ROCK HILL, S.C. (WBTV) -Thousands of students in Rock Hill Schools will be going to a new school soon.
The Rock Hill School Board decided to close three elementary schools within the district.
Rosewood, Belleview and Finley Road elementary schools will shut their doors at the end of the school year.
The school board says there are two reasons for it.
It will save the district $25 million.
The board says this move will help put other schools at a 75 percent to 85 percent capacity.
That reason is not enough for some parents and teachers.
Superintendent Bill Cook said this decision is two years in the making. The reason it did not happen sooner was COVID.
So what does this mean for your child?
It means that some students are going to get shifted for two reasons - either to make room or to go to a different school.
Rezoning lines have not been set yet, but when they are some people could be possibly affected.
Anyone who is will get a letter from the school.
Cook said the district will take care of every family that will have to move.
”We’re looking certainly forward to the opportunity to connect and form some new relationships, but for those who are impacted we recognize change is hard,” said Cook.
 

The Fayetteville City School System has been awarded a $5 million Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant to construct a tornado safe room on the Fayetteville High School campus, a facility that will be the first of its kind in Tennessee.

Over a year ago, city school system officials learned about the FEMA grant opportunity, brought to their attention by Eddie Keys, assistant principal at FHS. While facilities in other states have been constructed using the FEMA grant, none exist in Tennessee.

Eric Jones, facilities director, and Keys worked together under tight time constraints in making application for the tornado safe room with the deadline looming at the end of December 2019. Just recently, the school system was notified that the grant application has been approved, paving the way for the tornado safe room facility that will also house a new gymnasium for the high school.

CHESHIRE — The School Modernization Committee is polling residents on the condition of the town’s schools and a projected surge in enrollment.

“The objective of the survey is to gather perspectives from the residents...to gauge their ideas of what the schools are like now — and information on how they feel these buildings should be improved,” said Committee Chair Jen Bates.

The Center for Research & Public Policy, which is administering the survey, will call 400 randomly selected residents and conduct a 10-minute poll, according to an announcement released by Assistant Town Manager Arnett Talbot. Residents and business owners can also fill the survey out themselves online until Feb. 26 at 5 p.m. Links to the survey can be found at CheshireSMC.questionpro.com or the town homepage at cheshirect.org.

“The survey results will provide the School Modernization Committee vital information as it prepares final recommendations to the town,” Talbot’s announcement states. “The results of the survey, when completed, will be publicly shared and will be available on the town’s School Modernization Committee web site.”

The committee has examined 13 concepts to keep local schools up-to-date and has narrowed those down to two proposals focused on reducing the strain on the town’s four elementary schools as a large number of new students are projected to enter them over the next five years.

TRENTON — School funding is back before the state Supreme Court, which has been asked by the Education Law Center to order Gov. Phil Murphy and the Legislature to provide more money for school construction by the end of June.
School construction in the 31 mostly urban districts covered by the Abbott vs. Burke series of lawsuits must be paid for and managed by the state under a 1998 court ruling. The program is continuing some previously approved work but hasn’t had money to take on new projects in about six years.
The Education Law Center filed its most recent motion on Jan. 28.
“We’ve been trying to get the Murphy administration to step up and deal with this without having to get the court involved. Our preference would be to keep the court out of this,” said David Sciarra, the ELC’s executive director. “But to no avail. We’ve just been unable to get them to move on this, to kind of ask the Legislature for a specific amount of funding and put it on the table.”
“We’ve made every effort, is all I can say,” Sciarra said. “We’ve tried. We’ve bent over backwards to try to get cooperation from the administration, from the Legislature, and just have gotten nowhere. So, we’ve asked the court to step in.”
The law center went to the Supreme Court a year ago with a similar request, but it was dismissed as premature in anticipation that funds would be included in the 2021 state budget.
 

With preparations underway to reopen Clark County School District buildings for the first time since March, the district’s facilities are back in the spotlight.

Ranging in age from a few months to nearly 100 years old, the 400 buildings occupied by schools and other district operations have a $7.9 billion need for what the district calls “modernization, life cycle and equity updates,” that includes deferred regular maintenance.

By late 2019, they also amassed a backlog of around 15,000 maintenance requests for HVAC, plumbing and structural repairs and earned a stark warning from then-facilities chief David McKinnis that some were “dangerously close to imminent failure.”

COVID-19 has hastened that day of reckoning, as the health of school buildings will be critical to keeping students and staff safe and socially distanced when young students return to the classroom for the first time in nearly a year on March 1.

The school district says workers have been on campuses throughout building closures to reduce the maintenance backlog, keep up facilities and improve ventilation critical to mitigating the spread of airborne germs like the new coronavirus.

This ongoing work nearly has halved the maintenance backlog from 15,000 to 8,000 requests, according to the district’s current chief facilities officer, Jeff Wagner, who replaced McKinnis in 2020.

NEWCOMB — A column of concrete not more than 18 inches wide rises up the north side of Newcomb High School, serving as a buttress against a wall of aging brick to help keep it from collapsing.

Five years ago, school officials noticed the wall was separating from the rest of the building, and an engineer was hired to save it. The solution: Build the buttress and attach steel bolts to it from the wall for stabilization. The cost of the project was around $26,000.

Newcomb Principal Bill McLaughlin said the makeshift piece of engineering has served its purpose.

“I don’t think the state or the [state] regulatory commission would allow us to use it if it was unsafe,” McLaughlin said. “I think it meets the minimum specs and requirements for utilization.”

Such is life for schools in the Central Consolidated School District, which serves the communities of Kirtland, Shiprock and Newcomb. Candice Thompson, the district’s director of operations, said its capital budget of $3.1 million simply cannot cover all the construction and maintenance needs. The shortfall forces administrators to be creative in how they address those issues, she added.

“When we talk to our peers in the southeast corner of the state, and I tell them about our conditions, they’re like, ‘What?’ I tell them, ‘I’ll give you the nickel tour here, and you are going to be shocked,’ ” Thompson said.

Friendswood school officials recently received a pleasant surprise when the bonds voters approved in the November election not only sold at a lower interest rate than anticipated but at the lowest rate anybody had ever seen.
And that will result in a lower tax-rate increase for district residents than had been anticipated.
In a sale completed by an underwriting team led by Stifel, Nicolaus & Company Inc. near the end of January, the district sold $120,455,000 in bonds at an interest rate of 1.823483 percent. The bonds will provide the amount authorized in the election.
According to the finance team, this rate set a new low in the Texas market.
“I was ecstatic when I heard the final pricing of the bond in January,” Friendswood school board President Tony Hopkins said. “I knew that 1.82 percent for a 30-year bond was low, but had no idea it was the lowest priced Texas bond to date.”
 

SALT LAKE CITY — On Friday, state senators voted in favor of wrangling in what they say are unnecessarily high costs to build schools in Utah.
Senate Bill 131 aims to give taxpayers a better idea of how much it will cost to build a school, and perhaps, options for doing it cheaper. However, educators across the state say it’s a bad policy.
Two schools under construction now are slated to top over $120 million — each.
“People see that price sticker and their eyes pop open. 'How in the world is it this expensive?'” said Rusty Cannon, the vice president of Utah Taxpayer Association.
The cost to rebuild Skyline High in Salt Lake is estimated at $124 million. Cyprus High's rebuild in Magna is estimated to cost $147 million.
“We are building buildings to last 70 to 80 years and to meet the needs of future students down the road,” said Granite School District spokesman Ben Horsley.
Bill aims to curb rising cost of Utah schools
State senators voted in favor of wrangling in what they say are unnecessarily high costs to build schools in Utah on Friday.
By: Hailey HigginsPosted at 9:34 PM, Feb 05, 2021 and last updated 11:57 PM, Feb 05, 2021
SALT LAKE CITY — On Friday, state senators voted in favor of wrangling in what they say are unnecessarily high costs to build schools in Utah.
Senate Bill 131 aims to give taxpayers a better idea of how much it will cost to build a school, and perhaps, options for doing it cheaper. However, educators across the state say it’s a bad policy.
Two schools under construction now are slated to top over $120 million — each.
“People see that price sticker and their eyes pop open. 'How in the world is it this expensive?'” said Rusty Cannon, the vice president of Utah Taxpayer Association.
The cost to rebuild Skyline High in Salt Lake is estimated at $124 million. Cyprus High's rebuild in Magna is estimated to cost $147 million.
“We are building buildings to last 70 to 80 years and to meet the needs of future students down the road,” said Granite School District spokesman Ben Horsley.

In response to the significant rise in the price to build schools, Sen. Wayne Harper of Taylorsville introduced a bill Friday to update construction guidelines.
"Are we paying too much for schools? Are we building Taj Mahals?” Harper said.
The bill provisions would require the state board to develop a school “prototype” and publish a range of construction prices from prior years.
 

Ever since the pandemic closed the nation's schools in March 2020, there has been no official national source for understanding where schools have reopened, how many hours of live instruction students are getting online and just how unequal the access to learning has been over the past 11 months.

On Friday, the National Center for Education Statistics, at the U.S. Department of Education, announced a new survey to answer all these questions and more. The survey will be administered to approximately 7,000 nationally representative elementary and middle schools across the country. It follows an executive order from President Biden.

Schools will be surveyed on, among other things:

Whether they are fully remote, hybrid or fully in-person
How full-time, remote and hybrid enrollment varies by student race/ethnicity, income, English learner status and disability status
Attendance rates, whether online or in-person, and by each subgroup listed above
If hybrid, how often students are learning in person
If remote, how many hours of live instruction are offered
Whether certain students, such as younger students or those with disabilities, are being prioritized for in-person classes

PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Members of the Philadelphia teachers union aren’t convinced that school buildings are safe enough to reopen for hybrid in-person instruction later this month.
Teachers are scheduled to return to school buildings on Monday for training, ahead of the return of 9,000 pre-K through second-grade students on Feb. 22.
However, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers is taking advantage of a provision in its one-year contract that allows the union to submit disputes over building safety to an independent third party.
Superintendent William Hite said he was expecting the move by the union, but it should not affect the expected return of 2,000 teachers next week.
“Mediation will not delay the return of teachers on Monday,” he said. “It could possibly delay the return of students later, but it will not delay our expectations for teachers to be in classrooms.”

An increasing number of school district leaders are setting up creative partnerships to vaccinate teachers and staff—and now some are pressing local health officials to let them expand to the community at large.

Sprawl, gentrification, and cycles of disinvestment have led to markedly different access to drug stores, supermarkets, and medical facilities across the United States, but nearly all communities still have schools, the leaders note. Centrally located and often at walkable distances for most residents, schools have the potential to serve as powerful vaccination hubs.

It’s unclear how many of the nation’s school districts currently host on-site vaccinations. Partly that’s a function of how much vaccine each state has received and where teachers and other school personnel fall on their tiered plans for rolling out vaccinations.

But if the idea picks up traction, it could increase public confidence in the COVID-19 vaccines and potentially also help prioritize communities that have been hardest hit by the virus—and face the most hurdles in access to vaccinations.

“What’s the one thing more Americans do together every year than anything else? Vote. And where do most people vote? At schools,” noted Austin Beutner, the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, who is pushing hard to situate vaccination clinics in some of its more than 1,000 schools. “We’re in the neighborhood. We’re the only civic institution that, by design, is located in communities. Even McDonald’s can’t get the real estate we get.”

Residents of the tiny city of Cudahy, California, located in the industrial southeast of Los Angeles County, are suing to prevent a large charter school from being built on what they claim is toxic land without a proper environmental review. At issue are a state law allowing different building standards for different types of schools, and a planning code, obscure to most local residents, that allows a charter school company to build a new school without thoroughly cleaning up the site’s alleged toxins.

Using a process that allows the company to skirt state environmental rules, KIPP SoCal Public Schools plans to build a new elementary school on land that its own reports show contains toxic substances including lead and arsenic. The company can do that because the regulations for building or renovating charter and private schools are less restrictive than for state-funded district schools, and because Cudahy has, according to critics and plaintiffs in a lawsuit, used the wrong planning code to approve the project.

U.S. school districts are struggling to fund infrastructure needs. Newsy follows one school in Michigan as it tries to rebuild after a roof collapse.

BURLINGTON, N.C. —
The McCray Schoolhouse could be mistaken for a forgettable one-room house on Highway 62 in Burlington. But for anyone who knows the more than a century's worth of history contained inside, it is anything but forgettable.
“The school was built sometime between 1915 and 1919,” said Patsy Simpson, an Alamance-Burlington school board representative.
McCray School educated African-American students until it closed in 1951.
Now, the school board has embarked on restoring the one-room schoolhouse.
"It’s going to be a community project," Simpson said. "One in which we want the community to come together to help raise funds to preserve it as well as those with the skills of renovation to help us."
 

RICHMOND — Isle of Wight could be the next county to raise its local sales tax to fund school construction as legislators continue to spar over how to fund desperately needed school projects.

The Virginia Senate approved a bill Wednesday afternoon in a 31-8 vote to allow the county to raise the tax, if county voters approve it in a referendum. It was the second vote on the bill this week — the Senate defeated the measure in an unexpected move Tuesday before deciding to reconsider.

Isle of Wight would be the tenth locality in the state with permission from the General Assembly to use a sales and use tax to supplement local funds. Virginia has no dedicated state funds for school construction, despite hundreds of schools that need billions in repairs.

“Like many small counties that have a minimal tax base, it is difficult for them to raise the funds within their normal stream of revenue to build new schools if they must,” said Senate Minority Leader Tommy Norment, who introduced the bill.

The state hasn’t had a dedicated school construction fund since the 2010 school year, the victim of recession budget cuts. Even then, state contributions made up only a small part of construction funds.

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — A major announcement was made by the Pittsburgh Public Schools, and you have a chance to weigh in on a newly proposed plan that would reduce and restructure parts of the school system’s footprint.
Pittsburgh Public Schools could be closing several schools within the next two years.
Parents will have the chance to address their concerns during the public comments section of Tuesday night’s special legislative meeting.
Parent Chelsey Farnan is concerned about her son Glenn, a first grader at Woolslair — a school nestled among the streets of Lawrenceville and Bloomfield.
“I think he will feel really sad. He likes Woolslair,” said Farnan.
She says Woolslair is known as a magnet school: “Why would they close a magnet school?”
Pittsburgh Public Schools announced Monday that Superintendent Anthony Hamlet and his leadership team have shared a plan to close Fulton PreK-5 in Highland Park, Miller PreK-5 in the Hill District and Woolslair PreK-5 in Lawrenceville, as well as Manchester PreK-8, Allegheny 6-8, Arsenal 6-8 and Sterrett 6-8.
 

Educators and students should be working and learning in school buildings because we know it’s where the true magic of education happens. And the health and safety of educators and students are every bit as important as the classes that take place. As things stand, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers cannot definitely say that buildings are safe to reopen.
In addition to evaluating ongoing critical issues like infection rates, and availability of ventilation and PPE, we must also contend with new obstacles such as the emergence of new, more virulent strains of the virus. Since late October, Philadelphia has been far beyond “substantial,” and the risk of community transmission remains high. Before we can reopen our school buildings, we need to take every precaution to ensure that all safeguards are in place.
Students in Philadelphia have historically navigated education cuts and conditions that would never be tolerated in a wealthier, whiter school district. In a school system that educates primarily children of color experiencing poverty, it should be lost on no one that once again, too-often marginalized students are facing a return to potentially hazardous schools. School buildings in Philadelphia average more than 70 years old, eclipsing the national average by decades. Our union’s work to ensure the safety of students and staff is rooted in our commitment to changing these deeply inequitable systems.
 

RICHMOND, Va. (WDBJ) - The Virginia Senate has passed a bill to help school districts repair outdated buildings, but finding enough money for a statewide solution remains a major challenge.

The measure from Sen. Bill Stanley (R-Franklin Co.) creates a Public School Assistance Fund that would receive money from state, local and private sources.

Lawmakers warn the price tag for school repair and replacement could exceed $15 billion.

“And it’s about time that this General Assembly understand that we have a huge multi-billion dollar problem in front of us, that has to be solved now,” Stanley told members of the Senate.

The federal government would commit $130 billion to help public schools make capital improvements under new legislation described this week by U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.

The funding would address a concern that school officials have raised repeatedly since the start of the pandemic: adapting ventilation systems and other physical building improvements can be expensive, and schools cannot bear the cost themselves.

The money would not be restricted to projects related to COVID-19, though, but could pay for an array of facility upgrades. 

"COVID has highlighted the inequities that have been part of our school system for too long," Gillibrand said Tuesday.

The bill has 25 Democratic co-sponsors in the Senate. Gillibrand said they hope to see it folded into an omnibus stimulus spending plan.

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Delaware, joined Sen. Jack Reed, D-Rhode Island, and 24 of their colleagues in introducing the Reopen and Rebuild America’s Schools Act last week.  
With school districts facing increased costs, aging school infrastructure and an urgent need to alleviate crowded classrooms and ensure adequate fresh air ventilation to help reduce COVID-19 transmission, the bill would invest $130 billion in modernizing classrooms across the country and would help schools upgrade their physical and digital infrastructure. 
“As we continue to grapple with the COVID-19 crisis, it is critical that we invest in the safe and sustainable reopening of our schools,” said Coons. “This bill prioritizes the needs of our students and educators, the safety of our school buildings, and jobs in communities throughout Delaware and the country — creating opportunity while helping our schools overcome the challenges of the pandemic.” 
Crumbling, outdated school infrastructure makes it tougher for students, teachers and staff to safely return to school for in-person instruction. Comprehensive school modernization planning is a critical component of helping post-pandemic K-12 schools become stronger and more sustainable than before the COVID-19 crisis. 
The Reopen and Rebuild America’s Schools Act will provide $100 billion in formula funds to states for local competitive grants for school repair, renovation and construction. States will focus assistance on communities with the greatest financial need, encourage green construction practices and expand access to high-speed broadband to ensure that all students have access to digital learning.