Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Susan Collins (R-ME), Sherrod Brown (D-OH) introduced the Farm to School Act. This bill aims to get more fresh, locally grown foods in schools across the nation by expanding the Farm to School Program for school-aged children through increased investment.

“The Farm to School Program plays an important role in providing nutritious food to students in Maine while supporting family farms in the community,” said Senator Collins. “This bipartisan bill would ensure that schools and non-profits in Maine and across the country continue to receive funding to purchase local food for student lunches and implement innovative agriculture and wellness lessons.”

“Ohio farmers grow some of the best produce in the country and farm to school programs help connect students with those fresh foods,” said Senator Brown. “This legislation will increase locally grown foods in our school lunchrooms while strengthening farms and rural communities in Ohio and across the country.”

The state of Washington will fund $3.7 million in projects across the state in the coming years to provide students with additional outdoor learning opportunities.

The grant funding, administered by the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office (RCO) in partnership with the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), includes several projects in Lewis and Thurston counties.

“With these funds, community-based organizations will partner with school districts to take learning outside for more than 40,000 Washington students,” state Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal said in a Tuesday news release. “These programs provide students with opportunities to learn in meaningful and engaging ways where they can understand the unique context of their community. I’m grateful for the Legislature’s investment in this area and for our partnership with the Recreation and Conservation Office.”

The grant program was passed by the Legislature during the 2022 session to support public school students in kindergarten through 12th grade. In total, the RCO and OSPI received 111 applications requesting $15.3 million. Grant funding was awarded to 27 recipients in 22 counties.

Here’s a breakdown of the projects in Lewis and Thurston counties that will receive funding through the program:

Renovations at two Roanoke schools are wrapping up, as $95 million worth of school construction continues across the city.
James Breckinridge Middle School used $6 million from coronavirus recovery funds for new band, orchestra and chorus chambers, which students now occupy, according to school board documents.
Federal relief money paid for most of the total $8.5 million renovation project, said Chris Perkins, chief operations officer for Roanoke City Public Schools.
“These are large projects that have only been available due to one-time funding sources,” Perkins said during a school board workshop Tuesday night.
Morningside Elementary School is opening a new classroom wing, playground and parking on Nov. 2. That project cost $5.6 million, mostly using city debt service funds.
“Morningside is about the size of a postage stamp,” Perkins said. “But we were able to do a lot with a very small space.”
Looking toward 2024, Charles W. Day Technical Education Center will open Jan. 15, in time for the third nine-week grading period of the school year.
 

GREEN BAY — The Green Bay School Board voted Monday to close both Keller and Tank elementary schools after this school year, hoping to save $1.5 million. It also decided to keep the John Dewey Academy of Learning at its current location and approved the district's $336 million budget.
Board member Andrew Becker raised concerns about voting to close more schools before the board has voted on closing the district's headquarters on South Broadway. That building was recommended to close by a community task force in May.
"I would really like to have a firm decision made, committing to close this building (the district headquarters) before we start closing schools," he said. "I think the public deserves that commitment."
However, the board did not make any commitment to close the district's downtown building at Monday's meeting.
"The (district office building, or DOB) piece, we're going to bring that forward," Superintendent Claude Tiller said. "... There's a lot that goes into DOB. You can't just facelift and up move sections of DOB because of continuity that has to happen."
 

Nevada is at a crossroads, and the topic of aging school infrastructure couldn't be more pertinent. We find ourselves discussing this issue daily from our workplaces and at education advocacy events. We discussed it during the 2023 legislative session.

Across our state, schools are either in dire need of immediate replacement or are on the brink of requiring such action. The urgency is palpable, especially in our urban districts such as Clark and Washoe counties, where some of our newer schools, which are less than 20 years old, are bursting at the seams.

We often talk about chronic absenteeism and teacher retention as crucial factors affecting our education system. However, it's rare to hear these issues tied directly to the conditions we force our children to learn in and our educators to teach in. Yet having a safe and healthy environment is not just important; it's fundamental to the success of our entire school system.

To understand the gravity of this problem, it's essential to recognize the limitations of the Nevada State Education Fund, also known as the Pupil Centered Funding Plan. This fund, unfortunately, does not cover capital projects. Instead, local school districts are required to raise money through capital bonds to finance major building maintenance and new facilities.

The sad reality is that some of our school districts and counties lack the population or tax base to afford such endeavors, as highlighted in a recent article by The Nevada Independent highlighting the challenges in White Pine County.

CONROE — Curtis Null, the superintendent of Conroe Independent School District, is accustomed to managing growth at his suburban school district. For more than a decade, the student body has grown by about 1,500 students a year, enough to open a new campus annually.

But over the past two school years, that growth has ballooned to about 3,000 new students each year, and campuses district-wide are bursting at their seams. Administrators have done what they can to accommodate the influx, from bringing in portable buildings, hiring more teachers, rezoning schools and reallocating programs to balance out classrooms. But some of the district’s schools are still operating beyond their capacity, Null said, and a few have no room to add on more portable buildings.

“We have a whole village of portable buildings,” Null said. One elementary school has 22 portable classrooms on its campus. “When you’re dealing with growth, it’s not just about the buildings. It’s buses – we’re buying twice as many new buses as we’ve historically gotten.”

To manage the growth, the Conroe school board approved a $1.9 billion bond proposal that will appear on the November ballot. Conroe voters will decide whether the district takes on almost $2 billion in debt to fund the construction of eight new schools, additional classroom space, new technology, an outdoor swimming pool and other campus renovations.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The West Virginia School Building Authority continues to work behind the scenes on a possible change in the way school construction projects are funded.
The SBA’s Construction Committee met recently to continue discussions on possibly recommending a change in the current square footage allowance for projects.
The agency’s square footage allowance for building schools has been around $307 per square foot since 2019 but the actual cost to build schools these days is significantly more expensive after covid and inflation.
SBA Executive Director Andy Neptune said the agency is trying to determine a more realistic cost.
“We’re trying to find a comparable number that we’ll be able to work with because we’re faced with the fact that supplemental funding is coming back to us,” Neptune said.
The SBA has had to add money to a number of projects in recent months because the original amount of money awarded wasn’t enough because of increasing costs due to inflation and other factors. The SBA has almost handed out enough in supplemental funding to build another school, according to Neptune.
 

GREENWICH — After two board retreats and some revisions, the Board of Education has approved a fiscal year 2025-26 capital budget that is nearly $118.6 million.
The $118,590,000 budget includes funds allocated for projects including making schools Americans with Disabilities Act compliant, improving Greenwich High School’s cellular service and more. 
The budget, presented at the board's Thursday night business meeting, also includes money for three projects the BOE approved interim funding for — the new Central Middle School building, the Old Greenwich School renovation and replacing Hamilton Avenue School’s heating, ventilation and air conditioning system. At the Oct. 5 board retreat, some board members decided to keep the projects in the capital budget in case they do not end up getting funded by other town boards.  
Blaize Levitan, the district's chief operating officer, said that the $2.2 million in the capital budget for Hamilton Avenue's HVAC system is $1 million less than what the board approved as interim funding.
 

Poolesville High School students and parents expressed concerns about the ongoing construction and how it has affected students’ health.
Construction has not only physically affected the school, making it difficult and inaccessible for students to get to class, but also physically affects the students themselves. Bella Sabett, a senior at Poolesville High School, expressed how she got styes due to dust from the construction.
“When the wind would blow, dust would fly in my eyes near the science building,” she said. The science building had an open scaffolding up until this year, but they recently placed roofing over top of the pathway.
Yehun Cho, another senior, described the construction as limiting and disruptive. Areas such as the auditorium and the old main entrances are blocked off, which affects extracurriculars that require space outside of the school day. Cho is the president of Poolesville’s Dance Club and she described the difficulty of finding spaces to use for practices.
In addition, she stated that construction limits walkability during the school day and is very inaccessible for those with disabilities.
 

SOUTH ORANGE, NJ – Many teachers and parents spoke about the multitude of issues facing the district during this week’s South Orange-Maplewood (SOMA) Board of Education (BOE).

President of the South Orange Maplewood Education Association (SOMEA) Rocio Lopez told Taylor that she wasn’t being apprised of policies and SOMEA must be kept informed.

SOMEA Vice President Shira Lincoln recounted her experience with asbestos in her classroom. She shared that she is a cancer survivor and being around asbestos is especially harmful for her. She told the BOE that the buildings have to be maintained. “The expense of good and efficient building maintenance is nominal in comparison to the health and welfare of the children and adults who spend a good portion of their lives in these buildings.”

Margaret Pickron said she supports Intentional Integration but opposes D leveling. She listed some of the other district challenges and implored the BOT to focus on those. “Our district is facing a tidal wave of change at this moment from the integration plan to rectifying decades of harm from the Teachers College ELA curriculum, which undoubtedly has contributed to our districts shameful achievement gaps. In addition, we are facing a capital crisis with buildings that are quite literally falling apart and need an additional $200 million to repair beyond the Long Range Facility Plan.” She urged the BOE to handle those things before considering the D leveling policy.

INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. – More than 50 people including parents, Washoe County School District staff, board members, local teachers, and longtime residents filled the Duffield Theatre at the Incline Village High School on the evening of October 12 to discuss the School District’s Facility Modernization Plan in the hopes of creating some guidelines for a working group that can help move the District forward regarding its capital improvement options for Incline’s schools.

The District has held more than two dozen public meetings throughout the region over the past year to discuss the FMP and its potential outcomes while also collecting input from the community before any decisions are made.

The District hired CannonDesign to help complete a comprehensive facility assessment and assist in a transparent planning process with key stakeholders. At the October 12 meeting, outside consultant Margaret Schultz facilitated the meeting, showing a presentation that noted the key takeaways from the April 5 and May 3 meetings and ensured the audience that “any change that takes place needs your input”. She then said that the goal of the meeting was to create guidelines for a working group, and wanted the audience’s input on who the membership should be.

During the first week of school, temperatures soared into the 90s causing sweltering heat in some of Newark’s oldest buildings with no air conditioners and faulty water fountains.  
Parents packed frozen water bottles for their children to cool off during the day while others wondered why some classrooms in New Jersey’s largest school system were unprepared to deal with high temperatures. 
“No air conditioner in these schools is crazy,” wrote Jacquetta Thomas last month in a Facebook group after her grandson stained his polo shirt with blood due to a nosebleed caused by the heat. A handful of parents responded to Thomas’ post with their own concerns about hot classrooms and deteriorating conditions in city schools. 
But this wasn’t the first time that Newark students dealt with uncomfortable conditions in city classrooms.
Newark’s public school buildings are among the oldest in the state, and Superintendent Roger León estimated last month that it would take more than $2 billion to fully repair and update them. The state is responsible for funding school construction projects in high-poverty districts like Newark, but a judge in a long-standing legal case said the state has not created a long-term financing plan to support the work. 
 

WARWICK, R.I. (WPRI) — Students can return to school at E.T. Wyman Elementary on Tuesday after a three-day closure, Warwick Superintendent Lynn Dambruch told 12 News.

Students were told to stay home on Wednesday morning as a precautionary measure after a boiler backfired, shooting soot and smoke throughout parts of the building. The school switched to virtual learning while cleaning and air quality testing was conducted.

Air quality test results showed it was safe for students and staff to return to school as of Friday afternoon. Monday was a pre-planned professional development day for teachers, so students were scheduled to be off from school.

“[The boiler] hasn’t really been a problem in the past, but you have to understand that our schools are aging and all of the boilers and a lot of the equipment in schools are failing,” Dambruch said. “We repair them to keep them up and inspect them but this was a surprise.”

The superintendent said the district has begun replacing boiler systems in schools and are targeting the ones that were in worst condition first.

Darlene Netcoh, president of the Warwick Teacher’s Union, said it is a challenge to switch to virtual learning for elementary school students so early in the year.

Governor Kathy Hochul signed the “Safe Schools by Design Act” that will require all school districts’ five-year capital facilities plans to consider incorporating design principles that will provide a safe, secure, and healthy school environment. The legislation also expands eligible expenses for Extended Day and School Violence Prevention Grants to include programs that facilitate and promote community involvement in school facility planning.

“A safe school environment is an essential component to providing the best education for our students,” Governor Hochul said. “This legislation highlights our commitment to our students and educators by ensuring that health and safety are considered at the outset of all school construction projects.”

Current law requires that five-year capital facilities plans are developed by each school district to include a building inventory, estimated expenses for building construction, repairs, or renovation, and estimated expenses for building maintenance and energy consumption.

Legislation S.2629A/A.286A amends the education law by requiring that school districts consider the incorporation of design principles and strategies, pursuant to guidance issued by the Commissioner of Education, in their five-year capital plan as part of a comprehensive approach to providing a healthy, secure, and safe school environment. In addition, the legislation includes programs which facilitate and promote community involvement in school facility planning to be eligible expenses for Extended Day and School Violence Prevention Grants.

The Greater Latrobe School District’s recently adopted facilities master plan continues to spark discord from taxpayers as several took the opportunity to speak out Tuesday against tax increases attached to the plan.

During the portion of public comment when those in attendance may speak on any subject, several people got up and spoke out against the board’s decision to plan, design and construct new facilities rather than just simply maintain the buildings they have. Both options presented to the board and recommended by the facilities, operations and planning committee involved a significant and long-term tax increase.

Nick Carota, a 1968 graduate of Greater Latrobe, said he wanted to have an open mind about the process, but he is concerned that the tax increases could be a burden on too many taxpayers, a burden that they just can’t handle.

It is estimated that tax increases of up to 2.5 mills would be required yearly for anywhere from 10 to 15 years.

SNOW HILL, Md. – Due to the lack of state funding for design plans, the Worcester County Commissioners voted on Tuesday to pause construction of the new Buckingham Elementary School.

Worcester County Government staff members completed an internal review of the Capital Improvement Plan and discovered an irregularity. It was then that they contacted school Board of Education officials, who confirmed that they had known since February 2023 that the state would not allocate any funds for the design or construction of the new school.

“The commissioners understand the concerns of parents and the community and remain committed to the BES project,” Commissioner President Chip Bertino said. “Before moving the project forward, however, it is incumbent upon the BOE to take the necessary steps to determine a path forward.

Bertino added that the commissions were not aware that no state funding was available, even as plans continued moving forward.

A key state fiscal panel approved a sharp increase in state borrowing for the next year as fiscal leaders look for ways to offset a projected structural deficit while improving schools and aging buildings and infrastructure.

The recommended $500 million increase over anticipated levels comes as Gov. Wes Moore (D) and others express concerns about the state’s fiscal future. It also represents a potential reduction of cash once intended for capital projects.

State Budget Secretary Helene Grady said the additional borrowing would help offset projected structural deficits and limit drastic changes to the current capital spending plan.

The state’s Board of Revenue estimates decreased state revenue estimates in March and September.

That means less cash on hand to pay for projects as they come up.

“Knowing that we cannot rely on PAYGO funds at this point, the alternative to increasing [general obligation] debt would be to significantly reduce the capital program which we view as neither smart nor feasible,” Grady said.

State agencies have requested more than $15 billion in projects for the coming five-year period, Grady said.

FRANKLIN, Vt. (WCAX) - Many Vermont school buildings are outdated and in need of upgrades. The state stopped funding construction projects in 2007, so schools are left to figure out different ways to get their buildings up to snuff.

The Franklin Central School is home to 146 students in rural northwestern Vermont, and district leaders say it’s been a tight squeeze since the day the doors opened.

“They are all tucked right in there tightly, and there is no space for preschool. They share that room with music class,” Missisquoi Valley Supervisory Union Superintendent Julie Regimbal said.

The building was constructed in 1992 when the largest influx was 24 preschool students per year. The district is using $4.1 million of its $7.9 million federal pandemic funds to upgrade the building. They’re adding 6,000 square feet of new space and renovating an additional 2,000. The goal is to meet the basic needs of students who could benefit from some legroom, especially after the pandemic.

“This will allow for a dedicated preschool service classroom. We wanted more options for OT, PT and psychological services, but having preschool have its own dedicated space supports our youngest, more vulnerable students,” said Regimbal.

She says adding space for psychological services will be especially helpful for kids who are struggling, noting oftentimes students receive support in one room separated by dividers. The project will be completed by next fall.

Meanwhile, in northeastern Vermont, leaders say the 30-year-old Coventry Village school is bursting at its seams, too. Sarah Bathalon, who sits on the local school board, says the school currently has 137 students but held 150 at its peak.

“We need more one-on-one spaces, individual speech rooms, and special ed rooms. The ways we’ve taught have changed from 30 years ago,” said Bathalon.

RICHMOND, Va. -- A proposal to address fire safety within Richmond Public Schools sparked a heated disagreement among school board members Monday night.
The Richmond Education Association (REA), a union that represents RPS employees, drafted a resolution requesting that the school board adopt policies to ensure compliance with the statewide fire prevention code.
exchange
A proposal to address fire safety within Richmond Public Schools sparked a heated disagreement among school board members Monday night.
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By: Tyler LaynePosted at 6:21 PM, Oct 17, 2023 and last updated 8:36 PM, Oct 17, 2023
RICHMOND, Va. -- A proposal to address fire safety within Richmond Public Schools sparked a heated disagreement among school board members Monday night.
The Richmond Education Association (REA), a union that represents RPS employees, drafted a resolution requesting that the school board adopt policies to ensure compliance with the statewide fire prevention code.
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The proposal followed a CBS 6 report which showed 70% of Richmond schools were in violation of the fire code as of August 21, the first day of school, according to school fire inspection reports obtained through a public records request.
190 total violations were cited.
Beth Almore, an RPS teacher and member of REA, spoke at Monday's meeting in support of the resolution. She brought with her a picture of her aunt who she said died from smoke inhalation during a fire.
“When I saw the reports that there were 190 fire code violations, yes, I would describe my reaction as ‘shock,'" Almore said. "Particularly in buildings in such an advanced state of disrepair as we have in the city, it is incumbent upon us to adhere more strictly to the fire code than other localities."
On September 18, Richmond Fire Chief Melvin Carter penned a letter to Superintendent Jason Kamras stating none of the 190 violations cited during the inspection period would have prevented schools from opening.
 

Hurricane Ian damage continues to be repaired by the School District of Lee County.
The school board received an in-depth review of where the district stands in regards to damages and recovery, as well as the financial impact and recovery during a meeting on Oct. 2.
DAMAGES AND RECOVERY
Maintenance Services Assistant Director Toni Dent-McNair said the Operations Department received 2,317 total service requests. Of those 1,713 have been closed leaving 604 still in progress.
“Advancements are made daily. As of last Friday (Sept. 29) an additional 11 were completed reducing to 593. This means we have now completed over 74%,” she said.
Damage was sustained throughout all district sites with the most common being restoration of campus roofs, drywall, floors, ceiling tiles, canopies, sunshades, athletic fields and fencing.
“Prioritization of securing building envelopes and restoring interior learning environments and guaranteeing student safety has been paramount and has been assigned to completion,” Dent-McNair said.
There should be full completion by the end of 2023 with the exception of Hector A. Cafferata and some roof repairs, she said, adding the district has been proactively implementing additional processes to piggyback contracts to help mitigate foreseeable issues to keep them on track of completing projects.
The presentation broke down the closed project percentages, in progress and open projects within seven categories — athletics and fields, electrical, exterior, HVAC, interior, portables and roof.