Redwood City School District is supercharging its commitment to renewable energy as construction begins on solar canopies at seven additional campuses this month.

Groundbreaking began Monday at Henry Ford Elementary School and Taft Community School, with Kennedy Middle School following suit on Jan. 14. Other campuses will begin solar work in the spring and continue through July.

“These investments help ensure more funding remains focused on students and classrooms while easing financial pressure on the community,” a district press release stated.

BRIDGEPORT —The Bridgeport Board of Education recently approved the district's $116 million five-year capital plan that includes proposed funding for projects spanning from roof replacements to a new school. 
Board members voted on the 2027-31 capital plan during a Monday special virtual meeting, where the district's chief operating officer, Jorge Garcia, presented the request. He said the grand total will change each year due to the district searching for grants and reimbursements. 
He noted his team worked closely with the state-hired consulting firm Public Works to "weave the needs of the district into the five year plan." 

As MSAD 33 officials plan the rebuilding of a Frenchville elementary school, the district could also join with another St. John Valley school system.

The MSAD 33 and Madawaska school boards will meet Jan. 26 to discuss the new Dr. Levesque Elementary School project, which the Maine Department of Education approved in November. 

The Department of Education approved funding to rebuild Dr. Levesque into a new facility that would also incorporate Wisdom Middle-High School. This comes nearly five years after the elementary school was destroyed by a devastating fire. It was one of only two schools selected by the state for reconstruction funds. The other was Dike Newell Elementary School, which an arsonist burned in 2022. The state prioritized both projects because the schools were lost to fires.

The North Attleborough Public Schools has identified 11 top-priority capital improvement projects it looks to submit to the town for fiscal year 2027 funding. 

Administrators warn that aging elementary school buildings and equipment are past the point of repairs and in need of full replacement.

The draft, presented in November to the School Committee by Director of Facilities Christopher Murphy, includes roof and window replacements, special education vehicles, district-wide phone and security upgrades, and renovations to address outdated learning spaces. Decisions on what funding will be made available will likely be done late spring of 2026.

Murphy said that across the district, many of the facilities’ needs – especially at the elementary level – are similar.

“You see the same issues from school to school – roofs and building envelope needs. Our priority is to keep the buildings warm, safe and dry,” he said. 

The top needs

The district’s top priority for the new year is replacing the roof at the Early Learning Center. Murphy said the roof is 31 years old, with less than two years of life to it. A recent independent roofing assessment by the Garland Co. in October 2025 confirmed the urgency and gave an estimated cost of $850,000 to $1 million.

School Committee member Lyndsey Benharris noted at the November meeting that the ELC roof has been leaking since 2005.

The new year has arrived, and with it comes a visible transformation for students at one of Central Texas’ oldest high school campuses.
New Braunfels High School, a fixture in the community since 1845, is welcoming 2026 with sweeping changes following the completion of Phase 1 of its multi-year campus rebuild. Funded through voter-approved bonds and totaling an estimated $327.3 million across two phases, the renovation project marks one of the largest investments in school infrastructure in the district’s history.
New Braunfels ISD officially marked the completion of Phase 1 with a ribbon cutting ceremony and open house on December 10, 2025, celebrating the opening of a new three-story academic wing that will soon be filled with students returning from winter break.
 

When students walked through the door of Highland Park Middle School for the first time last September, they surprised principal Hibaq Mohamed by telling her the new entrance reminded them of a famous retailer with a store just a few blocks away.
“Students said the space feels like a Target,” Mohamed smiled.
The students were referring to the school’s new entrance at 975 S. Snelling Ave., which opens to an office area decorated in the school colors, red and white, and then to a brightly lit corridor that leads to the classrooms. The $23.5 million renovation has fundamentally transformed the 67-year-old middle school with enhanced safety features, a new office and new learning spaces for its 843 students.
 

Six weeks after the Hawai‘i State Teachers Association held a press conference highlighting concerns about plumbing issues in a special needs classroom at Kealakehe Elementary School in West Hawai‘i, the repairs were completed over the winter break at a cost of $90,146, said the Hawaiʻi Department of Education.

A ceiling drainpipe from the adult bathroom above had leaked into the third-grade classroom in the E Building.

ANN ARBOR, MI – More than half a million in tax credits will help install rooftop solar panels at several buildings in Ann Arbor Public Schools in a move the district claims will save money and free up millions more for new construction.
The district announced receiving its first direct-pay check for $572,000 from an expiring federal program to help install arrays in a news release on Monday, Dec. 29.
The news comes just a couple of weeks after Ann Arbor School Board members got their first briefing on putting over $4.6 million toward solar panels at four schools over the next several months.
According to the district, accessing federal tax credits would help with close to a third of solar installation costs — particularly as Congress rolls back energy-related incentives — and contribute to revolving funds in the $1 billion capital bond approved by voters in 2019.
 

Officials with Covington Independent Schools say that roof damage has impacted Latonia Elementary School.
The call about the collapse came in to officials at approximately 11:10 p.m. on Wednesday.
On Thursday morning, WLWT captured drone footage of the elementary school that showed that the roof had partially caved in and that damage to the building's exterior bricks was present.
Covington Independent Schools says that no one was inside the building at the time of the collapse, with no injuries reported.
“The safety of our students and staff is our No. 1 priority,” said Superintendent Alvin Garrison of the collapse. “We are currently working with structural engineers, restoration and environmental companies, and local fire officials to determine the exact cause of the collapse and to evaluate the integrity of the surrounding structure.”
 

Students at two Arlington middle schools are urging school board members in the Northern Virginia county to fund and expedite renovation plans.
At a school board meeting earlier this month, students at Swanson and Thomas Jefferson middle schools said hallways are overcrowded, sprinkler systems and sinks are broken and major upgrades are needed.
Board members approved the direction for the Capital Improvement Plan covering fiscal years 2027-2036. Part of the plan includes tasking Superintendent Francisco Durán with presenting renovation plans for the two middle schools.
ARL Now first reported details of the vote.
The total budget to upgrade both campuses would be in the range of $150 million, according to school board documents, and school leaders would have to prioritize infrastructure, safety and accessibility needs.
It’s unclear, though, when exactly renovations would occur and how much work would be done at the schools.
 

Built in 1896, Booker T. Washington Middle School is a distinctive redbrick schoolhouse that after mid-century additions consumed most of a city block, growing to educate about 1,000 students a year as the area became a thriving Black middle-class community.

Then families started leaving the city, mostly for the suburbs. In 2002, when the current city school board chair began teaching there, one of the four floors was vacant.

Twenty years later, the West Baltimore building was half-empty. Then another problem arose: Booker T. Washington desperately needed a new roof. The cost: $5 million.

Today, the historic building with a cupola and arches houses just 363 students from two schools, and one of them — Renaissance Academy — may close in June, leaving empty all but a tiny fraction of the massive building.

Across Baltimore, school enrollments have been shrinking, driving a proliferation of small schools that require an outsize investment to stay open. That’s led Baltimore City Public Schools to close or merge 39 schools over the past decade, yet the city still has at least 30 schools, many on the West Side, that are operating far below capacity.

Nearly a quarter of Miami residents, and almost half in District Four, do not live within a 10-minute walk of a public park, a gap the city aims to close by opening school playgrounds, fields and courts to the community.

The Miami City Commission has authorized the city manager to negotiate and execute a long-term joint-use agreement with Miami-Dade County Public Schools to open school recreational facilities to residents during non-school hours. The move advances a citywide strategy to expand access to safe, local spaces for exercise and community gatherings, with a final accord pending the school board’s approval of the agreement.

Welcome to KAWC’s Educating Yuma, a new program that takes a closer look at the schools, people and issues shaping Yuma's future.

This episode explores Arizona’s long-troubled system for funding public school facilities — the buildings, repairs, and infrastructure students rely on every day.

A landmark 1994 lawsuit forced the state to overhaul how it paid for school construction and maintenance. But over time, funding fell behind. In 2017, a new lawsuit argued that Arizona was once again violating its own constitution by failing to adequately support school facilities. In August 2025, a judge agreed.

KAWC Education Solutions Reporter Sisko Stargazer has spent the past several months since following up with Yuma schools to find out how the current system has affected them.

NORWALK — The new West Rocks Middle School will have to wait a little longer to open after city officials decided to pause the project for a year to take advantage of extra savings.
An affordable housing bill signed by Gov. Ned Lamont in November would increase Norwalk's reimbursement rate for new construction from 60% to 65%, but the higher rate doesn't kick in until July 1, 2026. The deadline to submit school construction projects for state reimbursement is June 30 every year, meaning Norwalk officials would have to wait until the summer of 2027 to submit the West Rocks project to get the extra funding.

The state recently awarded the Watertown Schools a grant to run its farm-to-school program, including its Freight Farm. See details in the announcement from the Watertown Public Schools, below.

Watertown Public Schools has received more than $80,000 in state grant funding to continue its farm-to-school efforts, expanding learning opportunities for Watertown’s students while also increasing local food production.

Last week, Governor Maura Healey’s office announced $1.2 million in funding to expand educational food growth and farming efforts across Massachusetts. In total, 34 public school districts and early childhood centers received funding.

Three years ago, a group of educators went before the state charter school commission with a bold proposal. With the commission’s approval and state funds, they would build the first charter school in Hawaiʻi to specialize in artificial intelligence and data science, operating out of a small campus in Kalihi. 
The commission was ready to give the school permission to move forward, but Department of Education leaders were skeptical. Kalihi schools were already struggling with low student enrollment, they said, and nearby DOE campuses offered lessons in technology and engineering similar to the coursework Kūlia planned to offer. 
Kūlia Academy, which opened last fall despite opposition from the DOE, already has a lengthy waitlist. The school draws students from across the island and largely appeals to families because of its central location and unique focus on artificial intelligence, school director Andy Gokce said. 
“We are on a good trajectory,” Gokce said. 
While Hawaiʻi faces shrinking public school enrollment overall, demand for charter schools has continued to grow. Charters have seen nearly a 10% jump in enrollment since 2020 — the only sector of Hawaiʻi education to report continued growth since the pandemic. Even as the state considers closing some small public schools, charter schools are building campuses everywhere from urban Honolulu to the north shore of Kauaʻi.
 

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (WBKO) - As severe weather becomes more of a threat to Kentucky, public schools are taking the extra step to ensure that students are safe.

In 2019, Senate Bill 1 stated that any new K-12 facility had to incorporate a safe room. A safe room, according to FEMA, is built to withstand winds up to 250 mph and also provide electricity up to two hours after a severe weather event.

Chris McIntyre, the chief financial officer for Warren County Public Schools says these safe spaces bring more piece of mind during severe weather.

“This is another layer that helps protect our most valuable resources, our kids,” McIntyre said. ”The parents feel more secure when their kids are at school.”

The results are in and, by a wide margin, it seems Philadelphia residents want aging school structures throughout the city saved by being renovated or rebuilt, instead of seeing the facilities shuttered.

The School District of Philadelphia recently found this out through the results of a "Facilities Planning Process Emerging Themes Survey" that sought input from those with students in the district, as well as teachers, faculty and others with connections to school facilities, for input on how to manage the district's aging structures.

The survey found 81% of respondents felt it was important or very important that Pre-K through eighth grade programming strengthened through better use of space.

This included responses that called for old facilities to be updated, space used more efficiently, class sizes reduced, and wider access to programs for arts, music, physical education, home economics, foreign language, along with a wider range of extracurricular activities and clubs for all grades.

Following voter rejection of its $63 million, single proposition bond proposal during the November general election, the Boyd ISD board of trustees met last week to discuss alternatives to curb student overcrowding issues at the elementary school.

Superintendent Tom Woody led the discussion which centered around the possibility of moving Kindergarten classes from Boyd Elementary School to Boyd Primary School in an effort to create more space at the elementary campus. However, the potential move will likely come with new issues for the district to face regarding restroom facilities and class sizes. 

“There’s really not enough restrooms in the [primary school] building,” Woody said. “Also, when you really look at it, the classrooms themselves for 22 Kindergarten kids are going to be on the small side… We’re really looking at Kindergarten going from five to six [classes] next year.”

(Washington, DC – Dec. 23, 2025) – The 2025 State of Our Schools report, released today by the 21st Century School Fund, International WELL Building Institute (IWBI), and the National Council on School Facilities (NCSF), shows that the U.S. now faces a $90 billion shortfall in school facility funding every single year, despite significant progress local school districts have made to ramp up their investments.

Since its earlier releases in 2016 and 2021, the report has tracked a steep and alarming rise in the nation’s school facilities funding deficit. What was a $46 billion gap in 2016 grew to $85 billion in 2021 and has continued to widen as school construction costs climb, building inventories expand, and aging facilities require more extensive maintenance, modernization, or replacement.