complete and school officials this week will begin reviewing its findings.
The report from Burlington architectural firm TruexCullins was requested to inform district leaders as they look to prioritize facility needs and maintenance projects, as well as their ongoing discussions over whether to consolidate the number of schools the district operates. In 45 slides, it details $45,354,980 in work needed across the district’s five elementary schools and Crossett Brook Middle School. An additional $73 million is noted for Harwood Union Middle/High School, as was determined in 2024. The overall pricetag for facility repairs and upgrades in the report totals $118,357,780.
The School Board’s Building Use and Visioning Committee will discuss the report when it meets on Wednesday, Sept. 30, at 6 p.m. on Zoom only. The meeting agenda includes the presentation slides from TruexCullins.
 

Due to the unprecedented flooding from Hurricane Helene in September 2024, four school buildings in western North Carolina flooded so severely that students were unable to immediately return to school.

Some schools closed temporarily and are back in their buildings, and some are still in transition while awaiting a more permanent home. EdNC spoke with each school district’s superintendent to learn about the status of the buildings and how their school communities look a year after Helene.

Henderson County
Atkinson Elementary School in Henderson County Public Schools (HCPS) is split by Perry Creek. The gym sits on one side of the creek, the school building on the other. Helene dumped 21.96 inches of rain in Hendersonville, the creek swelled, and both buildings took on two inches of water.

Dr. Mark Garrett, superintendent of HCPS, was no stranger to flooding before Helene. As a principal, he had dealt with water in schools, and during his tenure as the superintendent in McDowell County, he’d faced other natural disasters.

“I think the most challenging part of last year was just dealing with a disaster the magnitude of what we had,” Garrett said. “You sort of think, you know what may or may not be coming, but something of this magnitude — it’s really not anything you can be prepared for.”

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Florida’s Board of Education has voted to expand the reach of charter schools across the state, building on the "Schools of Hope" program created in 2017.
That program was originally designed to give families in struggling districts more options outside of failing schools.
The backstory:
This year, lawmakers loosened restrictions — allowing charter operators to expand beyond low-performing neighborhoods and even move into high-performing campuses if they have vacant or underused classrooms. The new rule also requires districts to hand over facilities rent-free, while providing utilities and support services.
Supporters, including Governor Ron DeSantis, say the change is about opportunity and competition.

Fort Wayne Community Schools will use about $545,000 in voter-approved funds to fix an ongoing facade issue at Wayne High School that leaders have delayed addressing until savings were available.
The district will also spend nearly $90,000 of its operations fund to address emergency projects at five schools and the transportation center following board approval Monday.
The problem at Wayne involves the exterior finish insulation system. It features an insulation board that is adhered to the building’s exterior and is covered by stucco, said Heather Krebs, facilities director.
It was popular in the 1980s and 1990s, she said, but moisture has become a problem with age.
Krebs told the board the issue was not included in Wayne’s recent renovation, which voters approved in spring 2020 as part of a $130 million referendum that also included major renovations to Blackhawk and Miami middle schools.
 

Just 20% of the state’s school buildings are in satisfactory shape or better, while the other 80% would need “repair, renovation or replacement” to get to that level, according to a report released Thursday.

The report from Comptroller Brooke Lierman said that the state needs to improve its school facilities if it wants to keep its reputation for top-ranked schools, but that doing so will require “a statewide reimagining of funding formulas and revenue streams.” The report did not make recommendations on that reimagining, however.

The report is part of the comptroller’s “State Spending Series” that assesses costs on various projects, impacts on the state and other economic factors. The first report, in March, focused on transit and the second, released in April, on climate change.

Amid significant drops in school enrollment, the Hawaiʻi Department of Education is considering redistricting as a solution to more equally distribute students across its 258 campuses. 

Earlier this year, the department announced plans to study closing and consolidating small elementary schools that may struggle to provide high-quality education or upkeep their facilities. The study was supposed to be completed within a year, with the Board of Education voting on which schools to close by spring 2026. 

But the department has changed its course and plans to consider redistricting schools instead of pursuing campus closures. Over the summer, principals and other school leaders urged the department to consider alternatives for filling unused campus space instead of studying consolidation, according to a recent memo from DOE Deputy Superintendent Tammi Oyadomari-Chun. 

The Milwaukee Public Schools Long-Range Facilities Master Plan will help the district provide the high-quality facilities our students need and our community deserves.  

Developing the master plan has been and will continue to be a community-driven process. Members of the Facilities Master Plan steering committee helped advance the work.  

Now, the district will be bringing the results of this work back to the broader community across all of Milwaukee. MPS will ensure that the plan continues to be centered on students, with equitable opportunities for all.   

Please watch for specific opportunities to learn more and get involved. 

WEST CHESTER, Ohio — A nearly $600 million overhaul of Lakota Local School District's future hangs on the will of voters in West Chester and Liberty Township to hike their own property taxes after the November election.
Treasurer Adam Zink and Superintendent Ashley Whitely spent Thursday evening laying out the plan in front of those potential voters at the West Chester Boys and Girls Club.
Many in the crowd of a couple dozen were wary to pay additional property tax in a time of widespread price increases.
"I'm not happy about it," said Carolynne Johnson who's lived next to Adena Elementary for 18 years.
Master Facilities Plan
Lakota Local Schools Master Facilities Plan
Photo by: Lakota Local School District
Lakota Local Schools Master Facilities Plan
By: Sean DeLancey
Posted 6:52 AM, Sep 16, 2025 and last updated 6:53 AM, Sep 16, 2025
WEST CHESTER, Ohio — A nearly $600 million overhaul of Lakota Local School District's future hangs on the will of voters in West Chester and Liberty Township to hike their own property taxes after the November election.
Treasurer Adam Zink and Superintendent Ashley Whitely spent Thursday evening laying out the plan in front of those potential voters at the West Chester Boys and Girls Club.
Many in the crowd of a couple dozen were wary to pay additional property tax in a time of widespread price increases.
"I'm not happy about it," said Carolynne Johnson who's lived next to Adena Elementary for 18 years.

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Adena is one of nine buildings to be leveled as part of the facilities plan, with six of the schools to be replaced by the construction of four new elementary schools.

Hopes are vanishing that significant savings can be realized from the three major high school modernization projects set to begin next year in Portland, according to a new set of cost estimates headed to school board members Tuesday.

Rebuilding Cleveland High in Southeast Portland, Jefferson High School in North Portland and Wells High in Southwest Portland is now estimated to cost nearly $1.4 billion.

Concerned about the price tag, school board members last winter ordered a “pause” in the design process to explore cost-saving measures. Subsequent design reductions did produce some savings by cutting square footage in all three buildings, newly updated documents show. But that was offset by costs incurred by the redesign process, along with the rise in the estimated prices of goods and materials as the months went by.

Months before the long-awaited, brand new Rainier Beach High School opened to students last April, engineers on the $297-million project reported problems with the building’s foundation to the city, records show. The school was settling into the earth more than expected in areas, as much as three inches, and it hadn’t stopped sinking.

“The project is on fairly porous ground, and it did settle more than they expected,” said Tina Christiansen, Seattle Public Schools capital projects spokesperson.

Shortly before the building opened, “it was determined that settlement had stopped,” Christiansen said, and builders dealt with the uneven settlement by releveling the top of the concrete foundation.

While excessive or uneven settlement rarely poses an immediate safety risk, it can require costly remediation, and repairs to elements like cracked walls and floors. The risks depend on factors including the cause and extent of the settlement, said Brett Maurer, a civil engineering professor at the University of Washington.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — More than 30 county school systems hope to have their names called when the West Virginia School Building Authority decides later this year who should receive funding as part of the ‘Needs” grants program.
The SBA annually allocates several millions of dollars for new school construction or renovations to existing schools. The SBA’s deadline to submit was last Friday, SBA Executive Director Andy Neptune said.
“We have 32 county requests at over a $170 million with about $40 million of all the locals combined,” Neptune told MetroNews.
School superintendents from those 32 counties will make their cases before the SBA in meetings set for Nov. 3-4 in Charleston. The funding decisions will be announced Dec. 15.
Neptune said like many other yeas they have more requests that money to allocate.
 

Ensuring the safety of students, staff, and visitors to campuses has surged to the forefront of a national conversation in the wake of now three tragic school shooting events since the beginning of the 2025 academic year.

On Aug. 27, two children were killed and multiple people were injured in a shooting during a church service for students from Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis. On Sept. 10, a student shot and injured two teenagers, then took his own life, at Evergreen High School near Denver. And later that same day, a gunman shot and killed political activist Charlie Kirk during a campus event at Utah Valley University, where an estimated 3,000 students and visitors were in attendance.

The very next day after the Minneapolis school shooting, the South Carolina Department of Education announced that every public K-12 school in the state would be digitally mapped by a company called Critical Response Group (CRG) to help give first responders essential information needed to quickly and efficiently navigate campus buildings during emergency events.

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.

RIO RANCHO — More than a month into the new school year, a segment of Maggie Cordova Elementary School is without a fully functional air conditioning system, highlighting an issue that is under fresh examination from the school board.

Portable AC units were installed in two portable classrooms in the school until a purchase order arrives, according to a statement issued Thursday from Rio Rancho Public Schools. The district noted that the classrooms are "still relatively warm at times" even with the portable units in place.

"We appreciate the patience of our students, parents and staff, and want to assure those affected that our facilities officials are dedicated to continually ensuring that our schools are comfortable and safe places for our students to learn," RRPS said, adding that the elementary school's main building is not impacted.

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.
 

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.

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.”

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.
 

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.” 
 

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.