The Education Supervisory Financial Commission is concerned that the Guam Department of Education could lose $41 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds that has not been encumbered.

During the commission's monthly meeting on Thursday, a review of the ARPA year-to-date financial records raised concern among commission members.

“What are you going to do with $41 million before it's given back?” Carol Hinkle-Sanchez, managing attorney of the Civil Law Center, asked GDOE comptroller Adam Shin.

GDOE received $239,427,921 in ARPA funds and has spent $39,491,564.93 to date, according to GDOE. With $19,991,246.32 and $138,836,812.76 encumbered, according to GDOE, that left $41,108,296.99 in available funds as of April 25.

While Hinkle-Sanchez said she recognized that the procurement process is lengthy, she questioned why the department had not yet encumbered the available funds.

Many Mississippi districts are using notable portions of their federal COVID-19 emergency funding to improve school buildings, most likely to address long-standing issues around underfunding for capital projects, according to research from FutureEd, an education analysis organization affiliated with Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy.

Of the 60% spent through March of this year across the state in American Rescue Plan funds, 42% —  or $362.6 million — had gone toward building improvements, according to FutureEd.

The lion’s share — $296.8 million — funded reconstruction and remodeling projects like HVAC replacements and upgrades. That was followed by maintenance and upkeep at $27.6 million, new building purchases and construction at $20.5 million, and architecture and engineering fees at $14.8 million. 

The U.S. Department of Education today announced the 2024 U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon Schools, District Sustainability Awardees, and Postsecondary Sustainability Awardees.

Across the country, 41 schools, 10 districts, three postsecondary institutions, and one early learning center are being honored for their innovative efforts to reduce environmental impact and utility costs, improve health and wellness, and offer effective sustainability education. The honorees were named from a pool of candidates nominated by 24 states. Half of this year’s honorees are located in underserved communities.

In addition, one state education official is recognized with the Director’s Award. This year, it is George Garcia of the California Department of Education.

“This year’s U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon Schools are leading school transformation in states that will help ensure all students in all communities have the opportunity to grow to become strong and healthy learners,” stated U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “This year’s awardees range from early learning centers to postsecondary institutions. Notably, half are located in under-resourced communities. These awards represent thousands of students, and countless hours of hard work in schools and on college campuses, ensuring equitable access to healthy, climate-resilient learning environments where students are prepared for the sustainability challenges of the present and future.”

President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda is providing unprecedented resources for K-12 schools to invest in healthier, more sustainable buildings and infrastructure—from removing lead pipes, to installing clean, reliable solar energy, to purchasing electric school buses. Schools across the country are putting these funds to use to cut harmful air pollution, including climate pollution, and invest in equitable, healthy, resilient, and sustainable schools. To ensure that schools have access to the many resources and technical assistance available to them through the President’s Investing in America agenda, the Administration is today hosting the first-ever White House Summit for Sustainable and Healthy K-12 School Buildings and Grounds.

On the week of February 5, several stalls in the bathrooms at public high school Luis Felipe Crespo in Camuy, Puerto Rico, had padlocks on them for no apparent reason. Fed up with the many other maintenance issues at their school, three students, including 17-year-old Alaisha Torres Soto, decided to make a video showing the bathrooms’ conditions. The text overlaid on the video, which they posted on their graduating class’ TikTok account, read: “Uniforme completo jóvenes” (Students, wear your full uniforms). As they walk around the restroom, they point out the ridiculousness of having to wear their uniform correctly when the school can’t even provide running water, toilet paper, mirrors, functioning soap dispensers, and working stall doors.

After multiple setbacks over the past year, Theodore Roosevelt Elementary School in Binghamton will have access to extra capital funds to renovate and improve conditions at the school.

The funds come from a provision in the recently passed New York State Budget, and will allow the Binghamton City School District to access two times their multi-year cost allowance for building aid from the state, meaning the district will receive 10 years of funding up front, as opposed to the normal five years of funding.

While there is not yet a set dollar amount the district will receive, the project itself is estimated to cost $52 million.

According to Binghamton City School District Superintendent Tonia Thompson, renovations without the increased funding would have taken up to 25 years — with the funding, they will be completed in the next five.

SALT LAKE CITY — Publicly funded facilities are not open to the public, and that's the case for the tennis courts and fields at a handful of Salt Lake City high schools.

Peter Bublik said the courts in the Granite School District, specifically Skyline and Olympus high schools, used to be open on evenings and weekends but are now locked up. Bublik said he had played tennis on those courts several times for nearly a decade.

"It seemed like they were kind of locking up more and more, and now they're just locked permanently," Bublik said.

A spokesman for Granite School District, Ben Horsley, said the schools are locking them due to vandalism, with one primary issue: dog owners.

"These are not dog parks," Horsley said.

He said the new tracks, turf fields, and tennis courts are closed to dogs, but that does not stop people from bringing their pets and not cleaning up after them.

Wichita school officials want to know if voters would support a series of bond issues to rebuild and renovate schools over the next two decades. On Monday, consultants hired by the school board laid out four options ranging from a major investment in 27 new or renovated schools to doing nothing but focusing on deferred maintenance needs at existing buildings. All four plans outlined by the Ohio-based firm Woolpert include consolidating either 18 or 19 schools — a process district officials say is different than a closure because students and staff at low-attendance schools would all be moved together into a different building.

Nearly 30 people gathered outside the Pittsburgh Public Schools administration building in Oakland Monday afternoon to rally against the potential closure of school buildings.

The rally, which started an hour before the school board’s scheduled public hearing, was organized by the advocacy organization 412 Justice. It drew dozens of people who chanted “Fund our schools” and “Nothing about us without us” as they called on school directors and administrators to reconsider plans that could lead to the possible closure and consolidation of some schools as the district faces a growing budget deficit and declining enrollments.

ST. CROIX, U.S. Virgin Islands – A commitment of $384.8 million to demolish and replace three elementary schools on St. Croix, one on St. Thomas and repair a school lunch warehouse on St. Thomas mark the latest milestones in FEMA’s collaboration with the Territory to rebuild school infrastructure across the U.S. Virgin Islands which were damaged during hurricanes Irma and Maria in September 2017. 

The prudent replacement of Lew Muckle Elementary School is made possible under the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 which clears a path for the demolition and rebuilding of seven of the 11 buildings located on a 3.94-acre parcel in Sion Farm.

Eulalie Rivera Elementary school in Grove Place is also receiving prudent replacement costs to repair damages to school grounds and replace 12 structures including bleachers, athletic field bathroom and classrooms. 

FEMA has also obligated funds to repair the grounds and replace ten buildings at the Juanita Gardine Elementary School in Estate Richmond. Buildings to be replaced at this school include classrooms, offices, the auditorium, and an auxiliary building. 

For years, school district officials had grand designs to revamp the campus of McKinley Elementary in Santa Monica.

The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District intended to build a two-story building with eight state-of-the-art classrooms and a modernized front office. The project had already been funded by a previous bond measure and splashy renderings were publicized by district staff.

Last year, however, a district-hired inspector discovered dangerous levels of toxic vapors percolating in the soil at the proposed construction site, a parking lot on the northeast end of campus. Since then, state regulators have concluded the contaminants likely migrated underground from a dry cleaner across the street.

Although these hazardous fumes were not detected above state health limits inside school buildings, regulators determined the contamination could pose a risk to public health if the ground were disturbed or new construction was sited on top.

CONCORD, MI -- Voters are being asked to consider a millage renewal to fund continued building maintenance for a western Jackson County school district.

A five-year renewal of Concord Community Schools’ sinking fund is on the May 7 election ballot. Last renewed in 2019, the millage is set to expire along with the 2024 tax levy, according to the proposal.

If passed by voters, the currently authorized millage rate of 1.9213 mills - or about $1.92 on each $1,000 of taxable property value - would be renewed for 2025-29. Concord Community Schools would collect about $358,034 in 2025 if the millage is approved and levied in May, officials said.

Four years after its creation, a state agency created to expedite school construction projects is at risk of losing all of its staff and funding.

Several bills in the Legislature aim to strip the School Facilities Authority of its responsibility over construction funding and projects, including a historic $200 million investment in the creation of pre-kindergarten classrooms. 

The authority was established in 2020 to take over the construction of new school facilities from the Hawaii Department of Education. Legislators have since tasked SFA with building a new school on Maui, constructing teacher housing and creating pre-kindergarten classrooms to advance the state’s goal of providing all 3- and 4-year-olds access to preschool by 2032. 

Some legislators say the authority has fallen short of its intended goal, citing SFA’s struggle to hire staff and make headway on projects over the past two years. For example, while the state initially tasked SFA with spending $200 million on constructing pre-kindergarten classrooms by June — enough money for roughly 200 classrooms — only 13 classrooms have been completed so far. 

Jacksonville School District is considering a $10 million bond sale at the end of this year to build a new school near Illinois Route 267 to replace Murrayville-Woodson Elementary School.
It could be the next use for a 1 cent facilities sales tax implemented in 2014 that has allowed Jacksonville school district to upgrade multiple buildings, including Jacksonville Middle School and, most recently, Eisenhower Middle School. 
Murrayville-Woodson Elementary was built in 1917 and replacing the school is one of the options under consideration, but a decision will have to wait until the end of the year, Jacksonville District 117 schools Superintendent Steve Ptacek said.
 

FITCHBURG, Wis. (WKOW) -- The first net-zero school in the state is closing in on its fourth year of carbon neutral education. 
Forest Edge Elementary is the first net-zero school in Wisconsin, meaning it creates more energy than it uses. 
"Everything in the building works on electricity. So, we can very easily see that we make more power than we use by just looking at our energy bills," the school's business manager, Andy Weiland, said.
The school has 1,704 solar panels across the roof for electricity and 99 geothermal wells 400 feet below the school collecting water for heating and cooling. 
"By using that kind of temperate water from the ground, we can condition spaces very easily," Weiland said. 
Sustainability is built into the school's literal foundation, their classes as well. 
 

In March, at Jeffersonville Elementary School in Twiggs County, Ga., school staff, parents and students toured a brand-new clinic.  

Inside, there’s a room with a TV for telehealth, and two empty suites being prepped for dentist chairs. There are rooms for primary care, too. It smells like fresh paint. 

This clinic will be one of about 30 new or expanded school-based health centers to be up and running over the next few years. The expansion is part of $125 million investment from the state fueled by federal COVID relief funds. 

Through grants issued by the Georgia Department of Education, school districts like Twiggs County were able to apply for up to $1 million to help build and support the startup of these health centers.  

Mack Bullard is the superintendent of the Twiggs County School District. 

“And it's not just for the kids, but if they have a little brother at home or a grandparent at home, they can come and be seen too,” Bullard said. 

What he describes is a big difference from the school nurse's office you may remember, and a big deal in Twiggs County where kids and adults are largely uninsured. Many don’t see a doctor or dentist regularly. 

The Indiana Court of Appeals upheld a ruling Wednesday that Carmel Clay Schools did not violate Indiana’s “dollar law” when it closed an elementary school and refused to sell the building to a charter school.

In 2011, the Indiana General Assembly first approved a law that required a school corporation, under certain circumstances, to either lease an unused school building to a charter school for one dollar per year or to sell the school building to the charter school for one dollar.

Since then, the dollar statute has been amended several times.

In 2018, Carmel Clay approved the construction of a new Orchard Park Elementary School building and decided that the students wouldn’t be moved to the new location until 2021.

Carmel Clay used the old location for storage space for the school district.

The Juneau School District’s consolidation plan has been officially approved by the state and, while some parents are still hoping to prevent the plan, district leaders are well into implementing the multitude of fine details necessary to carry out the realignment that by law will not allow closed schools to reopen for at least seven years.

Consolidation details ranging from the color of labels on moving boxes identifying their destination buildings to making adjustments in starting times for some grades due to shifting bus routes were discussed during a Juneau Board of Education meeting Tuesday night. Some of the details added to what’s already been a contentious debate, including questions about whether extra work expectations are being placed on teachers and others — including students — in the packing, cleaning and moving process.

Final authorization for the consolidation that will place all students in grades 9-12 at Juneau Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé, and all students in grades 7-8 and the HomeBRIDGE program at what’s currently Thunder Mountain High School, was provided in an April 4 letter by Deena Bishop, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development (DEED). The consolidation will result in the renaming of Thunder Mountain and closure of Juneau’s two middle schools (one of which will be used for other education programs), and the letter specifies the legal implications of taking such action.

PARIS — Maine School Administrative District 17 will ask voters to establish a $2 million capital improvements plan to address critical needs of several school buildings throughout the district during statewide elections this June.

In previous years’ budgets, building maintenance and repairs fell into the overall Facilities Department’s accounts, a cost center that also covers building operations and ever-increasing utilities expenses.

The move comes in the aftermath of recently closing Agnes Gray Elementary School in West Paris and a districtwide assessment last year which showed that four other elementary schools need overdue maintenance.

Near the state capital of Harrisburg lies the town of Steelton, Pennsylvania, the home of America’s first steel company and the birthplace of an industry that has long relied upon burning fossil fuels. Down the street from the 150-year-old steel mill is the campus of Steelton-Highspire School District (SHSD), which is forging ahead as one of the first Pennsylvania school districts to power its buildings and its buses with onsite renewable energy.

The school district found its way to renewable energy out of financial necessity. Steelton-Highspire School District (SHSD) sought creative solutions to overcome its annual budget gap of $10 million per year and provide the best educational experience for its diverse and predominantly low-income population of less than 1,500 students. SHSD found that energy efficiency and solar energy could provide significant operational cost savings to help the district balance its budget. The district’s 1.7 MW solar array powers 100% of the district’s electricity needs and is expected to provide $4 million in energy savings over the next two decades.