Schools investing in campus upgrades are putting more emphasis on spaces that encourage student engagement, allow flexibility for changing enrollments, and ensure student and staff safety, according to experts in school architecture.

Before new spaces are built or existing areas reconfigured, however, there’s a lot of planning between school officials and designers about how best to maximize a district’s desires with what is practically and financially possible.

″​​It was with that kind of question that we pulled together diverse thought leaders … to come together and kind of try to answer this question of what is the school of the future,” said Melissa Turnbaugh, a board member of the Learning Environments Action Research Network, or LEARN, and partner at PBK, a K-12 and higher education school design firm. LEARN, a new nonprofit organization, is a collaboration of education design experts, district officials and others working to promote safety, access, innovation, health and sustainability in schools.

SOMERVILLE, Mass. —
A Somerville school that was in the process of being structurally assessed is now closed after asbestos was found inside the building, according to officials in the Massachusetts city.

A city spokesperson said that on Monday, a consultant helping with an additional building assessment of the Winter Hill Community Innovation School informed Somerville officials of the unexpected presence of asbestos in material that is not typically found to contain asbestos. City officials then immediately informed Somerville Public Schools officials of the findings.

Somerville officials have closed the Winter Hill School, which has not held classes since early June, and it will remain closed to all until further notice while the findings are investigated, and the material is remediated, according to the city spokesperson.

ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ) - Roanoke City officials are preparing for the start of the new school year. During a joint meeting between Roanoke City Public Schools and the city council - a new budget work group was created, updates were given on new construction projects, and the superintendent was recognized.
Despite delaying the opening of the new technical education center – Roanoke City Public Schools officials found a solution. Students will be able to start their programs at the start of the new school year.
“This is legacy work,” said Superintendent Verletta White.
White is following through on her promises made under the Equity in Action Project.
“We believe that this is really important to build trust in our community,” explained White.
One of those promises is the new technical education center. The building will accommodate all existing programs and add 4 new ones, including criminal justice, landscaping, barber classes, and an HVAC program.
“Our community has asked for these programs since my first day on the job,” added White.
The new center gives students more options to pursue other avenues after graduating.
 

A long-standing effort to provide low-income schools with federal grants to improve building infrastructure and internet connectivity has been reintroduced in Congress by Democratic U.S. lawmakers with support from Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D), and others.

According to a Monday press release, the “Rebuild America’s Schools Act” would establish a $100 billion federal grant program and a $30 billion tax credit bond program for high-poverty schools to fund physical and digital infrastructure improvements.

Van Hollen has been a supporter and cosponsor of the initiative when the bill was first introduced in 2019, and then again in 2021. But neither of those previous efforts were successful.

“We must ensure that our students and educators have modern school buildings and facilities that support their success rather than rundown infrastructure that hinders progress,” Van Hollen said in a written statement.

“This legislation will help bring our schools and classrooms into the 21st century, ensuring that they don’t stand in the way of our children’s opportunity to receive a quality education,” he added.

The School District of Philadelphia will begin developing a “master plan” to deal with its aging school facilities, something city officials have been asking for since at least March. 
That’s what Superintendent Tony Watlington promised City Council’s Committee on Education during a Wednesday hearing exploring the option of creating an “independent school building authority.”
This “independent authority” would bond and oversee school buildings. It’s a pressing topic, as damaged asbestos caused several schools to close during the 2022-23 year.
It’s also a somewhat contentious idea. In May, Philadelphia Board of Education President Reginald Streater asserted that increasing funding should be a priority, not creating a new entity.
Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, chair of the education committee, called for the hearings in April, citing the district’s apparent inability to handle its facility needs. If created, the independent authority would supervise building repairs and construction projects.
“The state of our school buildings is an emergency,” Thomas told Billy Penn. “The creation of an independent authority could help relieve the burden on the School District of maintaining facilities and in turn improve learning outcomes.”
 

BROOKLYN, Ohio -- For more than a year, the Brooklyn City School District has been focusing on facility upgrades.
That conversation took a step forward this week when the Board of Education agreed to explore placing a bond issue on the March 2024 ballot.
“Obviously, with the age of our high school being built around 1957, we’re getting to a point where we need to really start looking at capital projects and how can we upgrade and renovate some of our facilities,” Superintendent/CEO Theodore Caleris said.
“This has been an ongoing conversation.”
What’s being proposed is a 2.14-mill bond issue that, if approved, would raise $15 million while costing the owner of a home valued at $100,000 an additional $74.90 annually.
While the exact renovations haven’t been decided, the superintendent said the plan involves the auditorium and the main gymnasium at the high school complex, as well as the athletic complex at Hurricane Alley.
 

Millions of children are heading to school in August during the worst heat wave in recorded human history.
Children in Atlanta and San Bernardino, California, kicked off their school year this week in temperatures well above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius).
“We start to get into really dangerous territory when the heat index is greater than 90 degrees, because that’s a significant health threat for heatstroke and heat illness,” said pediatrician Dr. Lisa Patel, a clinical associate professor of pediatrics at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health in California.
Many children in Phoenix and other cities in Maricopa County, Arizona, have started school despite recent temperatures up to 110 F (43 C) — so hot that people have gotten serious, even life-threatening burns from simply falling on the ground, as previously reported by CNN.
And children in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, are also heading to class next week with forecasted highs around 100 F (37.8 C) and a heat index of 110 — which is what the heat feels like on the body.
“Keep in mind, this summer might be the coolest one for the rest of our lives as global warming intensifies,” said Patel, who also serves as executive director of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health.
 

With trees to climb, prairie grass to run through and boulders to jump off, the new playground at Colene Hoose Elementary School in Normal, Illinois, isn’t slated to be your normal schoolyard.
“There’s an archetype in our heads when we think of a playground,” says Adam Bienenstock, whose company, Bienenstock Natural Playgrounds, built the school’s new outdoor space. “The difference between this place is that every aspect of this space is a place for kids to play.”
For years, many U.S. schoolyards have been asphalt- or cement-covered spaces devoid of trees and greenery. But as temperatures increase and climate change-fueled heat waves become more frequent, people in a growing number of U.S. communities – including Normal, Los Angeles, New York City and elsewhere – are rethinking what these outdoor spaces look like, working to make them more nature-friendly and resilient, yet also engaging for children.
Instead of blacktop, steel, rubber and plastic, schools and their partners are installing trees and other greenery, boulders, decomposed granite, and structures made out of natural materials like wood and rope.
“We’ve taken measurements where the air temperature is 67 degrees and the black rubber was 162 degrees,” says Sharon Danks, CEO and founder of Green Schoolyards America, a nonprofit that works to create environmentally friendly schoolyards and collaborated on the Colene Hoose Elementary School project.
 

The Philadelphia School District and city have settled a lawsuit challenging a law that would have given the city more environmental oversight over school buildings — and the ultimate authority to decide whether they can open.
The school system has agreed to drop its lawsuit, and the city prevailed on the creation of an advisory panel to examine district environmental issues. But the district retains final say-so on whether schools can open, and will get an additional $2.5 million in city money to address data management issues around asbestos, lead and other environmental hazards.
City and district leaders praised the settlement, announced Wednesday afternoon, hailing it as a way to move forward with one voice. The lawsuit, filed in January in federal court, was an unprecedented move by the school board against the authority that created it and chooses its members.
 

GUILFORD COUNTY, N.C. — We've been talking about the nearly 2-billion-dollar bond and how it is paving the way to build new Guilford County Schools (GCS).
We even took a look inside at the new designs and what it takes to construct a brand-new school. 
But what about the older schools left with problems needing to be fixed? 
Bond money is also being used to make much-needed repairs. 
Picture this: your home is 20-30 years old and at this point, it's time for needed repairs. You're going to need to replace the HVAC, and fix pipes, the roof, and windows, and the longer you wait, the more expensive it will be. 
This is exactly what GCS is dealing with on a much bigger scale. 
"As you can imagine a school district that has over 126 schools and 12 million square feet, it is very difficult to have that size of a funding budget just for our operations and our capital," Deputy Superintendent of Business and Operations, Dr. Julius Monk said. 
Without the right upkeep, it has created a lot of problems over the last few years. 
 

At least 25 of the gardens were severely damaged to the point that all their produce had to be thrown away, according to the Vermont Garden Network. Now, gardeners are evaluating how long the remediation process will be before they can replant.
Members of the Duxbury Community Garden gathered for two Saturdays in July to perform an excruciating task: uproot their flood-ravaged plants.
At least seven gardeners worked side by side, tearing out of the earth vegetables and herbs they’d been nurturing for months. They got rid of cucumbers, garlic, onions, peppers, potatoes, squashes and tomatoes, as well as basil, cabbages, fennel, kale and shallots.
The produce all became contaminated when the Winooski River overflowed on July 10, submerging the community garden in Duxbury in up to 3 feet of floodwater.
 

While school shootings and mass shootings continue to plague the U.S. at near-record levels, “campus vulnerability assessments” of Hawaii’s public schools have progressed at a slow pace, with only 140 of the state’s 258 regular public school campuses formally evaluated since 2017 for problems that could make them more vulnerable to a potential active shooter.

Based on the assessments conducted so far by the state Department of Education, officials say they know that outdated door locks and campus fencing, and inconsistent security staffing, announcement systems and threat-assessment initiatives are among the most common inadequacies that need critical attention at many public schools.

Six new schools will open for the 2023-2024 school year in Prince George's County, Maryland.

The six schools include:

Drew-Freeman Middle School in Suitland
Hyattsville Middle School
Kenmoor Middle School in Landover
Sonia Sotomayor Middle School in Adelphi
Walker Mill Middle School in Capitol Heights
Colin L. Powell Academy in Fort Washington
In total, the schools created 8,000 new spots for students.

Funding to build the schools came from what's known as the Blueprint Schools Program, a public-private partnership used to accelerate new school construction in the county.

By partnering with the private sector, the county was able to build the schools in two-and-a-half years.

Each of the schools has science, technology, engineering, art and math (STEAM) labs with 3D printers, etchers and robotics; a video production studio; smart boards in every classroom; voice amplification systems; parent resource rooms; state-of-the-art dance, choral, orchestra, drama and band rooms; state-of-the-art kitchens; art studios; multipurpose fields and more, school officials said.

FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. (7News) — Virginia public schools are facing a critical deadline Monday and are about to lose a ton of federal money.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced health officials to think differently -- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) distributed $42 billion nationwide, including $62 million to Virginia as part of a HEPA Air Purifier Program, which entitles Virginia schools to air purification systems at no cost. However, only 61% of local schools have applied for cleaner air systems in classrooms. The federally funded program ends Monday at midnight.

7News spoke with the head of the National Parents Union about the lack of participation in this program by superintendents and local school districts.

This summer, Boise School District began work on remodeling and renovating Collister Elementary School. Last summer, BSD started construction on Dallas Harris Elementary School. These projects were made possible by voters who passed the 2017 bond for $172.5 million, which needed a 66.67% ‘yes’ vote to be approved and received an 86% approval vote, BSD Public Affairs Administrator Dan Hollar said.
After the bond’s approval, BSD began 22 projects, Hollar said, and right now, the district’s 2017 bond projects are about 90% completed. Both Dallas Harris and Collister are expected to continue construction during the upcoming school year.

The state’s Department of Energy is giving economically disadvantaged public schools a better chance at accomplishing energy efficiency projects, as part of an effort to align itself with a federal directive from President Joe Biden.

A competitive matching grant program designed to advance projects in public and chartered public schools in small communities, the School Energy Efficiency Development Grant Program, known as SEED, was created with federal dollars in 2018. Since the program’s inception, four energy efficiency projects have been successfully completed in Hill, Lempster, New Boston, and Litchfield using $335,000 in grants. A fifth project in Berlin is underway. 

The projects have resulted in a combined annual savings of more than $65,000, 335,945 kilowatt hours of electricity, and more than 5,200 gallons of heating fuel, according to the Department of Energy, which puts out a request for proposals annually. Schools can apply to use the funding for insulation, lighting, weather sealing, appliances and equipment, retrofitting, and replacement of windows and doors. 

Last year, the grant program changed its scoring criteria for the pool of federal energy efficiency money to tip the scale in the application process for less-advantaged schools, part of an effort to advance a federal environmental justice initiative by President Biden. A related public comment process in February explored how the department could improve grant accessibility and the application itself. 

As the very first of the school bond construction projects begin to rise on their sites, massive cost increases for future projects loom on the horizon for Guilford County. 

Through ballot referendums in 2020 and 2022, voters approved a historic $2 billion in school bond debt, putting their support behind a plan that aimed to address the poor physical condition of many schools as well as changing enrollment trends, safety concerns and other issues. 

Now, inflation, elevated construction costs and other factors are making it look like the money might only be enough to pay for a fraction of what was planned. 

While county commissioners and school board members had already been through sticker shock over increased costs for the first round of projects, some estimates for future projects appear even worse.  

For example, it looks like costs to replace Vandalia and Bessemer elementary schools could each be nearly triple the original 2019 estimates. Their anticipated $83 million and $84 million price tags put them in the same ballpark as the expected costs to build Kiser Middle School, now about 10% complete, according to the district. 

Across the nation, a new school year is about to start amid record-breaking stretches of scorching heat and sporadic spikes in poor air-quality conditions. Individual districts’ preparedness to confront these weather-related challenges varies widely.

But an aging infrastructure coupled with these increasingly hot temperatures are factoring into districts’ struggles to keep up with cooling demands.

“The average school building is 50 years old,” said Mike Pickens, the executive director of the National Council on School Facilities. “Forty-one percent of schools in our country need their HVAC system updated or replaced.”

Pickens advises districts to be “proactive, preventive, or even predictive” when it comes to maintenance of school buildings’ heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning, or HVAC, systems. But the sudden onslaught of heat and poor air quality that is pummeling most of the nation this summer has increased the urgency for air-controlled school buildings.

CEDAR RAPIDS — Cedar Rapids school leaders will be doing more “fact finding” and “go back to the drawing board to seek out other possibilities” for middle schools based on feedback they received from the city council about a facility plan, Superintendent Tawana Grover said.

The school board and Cedar Rapids City Council held their first joint meeting Wednesday to discuss a facility master plan proposed by the school district. The plan requires a combined $445 million bond referendum to be approved by voters — the first half of which could go to voters in November. The second bond referendum of $225 million could go to voters in November 2029.

Grover, who began as superintendent of the almost 16,000-student school district April 3, said she was “very grateful” the two councils could discuss the plan together. This was the first time the entities held a joint meeting since facility planning began with the school district’s elementary schools in 2018.

The Virginia Board of Education moved Thursday to open a second application period for School Construction Assistance Program funding. About $85 million is still available for school divisions with plans for construction or renovation projects.

In May, the board approved 40 grants for projects in 28 school divisions. Those awards used about 80% of the $450 million allocated by the General Assembly in 2022 for the program. 

The state received 119 applications for the grants this spring. Each was graded on a 100-point scale based on 11 criteria including building age and economic need. 

Projects needed a minimum score of 65 to receive a grant for 10%, 20% or 30% of the project cost.

A second application period means schools that did not submit projects have another chance to do so. It also means that projects that didn’t meet the funding threshold can reapply.