Mililani High School is prepared to host Hawaii’s first on-campus teacher housing project, but a shortage of funding and pushback from staff and families could slow progress. 

The School Facilities Authority, a state agency responsible for building new schools and workforce housing, awarded the project to the Pacific Housing Assistance Corp. in August. The project, which is tentatively scheduled to finish in early 2030, will create over 100 affordable one- and two-bedroom units for teachers.

Teachers working at any Oahu public school would receive priority for the units, followed by education department employees and then members of the public. 

Lawmakers and principals say they’re hopeful more affordable housing will help teachers cope with Hawaii’s high cost of living and stay in the state. As of last year, the Hawaii Department of Education offered just over 50 rentable housing units for teachers, but they were only available in rural areas of the state. Schools started the academic year with over 160 teacher vacancies in August.

The Clarkston School District Facility Advisory Committee has a 20-year facilities plan that the community will soon be able to review.

The committee began from conversations after the bond for a new high school failed to pass in 2023. A facilities committee was created and a levy to fund capital projects passed in April. The committee met Monday and has been meeting regularly since March.

The 20-year facilities plan came from tours of the schools, meetings and talks with staff about what needs to be fixed and a list of needs for different facilities. The plan breaks down projects into the 4-5 year segments and outlines how it will be funded either through already allocated money, the capital levy or with grants. Some of the funding areas are left blank as options are uncertain. The plan also lists the projects based on priority.

Arizona's schools are on the cusp of a much-needed overhaul, thanks to Governor Katie Hobbs' recently concluded committee efforts. The governor's Minimum Adequacy Guidelines Committee, tasked with revising and modernizing the state's school facilities, has published its final report. As the committee, consisting of experts from a variety of relevant fields, worked through Executive Order 2023-15, their mission was clear: to uplift the standards that shape the learning environments across the state.
"Arizona children deserve safe and secure schools, no matter their zip code," proclaimed following the release of the report. The sentiment echoes a widespread belief that the physical spaces where children learn play a crucial role in their academic and personal development. According to a statement released by the governor's office, Hobbs' thanked the committee for "their hard work and dedication to this issue," emphasizing the need to collaborate with the legislature to improve public school facilities in Arizona.
 

Even though the weather is cooling down, school districts in the high country are continuing to put in new air conditioning units. This is costing tens of millions of dollars and for some districts, they need the state to help fund those projects.
In order for students to learn in class, they have to feel comfortable. Chino Valley Unified School District Superintendent Cindy Daniels said they’ve noticed classrooms getting warmer as they’ve been operating with swamp coolers in the district which is common for districts up north in Arizona.
“There were classrooms that were routinely running between 84 and 86 degrees in the afternoon,” Daniels said of classrooms in Chino Valley High School after doing temperature studies in the district located just north of Prescott.
According to rules and policies from the state, school facilities are required to have systems capable of maintaining temperatures between 68 and 82 degrees under normal conditions with students and staff inside classrooms.
 

A wall that’s separating from the rest of the structure, an elevator that doesn’t reliably work, and no sprinkler system in an academic setting where several hands-on classes use an open flame.

These are some problems that the 60-year-old building housing the Hancock County Technical Center needs urgently fixed. With demand for career and technical programs growing, the aging facilities, crowded classrooms and lack of safety measures is taking a toll on enrollment and funding, according to Bill Tracy, director of the center that serves seven Ellsworth-area schools.

“We derive our funding from student participation. I want them to come see state-of-the-art equipment so they can be ready to work in the industry,” he said. “And if I have an aging building that is truly falling apart, one look at our building, and they’re going to say, ‘Wait, something isn’t lining up.’”

More than 500 school buildings in Maine were built before 1980, according to Steven Bailey, head of the Maine School Management Association. School buildings across the country are aging, and the costs of rebuilding or repairs can cost states millions of dollars per building. But with dozens of Maine schools in urgent need of fixes for safety or upgrades for accessibility, districts have a choice: they can apply to the state for money, or they can ask their local taxpayers to fund construction. 

Missoula’s Jefferson Pre-K is an unassuming brick building with a school bell out front and paper snowflakes in the windows. But before this summer, an elusive threat coursed through its core — its water pipes contained high quantities of lead, a metal that is extremely toxic to small children. 

A survey of the site in 2021, mandated by Montana’s Department of Public Health and Human Services, revealed harmful lead levels in nearly every water source at Jefferson. Although contaminated fixtures were covered with plastic bags and taken out of use immediately, it took three years for a permanent solution to arrive.

“We had lead throughout the entire building,” said Burley McWilliams, director of facilities operations at Missoula County Public Schools.

Jefferson wasn’t alone in its findings. A statewide survey of school drinking water sources initiated in 2020 found that more than half of Montana’s schools contained fixtures creating unsafe lead levels. As the initiative’s fifth year approaches, improvements remain uneven, and 20% of the state’s schools have not yet submitted testing results.

DEEP RIVER, Conn. (WTNH) — John Winthrop Middle School is scheduled to reopen with the new year, Regional School District 4 Superintendent of Schools Brian White announced Wednesday.

The school has been closed since the mold was found in the building last September. Students at the middle school have been attending their classes at the Valley Regional High School.

But White said students and staff are scheduled to return to their home building on Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025- the first day of school after their holiday break. The date will be confirmed with families in about a month.

CHATHAM – The long-overdue replacement of the roof at Monomoy Regional Middle School won’t be cheap, but at least the state will help foot the bill.
 The school committee learned last week that the project has been accepted into the Massachusetts School Building Authority’s Accelerated Repair Program, which will reimburse the district at a rate of around 37 percent.
 “That means for every dollar we spend on this project, we get 37 cents back,” district Business Manager Michael MacMillan told the school committee. The reimbursement only covers qualifying expenses related to the project, so the district will do its best to ensure as much of the cost qualifies as possible.

Energy management and training program will support 60 Local Educational Agencies (LEAs) in their pursuit of fostering healthier, more sustainable schools. 

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), in partnership with the Efficient and Healthy Schools Program, today announced the 60 LEAs chosen to participate in the 2024-2025 Energy Champions Leading the Advancement of Sustainable Schools (Energy CLASS) program. Backed by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, this strategic initiative supports the Biden-Harris administration’s broader Action Plan for Building Better School Infrastructure by empowering schools across the nation to implement energy-saving strategies, create healthier learning environments and achieve significant cost savings. 

The 60 selected LEAs, representing over 1.7 million students in 2,922 schools across 31 states, will receive training, coaching, and expert guidance to develop and execute projects prioritizing energy efficiency, renewable energy adoption and improved indoor air quality. By fostering a network of dedicated "energy champions" within the participating LEAs, the Energy CLASS program will drive sustainable practices and create scalable energy solutions that schools around the country can look to.  

BOISE – The Idaho Department of Education has issued the first of its payments to school districts through the new School Modernization Facilities Fund. So far, more than $514 million have been distributed to improve school district facilities across the state.

House Bill 521, passed by the Idaho legislature in 2024, provided the ability for the state to bond for approximately $1 billion in facility funding and allocate and distribute that funding to school districts based on Average Daily Attendance (ADA). It also allows for the repayment of bond debt using state sales tax revenues over the next 10 years. School districts must meet certain requirements to receive the funding, including conducting facility condition assessments of school buildings and submitting a 10-year facility needs plan.

The first payment went out to school districts on October 30.

In a national election where candidates hammered each other over economic woes, Michigan voters last week approved nearly $640.3 million in new school bond tax requests.
In total, voters approved 62% of local school bond proposals that officials had put on the general election ballot, according to a Bridge Michigan analysis of Gongwer News Service data.
That’s a slightly higher passage rate than the most recent years but down from just under 75% of school bonds passed from 2018-2021. 
Still, the 38% of local requests rejected by voters would have amounted to another $364 million for the school districts that sought the funding. 
Such tax requests — primarily used to fund building repairs or upgrades — have been failing at higher rates in recent years amid increased focus on the economy, complicated nature of school finance and shifting attitudes about public education since the pandemic.
 

NEW PHILADELPHIA ‒ New Philadelphia City School District is grappling with maintenance problems at its existing buildings after voters rejected a 5.9-mill bond issue on Election Day. The measure would have funded construction of a new elementary school.
The district's facilities committee recently met to discuss the need to replace the furnace at York Elementary School, which has stopped working because of a cracked heat exchanger. The furnace, a 1941 coal-fired unit converted to natural gas, heats the majority of the rooms in the building. When it stopped working about three weeks ago, the temperature in some classrooms dropped into the mid-40s.
A separate boiler on the main floor of the building heats four rooms.
Until the district comes up with a permanent solution, New Philadelphia is renting a temporary furnace at a cost of $2,575 per month, using the existing ductwork to supply heat to the building.
 

A massive overhaul of Cheyenne schools is moving forward now that it's been approved by the state's School Facilities Commission.

The school board in Cheyenne plans to close eight elementaries and build, replace or alter 12 other schools over the next decade to address aging facilities and a projected decline in enrollment.

Some parents, like Samantha Van Riper, said the overhaul will provide students in the district's south triad with more equitable facilities.

"We do feel like we have been overlooked for quite some time, and we are so very, very thankful," Van Riper told the commission. "I believe that your choice today is giving our children the educational benefits in the future that other kids in this district have been receiving up until this point."

State education officials told lawmakers that $258 million is needed to complete the many upgrades that local school system leaders believe are necessary for safety.

“When you look at that total request for state funds, that’s a pretty large number obviously,” said Jonah Adkins, director of the Office of Safety & Tiered Support Systems. “But we would love to work with Homeland Security and a team of your choosing to kind of take a deeper look and further prioritize these needs because we know we would never be able to meet all of this at once, but if we could chip away a little bit each year I believe we could make some good headway.”

He told lawmakers that local school systems spent $23 million to address security needs, “so our school districts are working with the resources that they have available to them to address those needs as they arise. But obviously there is a greater need. It’s the unfortunate reality of our society that we live in that we have people targeting our children and targeting our schools to do bad things.”

The West Ada School District needs $1.1 billion over the next 10 years to upgrade and maintain its buildings, according to a long-range facilities assessment presented at Monday’s school board meeting. 

West Ada is the latest district to complete an assessment that’s required under House Bill 521. The state spending package — which the Idaho Legislature and Gov. Brad Little adopted earlier this year — will give Idaho’s 115 school districts $1 billion to finance new construction and major upgrades along with ongoing aid for locally-supported bonds and levies. 

The state’s largest school district, West Ada will receive the biggest share of the funds — about $140 million. District staff and trustees expressed gratitude for the state assistance Monday but acknowledged that it won’t be enough. More than seven times as much is necessary to address all of West Ada’s long-term construction and maintenance needs, the assessment showed.

“We’ll apply this money to those things the bill covers,” David Reinhart, West Ada’s chief operations officer, told the school board. And district staff “will find creative ways to maintain our buildings and continue to make them the great places they are.”

About 80 students in the Independence School District had transferred away from their neighborhood schools due to lack of space. The district hopes to relieve that pressure by repurposing an elementary auditorium into six new classrooms.
Fairmount Elementary School in Independence tore the shelves out of a storage closet, installed a smart television and a whiteboard — and started using the space for teaching.

With enrollment booming, every room counts.

“There is literally not a single space that is not being utilized,” Principal Nicholas Younts said.

The school can’t squeeze an entire class into a former closet, but it is using the space — and other office-sized rooms — for things that happen in smaller groups like speech therapy and support learning English.

Meanwhile, every classroom is occupied and some are so full they can’t accept more students.

That’s why 20 fourth graders have been sent to Mill Creek and Ott elementary schools as of Nov. 1. Some ride the bus to Fairmount, then switch to a second bus to complete their journey.

CINCINNATI (WKRC) - La Salle High School is set to benefit from three anonymous donations totaling $1.6 million, aimed at enhancing the educational environment and facilities for its students.

The first donation, amounting to $100,000, will support the school's master facilities plan. A second gift of $500,000 has been pledged to bolster the school's endowment fund.

The largest contribution, a $1 million donation, is earmarked for several key improvements. These include enhancing school safety, air conditioning the gym, renovating art spaces, providing additional resources for the admissions office, and installing new turf on the baseball infield.

The Henrico School Board is seeking to increase its annual school maintenance funding by several million from last year to help tackle a list of $56-million worth of HVAC projects.

Each year, the Henrico Board of Supervisors provides funding for the school board’s Capital Improvement Plan, which designates funds for building maintenance at Henrico Schools facilities. Last year, the school board received $19 million of the $21 million it requested to fund the CIP – a big boost from years before – and the board has proposed an even bigger ask this year of $26.5 million.

A significant amount of the CIP funding would be used to address a list of 70 prioritized HVAC projects totaling $56 million at different Henrico schools. For school board members, HVAC concerns are top of mind, especially with several school closures due to broken AC units this fall and last school year.

A Sydney public school has been crowned the World Building of the Year, beating competition from towering skyscrapers, museums and major transport hubs to claim the title.

Darlington public school in Chippendale won the major building design prize at the 2024 World Architectural festival in Singapore, triumphing over more than 200 shortlisted entrants.

It was a second big coup for the Australian architectural firm FJC Studioafter its design for Liverpool council’s new library, Yellamundie, in south-west Sydney, was named one of the world’s four most beautiful new libraries.

The Darlington school, which fully reopened in July 2023 after the upgrades, celebrates strong connections to Indigenous culture, weaving designs into the building’s identity and facades.

Aboriginal artworks are displayed around the school and in the cladding and students can learn about Indigenous food and culture while tending a community garden that grows native plants.

As schools and parks across the United States rip up playgrounds, a D.C. councilmember said he wants to save a childhood fixture that has become dangerously hot using solar panels. 
The Solar Shade Expansion Amendment Act, introduced by Ward 6 Councilman Charles Allen, would place solar panels and solar shade canopies in 20 locations across D.C. 
"The goal is to provide shade, reduce heat exposure and provide clean energy to our power grid all at once," Councilman Allen's office said Thursday.
These playground heat issues can be worse in Northeast D.C. neighborhoods like Kingman Park, which Councilman Allen represents, where there are fewer trees and fewer green spaces, according to a report from The Washington Post. In these neighborhoods, known as "heat islands," playgrounds often absorb heat instead of reflecting it, leading to advocacy groups pushing for shady solutions. 
In essence, the solar panel project would use this technology as a substitute for the lack of trees and green spaces in these neighborhoods. 
Already, the Ludlow-Taylor Elementary School in Northeast has implemented this type of solution, installing 234 kilowatts of solar panels on the school roof and a new playground canopy as part of the District's Solar for All initiative. Allen's bill would expand this effort.