NEW HAVEN — With both a projected decrease in enrollment and aging schools, New Haven officials have announced that they are beginning the process of evaluating school closures.
Across the region, municipal leaders are reckoning with how to navigate keeping enough public school classroom space for their needs in well-maintained buildings amid a projected decrease in public school enrollment and ballooning construction costs.

The Conway Board of Education approved the 2024 Facilities Master Plan during its regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday.

The facilities division of the Arkansas Department of Education Division of Elementary and Secondary Education requires all school districts across Arkansas to submit a master plan every other year.

The plan includes a list of the district’s buildings, the dates they were built, the square-footage of each and enrollment projections. The plan also includes a maintenance, renovation and repair schedule as well as a list of any possible future project where state funding could be requested.

Over the past year, the Pine City School District has been diligently addressing critical challenges facing facilities and programs. It’s been almost two decades since the school has undertaken any significant building projects including maintenance. Now, after nine months of thorough examination, it’s evident that the school needs your support. 

Areas of decline and need

The 1962 addition to the elementary school is sinking, causing substantial damage to the walls, floors, and plumbing. This affects 10 classrooms, the kitchen, the cafeteria, and restrooms. And there are large areas of roofing, wall panels, and code issues needing to be addressed in all buildings.

 The district has an annual budget of nearly $300,000 for general repairs, but when a roofing project is nearly $1,000,000 there is a considerable funding gap. In fact, the growing number of projects and those anticipated over the next 5 years are estimated to cost over $12.5 million for necessary building repairs. To keep pace with building needs and cover the costs of substantial projects like roofing and wall repairs, the school needs your help.

The state today released tools to help assure the safety of public school buildings throughout Delaware.

Senate Substitute 1 for Senate Bill SB-270 (SS1 for SB270) directed the Delaware Department of Education (DOE) to establish an evaluation and assessment system to determine whether a school facility is in good repair.  The facility assessment tool will help school districts review and assess conditions in a standardized way.  The assessments will help identify areas in need of attention, so school facilities are clean, safe, and functional for staff and students. As required by SS1 for SB270, DOE worked with experts in school facilities maintenance, the Delaware Division of Public Health (DPH), district superintendents, the Delaware State Education Association, and the Delaware Association of School Administrators.  Stakeholder conversations have confirmed that the tool will help schools assess areas of concern and develop the plan to address concerns required by SS1 for SB270.

The facility assessment tool will be provided to districts to begin assessments, which they are required to provide in May each year, along with a board-approved repair and maintenance plan to the state.  The assessment tool allows for basic school information, including address and building size, to be confirmed or updated so DOE information is complete and accurate.  The assessment tool provides a guide of areas and conditions to be assessed to help determine if specific areas of a facility are in good repair.  Additional parts of the assessment help districts evaluate building system age and useful life and provide insight into modernization efforts at each school.

Helena Public Schools will consider an array of options, including the closing of schools, to help cope with the maintenance backlog throughout the district, the schools’ superintendent said. 

The district has about $8.3 million budgeted to spend on its buildings during the current school year, while the maintenance updates are expected to cost close to $90 million, Superintendent Rex Weltz recently told Montana Free Press.

Because the district cannot afford to update every building’s needs at the same time, it hired SMA Architecture and Design to help develop a plan that will frame the options the district can take to approach the budget shortfall, including the possible closure of some buildings.  

Weltz, who took on the position in 2021, explained that the plan will help the district better strategize how it moves forward.  

In a 4-3 board vote that ended a nearly year-long, contentious process, the Salt Lake City School District will permanently close four elementary schools after this academic year.

Two east-side schools, Hawthorne and M. Lynn Bennion, and two west-side schools, Mary W. Jackson and Riley, will be closed. Many parents at the Jan. 9 board meeting were concerned and uncertain about what would happen next.

After the vote, one person booed the board members as people walked out West High School’s auditorium. Other community members looked emotional.

The impacts will be felt district-wide.

Current Hawthorne students will be assigned to Emerson or Whittier elementaries. Mary W. Jackson will be split between Backman, Rose Park and Washington elementaries. Bennion students will go to either Liberty, Emerson, Wasatch or Uintah elementaries. And Riley families will be assigned to Edison, Mountain View, Parkview or Franklin elementaries.

Bancroft Elementary in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of Northwest DC is carving a new path to make the street in front of the school safe for students and closed to traffic during arrival and departure times. Here’s how we made this happen and what we learned. Every neighborhood school with dangerous streets out front should consider it.

A popular school both in the neighborhood and among Spanish language-dominant students from outside the neighborhood, enrollment has risen now to 772 from just 473 a decade ago. There’s something about the socioeconomic mix of the dual language school that parents and students love. They want to keep it as it has been – a gem. So when our call to action went out, both young parents and older community residents responded, donating hours of volunteer time to “man the barricades” and make the street safe.

The recovery of Maui schools and students and expansion of fire prevention efforts on campuses statewide will be a top priority for the 2024 legislative session that begins next week.

Lawmakers also will grapple with educational problems carried over from previous years such as improving school transportation, repairing aging school facilities and reversing students’ learning loss from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Rep. Amy Perruso said she’s worried about the Legislature’s ability to adequately fund the efforts as the state prepares to spend approximately $500 million on helping Maui rebound from devastating Aug. 8 fires.

“If we were going to have money adequately funding public education, it should have happened last session,” Perruso said, pointing to the state’s $2 billion budget surplus in 2023.

Idaho Gov. Brad Little on Monday announced a $2 billion investment in public schools over the next 10 years, a large contribution aimed at shoring up dilapidated infrastructure at schools across the state.  Little said the investment, which he announced in his State of the State address, provides property tax relief that would also provide school  districts with the ability to repair and replace their school buildings, citing reporting from the Idaho Statesman and ProPublica.  Local school districts have long struggled to fix their dilapidated, aging school buildings, in part because of the high two-thirds voter approval  threshold that school bonds require.  Schools face leaking roofs, collapsing ceilings from water damage and failing plumbing, the investigation from the Statesman and ProPublica found. “We’ve all seen the pictures and videos of some Idaho schools that are neglected — crumbling, leaking, falling apart,” Little said. “In one school  I visited, raw sewage is seeping into a space under the cafeteria. Folks, we can do better.” “As elected leaders, it is not just our constitutional obligation but our moral obligation as well to prioritize and strengthen public schools,” Little added.

Anne Forrester began feeling ill during her first year of teaching, in 2016. The symptoms steadily worsened as she spent more time in her decades-old school building.

“I was getting sick all the time, including chronic respiratory and asthma symptoms,” says Forrester, who worked in Thomas C. Boushall Middle School, in Richmond, Va., at the time. “But I was new and didn’t think too much about it.”

There were, however, whispers in the building about what was really triggering these symptoms—which were also affecting many of Forrester’s colleagues and students.

It turned out that many buildings across the district were becoming breeding grounds for mold.

By 2022, says Forrester, “you could see it everywhere.” Mold was clearly visible in classrooms, hallways, and offices, covering parts of the ceiling floors, lockers, and chairs.

Mold is just one of the many pollutants that degrade indoor air quality (IAQ) in many school buildings. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, roughly half of the educators and students working and learning in school buildings are breathing air polluted by bacteria, chemicals, viruses, and pesticides.

When hot weather hits, conditions become even more dangerous. Long before the end of the school year, temperatures— fueled by climate change—are reaching 90 degrees, creating stifling, often unbearable learning and working conditions.

“When you have breathing issues or it’s too hot or too cold or too humid, you will not be productive,” says Kristen Record, a high school physics teacher in Stratford, Conn. “It is extremely hard to concentrate for lengthy periods of time.”

The Public School System has secured a $4.99-million grant it will get over five years through the Supporting America’s School Infrastructure program, according to Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (D-MP) over the weekend.

Sablan disclosed in his e-kilili newsletter that this funding, as the U.S. Department of Education announced on Thursday, is rooted in the concept of Minetgot, the Chamorro term for resilience, and focuses on three objectives: the creation of a comprehensive 10-year school facilities master plan, transitioning to a cloud-based maintenance system, and implementing a maintenance training program for district staff.

Sablan said the facilities master plan will address reducing emergency repair costs, ensuring modern safety standards, and increasing sustainability.

Urban heat islands, made worse by climate change, can push up temperatures and bring on more air pollution in larger cities. Now, a Milwaukee project is giving public schools resources to remove a key source of the heat-trapping effect.

Dozens of public schools in Milwaukee are working with the nonprofit Reflo on swapping out playground asphalt for green infrastructure, including more trees and native plants.

Lisa Neeb, manager of the Green and Healthy Schools Program Manager for Reflo, cited environmental benefits such as reduced stormwater runoff, and giving students more refuge on hot days.

“There’s often not very many areas of shade, if any, on these urban schoolyards,” Neeb pointed out. “There’s not a lot of things to naturally do.”

The Arizona Department of Administration (ADOA) is getting nearly $5 million from the U.S. Department of Education.

The funds come from one of eight grants being disbursed under the federal government’s Supporting America’s School Infrastructure (SASI) program.

The goal is to help districts in various states to improve their school facilities.  

ADOA received endorsements from the Legislature, Governor’s Office, school districts and statewide education organizations to get the grant.

A department spokesperson said the money will help modernize Arizona’s Building Inventory Database so the state can more quickly address preventative-maintenance issues and new-school construction.

SACRAMENTO—On Thursday, January 4, the United States Department of Education announced that the California Department of Education (CDE) is among the recipients of the Supporting America’s School Infrastructure (SASI) Grant Program. Through a SASI Grant, CDE will receive $4.99 million toward improving school facilities in small school districts across California.

“I am pleased that we have been able to secure this federal support for our rural districts. We know how important school facilities are in providing a safe and healthy environment for our students. We must make sure that safe, healthy, and up-to-date school facilities are available to children in every community,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond. “Every student should be learning in an optimal environment that supports them to be healthy, safe, engaged, and challenged.”

PORTSMOUTH, Va. — Virginia is getting $5 million in federal funding to help address infrastructure at schools, U.S. Education Sec. Miguel Cardona announced Thursday during a visit to Victory Elementary.
"All too often schools are the last places that get renovated or air handling systems or air conditioners are the first things to get cut in budgets," Cardona told reporters during his visit. "You know what? That's not acceptable."
Virginia is one of eight states to receive the funding through the Supporting America's School Infrastructure program in the Dept. of Education.
The funding will let schools assess infrastructure, hire staff and develop infrastructure systems, among other things.
While Virginia is receiving the funding, Cardona acknowledged it's just a drop in the bucket.
"It's five million more than it was ever done at the Dept. of Education," he said. "What we're doing is recognizing that infrastructure needs to be part of the conversation when we're talking about student achievement, student equity."
 

The Biden-Harris Administration announced eight new grant awards today totaling more than $37 million over five years under the Supporting America’s School Infrastructure (SASI) program and one new grant for $10 million over five years under the National Center on School Infrastructure (NCSI) program. This $47 million investment, issued by the U.S. Department of Education (Department), bolsters the capacity of states to support school districts in improving school facilities with the goal of more equitable access to healthy, sustainable, and modern learning environments for all students. U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona will highlight this announcement during a visit to Virginia today with Ranking Member of the House Education and Workforce Committee, U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, and U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, a member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. 

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, K-12 school districts spend nearly $8 billion annually on energy costs, the second largest expense after teacher salaries. Aging facilities combined with limited school budgets can result in deferred maintenance of facilities, with current estimates of around $270 billion needed for infrastructure repairs.

In 2022, the U.S. Department of Energy announced a grant program funded by President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) focused on energy improvements at public school facilities, especially in the highest-need districts, and designed to save schools money. Similarly, the White House released a toolkit on federal resources for addressing school infrastructure needs in April 2022. And today, the Department of Education is announcing its grantees under the Supporting America's School Infrastructure grant program, which bolsters the capacity of States to support school districts in improving school facilities with the goal of more equitable access to healthy, sustainable, and modern learning environments for all students.

The Maryland Energy Administration on Wednesday unveiled an ambitious plan to help K-12 public schools across the state reduce and eliminate carbon emissions. The Decarbonizing Public Schools Program will provide capital to help local education agencies more fully incorporate a wide range of clean energy and energy efficiency measures into Maryland’s public schools.
The program provides incentives for a comprehensive suite of grants focused on capacity building, infrastructure upgrades, renewable energy adoption and the use of new, sustainable construction methods. Notably, the Decarbonizing Public Schools Program will expand statewide construction and access to net zero energy schools – school buildings that create and save as much renewable energy as they use.
Under a precursor to this program, Maryland built and opened its first three net zero energy schools. The first was Wilde Lake Middle School in Howard County, followed by Holabird Academy and the Graceland Park/O’Donnell Heights Elementary/Middle School, both in Baltimore City. This new initiative will help local education agencies retrofit, design and construct state-of-the-art, net zero energy campuses that produce enough on-location renewable energy to meet their total annual electricity demands.

Boston Public Schools officials shared their long-awaited “master plan” for school facilities Wednesday, after narrowly meeting a deadline set by state education officials.
The plan is presented as an opportunity to address long-standing problems with Boston school facilities, including under-enrolled schools, deferred maintenance and, generally, inadequate spaces for working and learning for students and staff.
And it imagines a future of larger, newer, greener — and fewer — standalone schools as it seeks to address present-day problems. The 80-page plan suggests that, at the very least, a little more than a dozen district schools eventually should merge or close.
Of the 119 school buildings citywide, the report finds that dozens are “underutilized,” or well-below capacity, after years of sliding enrollment. According to district data, just 18% of them are equipped to provide what it calls a “high-quality student experience.”
For example, the district has long argued that its many small, single-strand elementary schools — with just one class per grade — can severely hinder enrichment opportunities and administrators’ ability to best serve students with disabilities or those who are learning English.
 

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- The first day back from the holiday break was also the first day at the brand-new Thomas M. Peirce Elementary School in North Philadelphia.

Almost 200 students, in pre-kindergarten through 5th grade, arrived for their first day of learning inside the new building on Wednesday.

The building, which the school district said cost about $44 million, is the first public elementary school built in North Philadelphia in more than seven decades.

"I graduated from this school in 1969, and it's so wonderful to see these children have a building like this." Terry Rembert, the grandparent of a current T.M. Peirce student, said.

The old T.M. Peirce, which was built in 1909, was shut down about four years ago.