Two Pioneer Valley lawmakers are seeking a more concrete plan — including the creation of a “watchdog group” — to improve the health of public school buildings and reduce their environmental impact.

Sen. Jo Comerford, D-Northampton, and Rep. Mindy Domb, D-Amherst, were able to incorporate several pieces of their proposal for healthy and green public schools as part of a major bill focused on clean energy and offshore wind. That bill passed last year as part of the Legislature’s 2021-2022 session.

Their goal was to collect data on the health of school buildings, including their energy and resource efficiency, to limit exposure to toxic chemicals and create an environment that is “conducive to learning,” according to the original bill.

“It was really an exciting and pretty sweeping bill,” Comerford said of the measure, which “urged the collection of real data” on the conditions of school buildings and their infrastructure.

RICHMOND, Va. -- The state agency that ensures compliance with workplace safety standards has initiated an investigation into a Richmond school that's been at the center of recent mold concerns.
The Department of Labor and Industry confirmed its Virginia Occupational Safety and Health (VOSH) program opened the investigation into Boushall Middle School on October 11.
mold concerns
The Richmond School Board says full building test will be scheduled this week.

By: Tyler LaynePosted at 5:43 PM, Oct 16, 2023 and last updated 11:35 PM, Oct 16, 2023
RICHMOND, Va. -- The state agency that ensures compliance with workplace safety standards has initiated an investigation into a Richmond school that's been at the center of recent mold concerns.
The Department of Labor and Industry confirmed its Virginia Occupational Safety and Health (VOSH) program opened the investigation into Boushall Middle School on October 11.
Recent Stories from wtvr.com
It's unclear what exactly is under investigation and why it was launched, but a spokesperson said it was initiated in response to a complaint.
"We are unable to comment further at this time due to the active investigation," department spokesperson Stephen Clausing said.
In recent months, some teachers and parents have complained about the air quality conditions at Boushall.
Teachers said they returned to the building after the summer break to find mold covering desks, chairs, ceilings, and equipment. They claimed the conditions were causing health issues.
 

NICHOLAS COUNTY, W.Va. (WCHS) — The Nicholas County Board of Education approved three school closures Monday night.
The decision comes as the school system is preparing to build a brand new pre-k through eighth grade building at Glade Creek.
The board approved the closing of Glade Creek Elementary School, Summersville Elementary School and Summersville Middle School in order to form the new school.
"We're one step closer to getting one step closer," Nicholas County Schools Superintendent Terrence Beam said.
After years of setbacks and delays, Nicholas County is inching closer to breaking ground at the Glade Creek property.
On Oct. 12, the BOE approved a plan for a single building that will house pre-k through eighth grade students but will have separate entrances, cafeterias and administrations.
"It will be two schools in one building, but it does save us the money we need to do the other things that our other schools need," Beam told Eyewitness News.
Monday's decision to close three schools was needed to update the Nicholas County School's Consolidated Educational Facilities Plan. The plan is something schools have to develop every 10 years.
"When this situation came up we had to change our CEFP," Beam said. "Some of the things we're going to do are not listed high enough on our rankings our priority rankings for the CEFP. So, you have to adjust that."
 

Melissa Pacheco remembers multiple days when her daughter and nephews came home from school with headaches from overheating. One day, her nephew vomited as a result, she said.

She blamed the lack of central air at Academia de Lenguaje y Bellas Artes, a South Side Milwaukee public school that teaches bilingually from preschool to eighth grade. 

Pacheco tried to organize other parents to push for investments in air conditioning, but school leaders prioritized recreational equipment instead, she said. She elevated her heat concerns to the Milwaukee Public Schools board as it planned for students to return to in-person learning earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic.

After that didn’t work, Pacheco during the 2021-2022 school year pulled her seventh-grade daughter from the school she attended since kindergarten.

“I was like, ‘I’m so done with them. Nothing gets done,’” the 41-year-old mother said.

Academia de Lenguaje y Bellas Artes is among about half of public schools in Milwaukee — and thousands nationally — that lack full or partial indoor air conditioning, according to district officials. That shortcoming has caused school closures and left students struggling to concentrate when temperatures rise. 

States for years have required schools to test for lead in drinking water, even as administrators say the undertaking can be expensive, time-consuming, and stressful.
Now, Michigan is poised to lead the nation in adopting a new approach that experts believe will help schools address lead in water more quickly, effectively, and cheaply.
Both chambers of the Michigan legislature have passed “Filter First” bills that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is expected to sign into law this week after allocating funding for the program two years ago. The new laws will require schools and child care facilities to identify water fountains and sinks that are most heavily used, proactively install lead-eliminating filters at those locations, and then conduct tests to ensure the filters are working correctly.
This approach represents a major shift from most existing state laws regarding lead in school drinking water, which can be toxic and cause cancer and developmental challenges in children.
The federal government doesn’t require schools to test for lead, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency only requires that public water systems take action to address lead contamination when they find lead levels of 15 parts per billion or more.
But the American Academy of Pediatrics asserts that no level of lead in drinking water is safe to consume, particularly for children. And many states have set lower levels of lead at which they require action to remove the chemical element.
The focus on drinking water in schools is part of a larger nationwide effort to replace lead pipes, with help from the federal government. High-profile contamination in places like Flint, Mich., and Jackson, Miss., have drawn national attention to the problem in recent years.
 

Faced with a worker shortage, Vail Unified School District will pay signing, attendance and retention bonuses to groundskeepers and maintenance technicians.
The district board voted unanimously Tuesday to approve the incentive program after being told 63% of Vail’s groundskeeper positions are unfilled and 27% of its maintenance technician slots are vacant, while there are “1,230 open work orders that need to be completed at school sites across the district.”
“Due to the number of outstanding work orders, there are times when maintenance staff members are working on repairs in specific areas such as electrical, plumbing, etc., without the needed background,” the board was told.
The shortages persist even though Vail recently raised hourly starting pay for the workers, administrators told the board.
New hires in those categories will receive $200 when they complete training, $200 after 90 days of work and completing 50 work orders, and $200 after 180 days of employment and completing 100 work orders.
 

Holes in walls. Leaky plumbing. Aging systems. Outdated educational facilities.
These are just a few of the issues supporters say plague the nearly 50-year-old Tri-County Regional Vocational Technical High School, a facility tasked with training students in modern, high-tech vocational education.
Not only is the school district’s original building outdated for educational purposes, the facility and its systems are well beyond their life expectancy and need $165 million-plus in repairs, school officials say.
Voters in the 11 school district communities, including North Attleboro, Plainville, Wrentham, Norfolk, Seekonk and Franklin, will vote on a planned new $286 million school at a special election Oct. 24.
If approved, taxpayers in the district towns could face a tax increase over a number of years.
The school has significant deficiencies in lab classrooms and other areas, including those for the nursing program, the cafeteria, auditorium and gym.
There are structural and mechanical and code compliance issues as well.
Among the school’s many shortcomings are that the main entrance lacks appropriate security, the electrical system sorely needs updating, it lacks fire suppression systems, there are handicapped accessibility issues, and asbestos.
 

Nearly a year after voters rejected a $17 million upgrade to sports facilities at Southington High School, the state has committed partial funding for athletic field reconstruction, allocating $500,000 that will be matched by $206,663 in town funds.

Cheshire, meanwhile, received $500,000 to construct an outdoor “splash pad” on the west side of the Cheshire Community Pool, as well as upgrading a similar feature within the facility. The town is expected to contribute $364,303 for design and construction work.

The state money comes in the form of Small Town Economic Assistance Program (STEAP) grants, and is specifically designated for “infrastructure improvements, such as road safety reconstruction projects, sewer and drainage upgrades, sidewalk and pedestrian safety enhancements, recreational facility upgrades, and other kinds of capital improvement projects,” Gov. Ned Lamont said in a Sept. 29 statement announcing the funding.

In total, the state will provide $24.5 million in STEAP grant funding for 60 communities.

 Orleans Parish voters are being asked to renew a millage dedicated to the maintenance and repairs for school facilities.

In advance of the vote, NOLA Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Avis Williams and Orleans Parish School Board President Olin Parker stopped by WGNO’s Good Morning New Orleans show to discuss the millage.

“In 2014, New Orleans voters overwhelmingly approved a millage to keep our school facilities in good condition. After the storm, the federal government invested $2 billion in our schools. The voters of New Orleans stepped up and said, ‘Yes, we want to continue taking care of these schools this Saturday.’ We’re just asking voters to do the same thing, renew a tax that they’ve already been paying. It’s not a new tax and it’s something that benefits every single student and every single teacher in our parish,” said Parker.

This time, voters would be asked to renew the tax for a 20-year term.

“It’s important for long-range planning. When we think about capital planning, we know that even with our newest facilities, they’re going to need new HVAC systems and new roofs, and heaven forbid we have any natural disasters. We have to be ready to make those repairs and renovations as necessary. We just want to make sure that we have an opportunity for long-range planning and commitment for our new strategic plan of action is operational excellence. This is part of it. Our scholars deserve to learn in safe and healthy buildings that allow them to do innovative things to prepare them for their future,” said Williams.

Members of the Howard County Council and Board of Education expressed frustrations with recent changes in the county's school construction funding priorities during a joint meeting Wednesday. Funding for construction and infrastructure projects is based on the facilities condition index, which serves as a ranking of Howard County public schools by building condition and has been especially prone to change in the last several months.

The council has been presented with three versions of the school system's capital budget request since May, which council member Liz Walsh said is a problem because it gives the impression that decisions have been made without reliable information and with no accountability to impacted community members.

"This, to me, is a farce," Walsh said. "There is no reliability, there is no accountability, there is no consistency across the numbers. The only thing that is consistent is that, year-by-year, the approved budget that comes here underinvests. ... We are never going to overcome any of this deficit by whatever device we choose if we do not actually follow through with what we put on these pieces of paper."

The Board of Education voted on Sept. 28 to fund renovations and additions for Oakland Mills and Dunloggin middle schools instead of previously scheduled full replacement buildings for those schools.

Hopkins Academy—a public middle and high school serving a few hundred students in Hadley, Mass.—needs a new furnace and a new roof. But the elected school committee has struggled for years to find the right combination of funds and contractors for a project they hope will reduce the 70-year-old building’s environmental footprint.
Enter Sara Ross, co-founder of Undaunted K-12, a nonprofit supporting schools’ efforts to transition to clean energy. At a statewide conference for school committee leaders, Ross led a session about using federal funds to pay for green infrastructure.
“What I learned at that session really blew my mind,” said Humera Fasihuddin, chair of the Hadley school committee.
She’s likely not alone. The federal government is currently offering funds that Ross believes could be a lifeline for hundreds of districts nationwide that desperately need to upgrade their buildings to withstand the oncoming effects of climate change: extreme heat, unpredictable storms, rampant wildfires, and devastating flooding.
But those funds, tucked inside the sweeping climate change legislation Congress approved a year ago known as the Inflation Reduction Act, have flown under the radar. That may be because the mechanism for receiving them isn’t one school districts typically use.
 

Cincinnati is at least $400 million behind on maintaining city infrastructure like roads, parks and recreation centers. Several City Council members took a tour Monday of some facilities most in need of attention.
Council Member Jeff Cramerding arranged the tour to see the oft-cited deferred maintenance problem firsthand. He says the idea for a tour predates the proposed sale of the Cincinnati Southern Railway. Officials are proposing a sale of the city-owned railway to Norfolk Southern for $1.62 billion, with the city investing the money and only spending the earned interest, which would only go toward maintaining and improving existing infrastructure.
The city's entire capital budget averages about $60 million a year. About $25 million a year comes from leasing the railway.
Some critics, however, say it's foolish to sell an asset that has brought the city steady revenue for over a century.
"The need is so immense," Cramerding said. "The railroad would be a tremendous help, but it's not going to be enough. So as a city, we're going to have to continue to be creative and continue to address it."
Last year, City Council allocated a few million dollars from the carryover budget to deferred maintenance projects. This year's carryover budget is expected to be on the City Council agenda next week. Here are some places the tour visited.
 

When Hurricane Michael hit the Florida Panhandle in 2018, Calhoun County schools were ravaged. Winds of 160 miles per hour destroyed an elementary school and ripped high-school bleachers from the ground.

“It was complete devastation,” said Darryl Taylor Jr., superintendent of the district. “It was like a nuclear bomb had gone off.”

The Calhoun schools are still trying to rebuild what they lost five years ago. A new elementary school is not yet finished, and some students are still in temporary classrooms. The process of assessing the damage for insurance, along with the pandemic, has been arduous.

“It was long and slow,” Mr. Taylor said.

As climate disasters become more commonplace, school districts are learning that a strong storm can put learning in a state of disarray. In New York, a driving rain recently flooded the city, with water seeping into more than 300 schools. Cafeterias and kitchens were unusable; students’ 45-minute commutes turned into two hours; one school was temporarily evacuated.

The school district currently has 12 repair workers to cover 56 buildings — posing perhaps the largest roadblock to keeping schools open amid heat waves.

The Board of Alders Education Committee discussed the dearth of maintenance workers in New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) at the committee’s Sept. 27 meeting.

The meeting occurred a few weeks after numerous school air conditioning systems failed to function during record-hot temperatures, leading the school district to send all kids home for the day.

According to NHPS spokesperson Justin Harmon, the district employs three electricians, three carpenters, two plumbers, two steam fitters, and one painter, with two unfunded and vacant positions among the district’s planned maintenance and repair staff.

In addition to employees specifically trained to make repairs, each school building has a building manager and an assistant building manager in charge of generally supporting school facilities, and the district also employs 186 contracted part-time custodial cleaners along with more than a dozen other custodial staff members.

Those employees cover 41 school buildings as well as other properties owned by the district — amounting to a total of 4,390,940 square feet, Harmon wrote in an email after the meeting.

At the September alder committee meeting, Supt. Madeline Negrón said that when she first started her position at the helm of NHPS this summer, she was shocked that the district did not have more staff to make building repairs

“I almost died when [NHPS Chief Operating Officer Thomas Lamb said] you only had one painter and one plumber. I said, ​‘What? For 41 schools?’” she recalled.

The state school board on Wednesday approved requests to the state Legislature for an additional $198.2 million for the Hawaii public schools’ operating budget and an added $273 million for capital improvement projects for next fiscal year.
State Department of Education officials who authored the requests said additional funding for 2024-2025 is necessary to respond to myriad pressing issues — among them: catching up from last legislative session’s severe budget, covering inflation and collective-bargaining pay preventing and preparing for the possibility of an active implementing a new statewide strategic for the schools, and recovering from pandemic learning loss and the Maui wildfires.
Brian Hallett, assistant superintendent and chief financial officer in the DOE’s Office of Fiscal Services, said the gap between the operating budget the DOE was granted by the past Legislature and what the schools, students and teachers will need for next fiscal year is “extraordinary.”
“I don’t recall a budget so precariously positioned in terms of uncertainty following last year’s budget, with actually less funds and greater needs,” Hallett said during a presentation to the Finance and Infrastructure Committee of the state Board of Education.
 

MEMPHIS, Tenn — The first-of-its-kind "tornado safe room" in West Tennessee is now located at Belle Forest Community School.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) held a ribbon-cutting celebration for the new room on Friday morning. 

The facility is a two-in-one addition for Belle Forest. The school says it will provide students with a "world-class" gymnasium for physical education as well as sports activities. 

Reportedly, it is also a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)-approved safe house facility, built for the surrounding community in the event of a tornado or natural disaster.

PESHTIGO — Silver shovels turned the dirt as Peshtigo celebrated its groundbreaking on a $40.7 million addition to its middle and high school on Wednesday.
Among those wearing hard hats were two students, Taylor Wortner, a sophomore, and Christina Powers, a senior.
Wortner, wearing her Peshtigo blues, said she’ll be the first group to graduate with the renovations.
As a three-sport athlete, she said the new athletic accommodations “will not only be great for the students but great for the community.”
The renovations will boast a two-station gym for sports and performances and a fitness center, which are breaking ground this year in the approximately six-phase plan that will stretch until August 2026. The school will also keep the old gym.
“I’m really excited for the gym,” Wortner said. “Oh, and air conditioning.”
Powers said that although she’ll be graduating by the time the renovations are done, she has a younger sister in school who will benefit — along with the town.
“All our community uses the school, not just the students,” Powers said, mentioning that people can use the gym at certain times when the school isn’t using it.
Gary Larsen, school board president, said that in his 19 years of service, this project is 10 times the cost of anything he’s seen go through in his tenure.
“Our students will soon see the state-of-the-art school they deserve,” Larsen said.
Chad Sodini, high school principal, summed up the feelings of the day.
“I know our students and staff are excited,” Sodini said.
 

Across the country, schools generally pay for major building upgrades by taking on debt through bonds that they pay back over a number of years. And in most of the United States, school districts need support merely from a simple majority of voters to pass those bonds.

But 10 states buck that trend, requiring more than a simple majority. School districts in those states have a steeper path to funding large projects, whether the construction of new buildings or the replacement of an outdated HVAC system.

California requires 55 percent in favor; Missouri requires 57 percent; seven states require 60 percent; and one state—Idaho—requires support from a whopping two-thirds of voters. So even if a majority of voters in those states back school facilities bonds, it might not be enough.

Those 10 states collectively are home to 4,000 of the nation’s roughly 13,000 public school districts. They enroll 5 million students—roughly 10 percent of the nation’s total public K-12 enrollment.

DEEP RIVER — Shoreline middle schoolers will remain at  Valley Regional High School for classes for the foreseeable future after being moved there in early September due to extensive mold discovered before the start of the academic year, an official said.
Regional School District 4 Superintendent Brian J. White said Thursday that mold was discovered in late August when teachers returned to John Winthrop Middle School in Deep River after summer break. 
The district serves students living in Chester, Deep River and Essex.
“There was very high humidity in parts of the building,” White said. That triggered an investigation to determine exactly what was occurring. A consultant report, based on lab results, confirmed the situation.
The superintendent has been communicating with the school community every week since then.
Based on the findings of a Sept. 7 preliminary report, school was immediately dismissed and everyone was told to leave the building, he added. The middle school remained closed the next day.
“We knew at that time what we were going to have to do a much deeper dive,” White explained.
 

An abundance of natural light flows through the art classrooms at Lawrence Central High School. Three floors above, students complete independent work in an open-space lounge. 

And on another end of the building, crews work on the latest addition to the Lawrence Township high school: an indoor pool. 

The renovations here are among the largest of the district’s massive facilities upgrade plan that has touched each of the district’s 17 school buildings. So far, it has pumped more than $500 million into new classrooms, new stadiums, bigger playgrounds, safety renovations, and more.  

The district’s Blue Ribbon Facilities plan, which began in 2014, sought to upgrade buildings that are up to 55 years old by creating more classroom space to accommodate the district’s growing student population. The district has so far spent over $200 million on these upgrades. But in 2019, voters approved a $220 million ballot measure that turbocharged the district’s facility plans by funding improvements at Lawrence Central, five other schools, and four early learning centers. The changes could be vital to ensuring students are engaged in school, a challenge in the post-pandemic era.