Between the Oak Grove and Ridgedale neighborhoods just off East Main Street, the playground at Chattanooga's East Side Elementary School seems like an unlikely place for a public park at first glance.
While the playground's green, grassy field is large — about four acres — there's little to no shade cover from trees and no benches or walking paths common in other public parks. And though the land is public, owned and operated by Hamilton County Schools, it would seem uncertain to residents if the general public is allowed. There's a "no trespassing" sign at the playground's entrance gate.
"Not very inviting," said Noel Durant, the Tennessee state director of the Trust for Public Land, a national nonprofit that works to connect people to the outdoors.
Durant gave a tour of South Chattanooga to the Chattanooga Times Free Press Friday, highlighting the work Trust for Public Land is doing to bring public park access to the area.
Currently, 32% of Chattanooga's residents have a public park or trail near their home, according to the city's Department of Parks and Outdoors. The city wants that figure to rise to 55% over the next 10 years. That would require filling the shortage in public park space that the city has identified at 443 acres.
And while East Side Elementary's playground isn't closing that gap right now, the Trust for Public Land, through its community schoolyards project, is working with the city and the school district to transform it into a public park by the end of 2024.
 

Weeks after a roof collapsed at a building in the Tolleson Elementary School District, Gov. Katie Hobbs issued an executive order for the state to start doing more inspections of school buildings. State law requires the Arizona Department of Administration’s School Facilities Division to inspect all public school buildings once every five years. But for many, including Porfirio H. Gonzales Elementary School in Tolleson, those inspections hadn’t been happening. And then all in-person inspections stopped during the COVID-19 pandemic. “These schools need to be evaluated,” Arizona Education Association president Marisol Garcia said. “And they have not been for many years.”

Before the cafeteria roof collapsed at Porfirio H. Gonzales Elementary in Tolleson on June 2, the school hadn’t been inspected in more than nine years. That’s why Garcia says Gov. Hobbs’ executive order is a much-needed step in the right direction. “I’m hopeful that we can turn a page,” Garcia said. “And just focus on what’s next.”

FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — Fulton County Schools will move away from adding new school buildings over the next five years as part of a capital plan aimed at “protecting the investment” in its existing 108 education facilities.

In June, the School Board approved a $2.1 billion budget for the 2023-2024 school year, with $612 million targeted for capital projects. Typically, the capital fund goes towards major construction projects — including the cost to build new schools.

In the upcoming year, though, Fulton Schools Chief Operations Officer Noel Maloof said the district is headed away from adding schools due to declining enrollment across the county. Instead, the capital plan focuses on renovations, replacements and “behind-the-scenes” construction.

CLAFLIN — Barton County residents will decide whether to break up with their school district and “start fresh” following heartbreak and anger over the closure of a rural community’s high school.

The change could result in hundreds of students displaced and three more schools shut down.

The Aug. 1 disorganization vote is a test case for rural communities that increasingly have to make decisions to shut down or consolidate as populations dwindle and schools face financial strain.

“This is brand new territory for the Department of Education, for the State Board of Education and basically every district in the state of Kansas,” said KSDE general counsel Scott Gordon during a June 27 meeting in Claflin.

Dissolving the district is likely to have widespread consequences for all district schools and likely will increase residents’ taxes, according to opponents of disorganization.

Wilson parent Kayla Cullens said the split needs to happen because the Claflin-based Unified School District 112 school board voted to shut down Wilson High School.

The district covers portions of five counties, including the Holyrood, Bushton, Claflin, Dorrance, Lorraine, Wilson, Beaver and Odin communities, along with other rural areas. Claflin and Wilson are a little less than a half hour apart, and the other communities mostly fall within a 10-30 minute range of each other.

About 30 aging Clark County schools will be replaced with new facilities over the next decade.
Projects are through the Clark County School District’s 2015 Capital Improvement Program that allows for issuing bonds to pay for facility needs.
Typically, a replacement school is built on an existing campus and the old building is demolished once the new one is complete.
School employees and students are often temporarily displaced — such as to a “swing” campus like the old Fyfe Elementary School in central Las Vegas — while construction is underway.
To decide which schools to replace, the district considers factors like the building’s physical condition, its ability to support the curriculum and the costs of renovating versus building a new facility.
 

Leaders in the Pulaski County Special and Jacksonville/North Pulaski school districts sent notice to a federal judge that there are hitches in their effort to complete campus construction projects.

The Pulaski County Special district told U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr., the anticipated $19 million cost of expanding Mills University Studies High School is now nearly double that. And there are other potentially complicating, costly factors, as well, that have put the district behind on its completion timeline.

In a similar report, the Jacksonville/North Pulaski district told Marshall -- who is the presiding judge in a four-decades-old school desegregation lawsuit -- that the state of Arkansas has failed to date to commit to an $8 million share needed for construction of a replacement Murrell Taylor Elementary.

The two school districts are the remaining defendants in what started as a 1982 school desegregation lawsuit brought by the Little Rock School District against state officials and neighboring school districts.

In May 2021, Marshall directed the Pulaski County Special district to propose to him a plan to "square up" construction inequities between the Mills campus, which is in a more heavily Black residential section of the district, and Robinson Middle School, which is in a more affluent, predominantly white residential area.

The two schools were built at the same time and opened to students in August 2019, at a time when the district was obligated in the federal desegregation lawsuit to equalize the condition of its school buildings. Marshall said at the time that both schools were excellent facilities but if Mills was an A school, then Robinson was an A++.

CLEVELAND — Some Cleveland homeowners shared their last-minute concerns about the construction of a new Marion C. Seltzer school building on a significant portion of green space at Cudell Park and Recreation Center.
The planning and meetings on the project to replace the school building have been ongoing for several years, but some homeowners living across the street from the school, like Marlene Medley and Jamie Brazier, told News 5 they only learned about the project a few months ago.
“I was actually never notified until somebody in the neighborhood mentioned to me that the school was going to be torn down. This happened probably two months ago," Medley said. “In the City of Cleveland, if you go east, west, north or south of here, you will not see another park, I think this space is very, very important.”
Brazier showed News 5 a copy of the will submitted by prominent Cleveland Architect Frank Cudell, giving the park property to the City of Cleveland upon his death in 1916. Brazier read from a section of the will she believes instructs the city to keep the property as a park indefinitely.
 

In October 2022, the Hazelwood School District announced that Jana Elementary in Florissant, Mo., would close indefinitely, after an independent contractor reported elevated levels of radioactive lead dust on school grounds. Educating about 400 students—80 percent of whom are Black—Jana Elementary served North St. Louis County’s economically disadvantaged students, who suffered disproportionately during the pandemic.
The sudden closure of the school left the families of Jana scrambling. At a packed school board meeting, parents learned that most of Jana would transition to “all-virtual instruction” for the next month.
The school board explained that it planned to redistrict most students, fragmenting the once tight-knit elementary school community. On December 1, former Jana students began attending five different schools in the Florissant area. Months later, in a letter to Hazelwood school district parents, the school board explained that it had “no expectation that Jana Elementary will reopen.”
The purported discovery of radioactive contamination at Jana Elementary School is only the latest blow to an area long-saddled with a slow-moving and notoriously complex environmental disaster.
 

V.I. Dept. of Education Commissioner Dionne Wells-Hedrington on Saturday made a public appeal for support following a recent spree of theft and vandalism impacting the department's ongoing projects. The criminal acts, described as "senseless, brazen, and unfortunate," have significantly disrupted preparations for the 2023-2024 school year, the commissioner said.
Over the past few days, Education officials have reported multiple incidents, which included destruction of air conditioning units stored in the department's procurement warehouse on St. Thomas for their copper coil cores. Meanwhile, at the Charlotte Amalie High School demolition site, also on St. Thomas, windows and other construction equipment meant for the site have gone missing.
"These thefts and acts of vandalism are not merely destructive, they strike at the heart of our efforts to equip schools with the resources they need to prepare for the upcoming school year," said Wells-Hedrington.
 

Dozens of Vermont school districts have sued chemical giant Monsanto over toxic contamination in educational buildings from now-banned industrial chemicals known as PCBs.

Last year, Vermont became the first state in the country to require older schools to test their indoor air for polychlorinated biphenyls, which were used in building materials and electrical equipment before 1980.

More than 90 school districts filed the complaint on Friday in federal court. They’re seeking to recover costs and damages because, under Vermont’s law, schools with high-enough contamination levels must reduce exposure. Removing the PCBs will be expensive, and certain districts may have to demolish buildings and replace them with new ones — which in total could cost them “hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars,” the lawsuit says.

The PCBs are present in the school buildings from caulking and glazing compounds, sealants, adhesives, and other construction materials.

Monsanto said the case has no merit and that “third party companies, not Monsanto” produced the PCB-laden materials likely used at the schools.

“Monsanto never manufactured, used or disposed of PCBs in Vermont and has not manufactured these products for more than 45 years,” the company said in a statement late Monday. Monsanto is now owned by Bayer, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology company.

Gov. Green signed four bills at the ceremony, adding to seven education bills detailed below.

“We need 1,200 teachers to fill our annual teacher shortage,” Gov. Green said. “Construction of teacher housing is seen as a key step in the future of education of Hawaiʻi’s keiki. Affordable housing will aid in recruitment and retention of teachers, and that will help to address the shortage. SB941 (Act 172) authorizes the School Facilities Authority to partner with public and private agencies to develop housing on- or off-campus for teachers, other educators and staff, and to develop classrooms.”

HB960 (Act 175) places prekindergarten facilities within the authority of the DOE School Facilities Authority and transfers $200 million in general funds to the School Facilities Special fund for FY 2023-24. The funds will expand access to Pre-K to eligible children.

HB503 (Act 174) acknowledges the importance of computer science in an increasingly technology-driven world, by requiring the Board of Education to determine whether making computer science a graduation requirement would be in the best interests of public school students and the public; and if so, to work with the Department of Education to analyze a timeline and process for making computer science a graduation requirement by no later than the 2030-2031 school year.

SB1344 (Act 173) amends to ‘school health assistants,’ the former term ‘school health aides,’ to better reflect changes to the job title. The new law allows administration of medication to public school students by school health assistants, with the approval of a health care professional within the Department of Education, Department of Health, or a health care service pursuant to a written agreement with the Department of Education.

A new grant program from the U.S. Department of Energy is poised to send $178 million to American schools for energy efficiency and student health projects. One of the funding recipients is a coalition of 20 Illinois school districts, led by a western Illinois district with just 300 students.

Williamsfield Schools Superintendent Tim Farquer says the long path to the Renew America's Schools grant started three years ago with just eight school districts. Those schools formed the “Bus to Grid” initiative.

“Just to try and help each other get funding for electric buses, in particular,” said Farquer. “But in a way that supports the expansion of renewable energy.”

Over the years, Farquer and the coalition applied for a list of funding opportunities to purchase electric buses and build charging infrastructure for schools around the state. Farquer says it's important to invest in preparing for a switch to electric, not just for environmental reasons, but also for the health of students who ride diesel buses every day.

“The numbers support the fact that we have more respiratory issues with kids and adults than we have in years past,” he said. “And emissions from diesel engines just have a tendency to agitate that.”

Groves of trees and rows of garden beds made from mismatched pieces of wood line the landscape of Spring Harbor Middle School, labeled with handwritten signs that poke out of the dirt.
Chickens roam among the beds of strawberries, kale and tomatoes, pecking at the ground.
A greenhouse built into the hillside stands in the background, its bright yellow siding now slightly faded by the sun. Inside, herbs grow out of repurposed plastic bottles, and a brew of “compost tea” is ready to be spread over plants in the garden.
In between the plants, chickens and compost bins, middle school students dot the landscape.
One group sits in the shade of a mulberry tree, occasionally standing up to pluck a few ripe berries from the branches and eat them. Others gravitate toward the chicken coop, taking turns holding hens named Bowser, Yoshi, Snowball Joe and Thelma.
This rural patch on the West Side is one of more than 35 school gardens around the Madison School District, including ones at Lapham, Midvale and Crestwood Elementary schools, Badger Rock Middle School and East and West high schools.
 

The first construction work on schools damaged during the war started in Ukraine. The schools are being rebuilt within the framework of the project, financed by the EU and fulfilled by the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS).

Source: European Pravda, referring to official pages of the institutions

Details: The first stage of the project will focus on eight educational facilities in Kyiv, Chernihiv and Kharkiv oblasts, where nearly 20,000 schoolchildren are studying. Among them is Lyceum No. 4 in the settlement of Lozova in Kharkiv Oblast.

These schools have been damaged only slightly and do not need capital refurbishment;  broken doors and windows, as well as damaged equipment, need to be replaced. Basements that will serve as bomb shelters will also undergo repairs.

It is planned to complete the repairs by the beginning of the new school year.

After these educational facilities, 28 more schools will undergo more capital refurbishment, including repairing damaged walls and ceilings, heating systems, and improving shelters in basements.

An updated school facility priority list released earlier this month came under fire as state officials raised questions at a committee meeting in Gillette last week.

By the end of the hours-long discussion, legislators walked away with “a lot to consider,” said Sen. Bill Landon, R-Casper.

In theory, the new list scores the capacity and condition needs for school district facilities across the state, prioritizing the buildings by which ones are in need of the most help, whether they’re over capacity or in need of serious repair. The list differs from past years when a consolidated schedule was used to prioritize projects that also used capacity and condition data.

Changes are due in part to emergency rules that came about when the Legislature eliminated the consolidation schedule in the 2023 session. But the change in data collection and the use of a new firm has legislators and school officials questioning the validity of the updated list that dropped projects the state’s Select Committee on School Facilities has had on its radar for decades, or conversely, placed some schools that recently had major repairs near the top.

HOLUALOA — Holualoa Elementary students and staff will be starting the new school year with refreshed learning spaces following extensive renovation work over the summer break to address campuswide environmental concerns. 

“It's been a complete transformation. We've seen everything from the wall colors change to new flooring, for a whole new atmosphere and environment that our students and our teachers are very fortunate to come back to in this coming school year,” said Principal Kristin Muramoto. “Elementary school is really the foundation for success, and I think the classrooms create a safe and healthy environment where students can learn.”

The Hawaiʻi State Teachers Association helped bring attention to some of the environmental concerns and challenges facing the school. The renovations were designed to reduce interior environmental conditions conducive to mold growth in Holualoa’s damp and humid climate zone, situated at an elevation of approximately 1,400 feet above sea level. Classroom renovations began in October 2022 with the majority of work completed during the spring and summer breaks when rooms were not in use to minimize impacts on student learning. A total of 16 classrooms have been overhauled with new tile flooring, interior paint, dehumidifiers, and other improvements.

“We’ve repainted the classrooms with mold-inhibiting paints and removed old floor carpeting to promote better air quality,” said Randall Tanaka, assistant superintendent for HIDOE’s Office of Facilities and Operations. “Open windows and fans will help air circulation during the day and dehumidifiers will help to reduce moisture in the air overnight, which will create an environment well-suited for students to learn.”

In addition, 10 other office and work spaces were renovated, covered walkways were power washed and new furniture was installed in several classrooms at an approximate cost of $1.27 million to date. Throughout the renovations, school leaders have kept the school community informed with progress reports. 

The San Antonio Independent School District has published its first draft of a framework that could determine how the district reorganizes or closes schools.

Board trustees voted last month to move forward with a study of school building capacity amid an ongoing decline in student enrollment for more than two decades. The district says this has left schools under-enrolled or with small student bodies.

“In the past, we have resisted closing schools as our enrollment declined,” SAISD Superintendent Jaime Aquino said in a statement. “As a result, our schools have gotten emptier. We invested in innovation and it worked, but we have not recovered enough students to reverse the trend. At this time, our resources are spread thin, and this leads to our students and their families experiencing inequities.”

The district describes this process as "rightsizing." It may involve closing school buildings, co-locating schools to the same campus, or consolidating schools into one. Recommendations from the study would take effect starting the 2024-2025 school year.

The framework will be used to generate a list of schools considered for closing or consolidation, and schools that will receive the students affected. It includes three primary criteria to determine whether buildings are being underused, including facility usage, enrollment, and the facility cost per pupil.

PHOENIX — The state is making school safety a priority.

Gov. Katie Hobbs signed a pair of executive orders Thursday that will focus on better securing buildings and updating guidelines throughout the state.

Improving School Facilities Inspections
The first of the two executive orders will reinstitute the inspection of education facilities throughout the state.

According to Executive Order 2023-14, prior to budget cuts following the Great Recession, the state conducted regular inspections of school facilities.  The purpose of said inspections found that recommendations to districts that fell below minimum guidelines, if addressed in a reasonable amount of time, could prevent the development of serious problems.

The order also indicates the move is in response to pending litigation against the state.

GREENWICH — Smoke from Canadian wildfires remains a threat to local air quality — one reason why upgrading the Greenwich schools' old windows and other indoor environmental systems will take priority during the summer, officials say.
The lesson was brought home after some of the district's schools fared badly when the clinging yellow smoke from the fires blanketed much of Connecticut and seeped into classrooms on June 7. The district considered an early dismissal that day and delaying the start of school the next day in case the air remained hard to breathe.
“Today, we found that buildings with decade-old windows allowed more infiltration of a smoky odor,” Superintendent Toni Jones wrote in a statement to Greenwich Public Schools families on June 7. “Windows were kept shut, and air conditioning systems were closely monitored to ensure a healthy environment. ... We were fortunate that on the heaviest day, the smoky conditions did not get really heavy until late afternoon.”  
 

After the impact and destruction of Typhoon Mawar, concerns are raised over the opening of the schools.
The Department of Education has had multiple schools be cited for health violations while some others are dealing with needing facility repairs.
As chairperson of the committee on education, public safety and the arts, Sen. Chris Barnett called an oversight hearing at the Guam Congress Building on Thursday afternoon, June 29 to look over the Guam Department of Education’s compliance status with Public Law 37-4.
At the hearing, Dr. Judith Won Pat, the Acting Superintendent of Education provided a synopsis of the status of the district’s schools, which could be evaluated as no schools are shelters anymore.
Public Health inspections
Simon Sanchez High School was vastly affected by the typhoon, and they had 66 demerits in their last inspection, which is typically grounds for closure. Thus, the current SSHS campus will currently not have students return there until the new campus is built or health measures are safely addressed, according to Won Pat.