The role neighborhood schools once played as the center of community life is dwindling as public schools shutter across America.

Why it matters: School closures have well-documented impacts on academic outcomes, but more recent research shows they also can lower housing values, raise crime rates and diminish the social fabric of a neighborhood.

Yet districts rarely consider their community value when deciding whether buildings should close, experts tell Axios.
The big picture: More than 5,000 public schools closed across the U.S. between 2017 and 2022, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics.

Urban Institute research dating back to 2003 found that closures happened across urban, suburban and rural geographies and socioeconomic statuses.
Threat level: More districts may be forced to close schools after pandemic-era funding, which many institutions used to plug budget holes, expires at the end of this year, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities cautions.

NEW YORK (WABC) -- New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Schools Chancellor David Banks announced on Wednesday that 24 new school buildings are opening this year.

Their announcement comes the day before the start of the 2024-2025 school year for public school students.

The two dozen new school buildings will include 11,010 new seats across the city. It marks the most new K-12 seats opened by the School Construction Authority since 2003.

The new buildings are spread across four boroughs including nine in Brooklyn, eight in the Bronx, one in Manhattan, and six in Queens. They were constructed with green spaces and environmentally friendly materials.

Key features include innovative learning spaces and classrooms equipped with the latest technology, flexible space and furniture and collaborative work spaces.

MONROE, La. (KNOE) - The Monroe City School Board is focusing on safety and security with updates to its school campuses.

The school board held its facilities committee meeting at the administration building on Wednesday morning (Sept. 4) to talk about maintenance and facility conditions. Within the next two weeks, the school board will work with architect Brian McGuire of The Architecture Alliance Group to begin security assessments at certain schools.

“The safety assessment - I think that is definitely the right direction... to move for our district, so we can get back those reports to see the direction we need to go and prioritize our needs because as we know, majority of our buildings are 50 plus-year-old buildings,” said superintendent Sam Moore III of Monroe City Schools.

At this time, the pavilions at Martin Luther King Junior High School are out for bid, according to McGuire. Those pavilions will be for the new outdoor learning center. McGuire also said that the steel got delivered Wednesday for crews to begin building the new softball batting cage at Neville High School.

Students and teachers experience the challenges of climate change firsthand, including struggles with extreme heat exacerbated by poor air quality and ventilation, and more and more missed days due to heatwaves and wildfire smoke. All harm student performance and make it harder to learn.

A newly coalescing coalition of school districts, teachers, and nonprofits see a solution available to all schools, one that can not only alleviate these inconveniences, but also address inequalities and funding shortfalls and upgrade our crumbling schools. Half the nation’s elementary schools are over a half-century old, with near-failing maintenance scores from the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Taking advantage of the IRA
By tapping into funding sources and incentives found in the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, schools can defray the costs of all manner of infrastructure investments that can help improve their resiliency and save money. Organizations such as Undaunted K12 are pushing schools to take advantage of the nation’s largest clean energy investment; of the roughly 13,000 districts in the U.S., just a couple dozen have applied so far.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Renew America’s Schools Program, in partnership with the DOE Efficient and Healthy Schools Program, today opened applications for the 2024-2025 Energy Champions Leading the Advancement of Sustainable Schools Program (Energy CLASS). This initiative, aimed at advancing building and energy management in schools around the country, supports the Biden-Harris administration’s broader Action Plan for Building Better School Infrastructure. Through the 2024-2025 Energy CLASS, participating local educational agencies (LEAs) will develop and advance plans, policies, and projects that make critical clean energy and health improvements, thereby promoting building and energy management in school districts across America. 

Each of the 50 participating LEAs will nominate an energy champion who will engage with Energy CLASS resources and trainings, and receive 1:1 expert advice on strategic energy management, project development, funding pathways, and related topics. Leveraging the outcome-based peer-to-peer learning network of Energy CLASS, champions will deepen bandwidth and knowledge for advancing the fiscal and environmental sustainability of their schools.   

In March 2020, as the pandemic struck, St. Patrick’s Episcopal Day School (4700 Whitehaven Pkwy NW) faced a dilemma shared by many schools: how to safely educate its 465 students ranging in age from nursery school to grade 8. Assistant Head of Lower School and Director of Sustainability Sam Mason had already been considering building a garden on property near to the school’s athletic field at 8101 Foxhall Rd. NW. The school accelerated the process.

During the summer of 2020, the school community partnered with District landscaping and gardening company Love & Carrots to design and build the fenced-in garden, complete with three outdoor classrooms.

Having the outdoor space was especially valuable for classes and activities during the pandemic when indoor spaces had more restrictions, Mason said. But it continues to serve that role today, encouraging the development of the whole child while reinforcing and broadening learning possibilities in science, art and environmental learning.

In Brooklyn, one of New York City’s five boroughs, a new schoolyard features newly-planted native trees offering shade and bright playground equipment that sits adjacent to a track and turf field. Colorful murals celebrating the diversity of its Boreum Hill neighborhood surround the area. Seniors play chess while toddlers run past. It could easily be mistaken for a public park if it weren't for the school signage on the building next door.

The Pacific School (P.S. 38K) is one of more than 220 New York City public schools to transform its asphalt playground into a vibrant community space over the past two decades thanks to Trust for Public Land’s (TPL’s) Green Community Schoolyards. The program aims to create safe, accessible green places for New Yorkers — particularly those in disadvantaged neighborhoods — to gather close to their homes and connect with nature.

“It’s absolutely beautiful. I love it. It’s incredible, just amazing,” said Trinity Area School District resident Lauren Leeper, standing in the middle of Trinity Intermediate School’s second-floor media center.

Leeper, accompanied by her sons, Ryan, a third-grader, and Henry, a second-grader, was among the hundreds of parents, students and residents who turned out Thursday when the school district – which celebrates its 100th anniversary this school year – welcomed the public to tour the 106,658-square-foot intermediate school at a ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house.

On Tuesday, the first day of school, about 600 fourth- and fifth-graders will walk into the state-of-the-art, three-story building, and launch Trinity Intermediate School’s inaugural academic year.

The open house capped off three years of planning and construction. The school board voted in 2021 to move forward with construction of the new school, in response to a rapidly growing student population in the district.

FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP — Students of a Freehold Township elementary school will be temporarily relocated to other buildings in the district after mold was discovered in their building.

The Laura Donovan Elementary School may be closed for months as remediation takes place, district officials said this week.

"Our plan will provide safe, stable class space and ample time to provide a clean Donovan building," school board President Michael Amoroso wrote Thursday in a letter to the school community. "The timeframe is still unknown exactly but the estimation is that we are off-site for a few months at most."

School officials said the source of the mold remains under investigation by engineers and district consultants. Custodial staff discovered the mold earlier this summer and reported it to administrators, they said.

The Virgin Islands Board of Education (VIBE) participated in the recent Opening of Schools Tour, during which it had the opportunity to visit various educational facilities and engage with school leaders and teachers. The board remains dedicated to ensuring that every student in its community has access to a safe and conducive learning environment.

During the tour, the board, through its School Plants and Facilities Committee, identified several critical areas of need within USVI schools, particularly regarding maintenance and infrastructure. The board recognizes that these challenges, including ongoing issues related to the heat in classrooms, require immediate attention to ensure students and educators can focus on what truly matters — teaching and learning.

STATEWIDE (WGME) --As students in Maine head back to the classroom, many are returning to buildings that are decades old, with some over a half-century or more.

Many of these aging schools were built long before modern code standards and the Americans with Disabilities Act were established, leading to significant challenges with both their maintenance and the quality of the learning environment they can provide.

Old and Outdated
At Sebago Elementary School, the situation is urgent. The school is 144 years old.

While the original section, built in 1880, is now used as offices and storage, even the newer additions on the building are decades old. Superintendent Steve Connolly, now in his second year, is already seeing growing problems with the building's age.

"We have some life, health, safety compliance issues that we need to deal with," Connolly said. "And not in another decade or so."

MADISON, Wis. — The Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) held a grand reopening Friday, celebrating extensive renovations at all four of its high schools.
The renovations were made possible by a referendum voters passed in 2020. 
At East High School, the city’s oldest high school, the changes were much needed, especially for band director Rob Cunningham.
“It was a much smaller room, more in the center of this music wing, and very sort of low ceilings, sort of claustrophobic, and just kind of outdated,” Cunningham said when describing the old space.
Now he has a brand-new space with high ceilings and picture windows. He said it’ll make a big difference for students this year.
“We’re competitive with our space, with anybody around,” Cunningham said. “I think when you're in a space like this, it's beautiful, you have sunlight, and the sound is better. It just makes it more enjoyable to make music here.”
Voters approved the 2020 referendum which allocated a total of $350 million over two questions for operational expenses and several capital projects.
 

As the city of Rock Valley recovers from recent severe flooding, Gov. Kim Reynolds announced the opening of a temporary school facility for the Rock Valley Community School District.

Rock Valley students will return to the school classrooms Thursday, Sept. 5, with some middle school classes hosted in the new temporary building. The 7,000-square-foot facility will have six classrooms, bathrooms, offices and a common area for use by 150 students in the Rock Valley district, according to a news release by the governor’s office. The modular school was built by Hegg Construction in under seven weeks, at a cost of $2 million.

Joined by Rock Valley Community School District (RVCSD) and Rock Valley Christian School officials, Reynolds spoke in front of the new temporary building at a news conference Thursday. The governor reflected on her previous visit to Rock Valley in June when the public school building was “an island that was completely surrounded by water.”

“Following the flood, it really did seem unlikely that we could start on time or bring some students back to school,” Reynolds said. “But if I know one thing about this community, where there is a will, there is a way.”

Richmond Public Schools is getting a $15.3 million federal grant for HVAC upgrades, a crucial step in the district’s efforts to improve energy efficiency and reduce costs among its aging facilities. The funding, part of a broader initiative to enhance school infrastructure, will target 22 RPS buildings, addressing long-standing issues in a school system where the average facility is 62 years old.

In a press conference and infrastructure tour at John Marshall High School last Thursday morning, Superintendent Jason Kamras shared the school division’s plan for building improvements.

“We want to rebuild John Marshall and the rest of the schools that need it,” Kamras said. “We are in the work of fixing things up as best as we can with the resources that we have.”

The federal grant, which was announced by U.S. Sens.

WASHINGTON — As temperatures head toward the upper 90's on Wednesday, hundreds of DCPS students will be entering classrooms with broken HVAC systems.
The Department of General Services public work order dashboard shows more than 600 open requests — nearly 12% of them listed as "high priority."
When DGS receives work orders, it categorizes them into emergency, high priority, or routine based on availability of resources, workforce, and weather.
The department's website says it tries to complete routine work orders within 45 to 60 days, but that timeline can be adjusted based on the specific request.
A spokesperson for DGS said that the dashboard is not always up to date and that some repairs may have been completed without the work order being officially closed and updated as such online. He could not say exactly how many of the open work orders that might impact.
 

Roughly 12 percent of America’s K-12 students attend school in a building that has solar panels, and that number is likely to grow in the coming years thanks to an onslaught of new federal funding promoting clean energy adoption, according to a new report from the nonprofit advocacy group Generation180.

Generation180 found that as of 2023, just shy of 9,000 public and private school buildings had solar panels—more than double the same figure from 2014. That’s out of 130,000 public and private schools nationwide, though some have multiple buildings.

Getting energy from solar panels reduces reliance on traditional electricity, which is often generated by burning fossil fuels that emit toxic fumes, worsen air quality, and contribute to global climate change. Schools can also save money in the long run by lowering their energy bills.

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — The Wake County Public School System continues to struggle keeping up with HVAC repairs.
Dozens of schools have been forced to close this year because of cooling issues. Over the last year, WCPSS maintenance workers received about 3,000 HVAC work orders.
It’s started to impact learning and teaching in classrooms.
“Not just students aren’t learning but her teacher working survey- she lost teachers because they’re in rooms that don’t have adequate heating and air,” Monika Johnson-Hostler, a WCPSS school board member, said during a facilities committee meeting.
She shared her frustrations with the board after hearing from principals in her district.
Officials said the district is working to make repairs, replacing parts and entire systems as needed. Superintendent Dr. Robert Taylor knows they have a huge task ahead.
“That fix that we need, is not going to come in a short while – unless someone comes in and drops $300 million on the table and says ‘Use this to fix the HVAC’,” said Dr. Taylor.
 

Five districts in the Santa Cruz County public school system are asking their voters to vote yes on bond measures this November to fund repairs to leaky roofs, replacement of aging heating and air conditioning systems and modernization of classrooms. Three of those districts are also seeking funding to build workforce housing.  

Pajaro Valley Unified School District, Soquel Union Elementary School District, Live Oak School District, Scotts Valley Unified School District and Bonny Doon Union Elementary School District all have bond measures on the ballot. 

The largest school district in the county, Pajaro Valley Unified School District, is seeking the largest bond of all the districts – and in its history – at $315 million. Chief Business Officer Jenny Im told Lookout that the district plans to renovate aging schools, some nearly 100 years old, update old classroom technology and improve teacher retention by building workforce housing. 

Students will soon begin attending classes in the Maurice Pritchett Sr. Academy, the first new Wilmington school in 50 years.

A ribbon cutting and block party last week drew hundreds of people, with Christina School District staff, Gov. John Carney, U.S. Sen. Chris Coons, state lawmakers and the Pritchett family speaking to the crowd.

The $84 million building was named after longtime educator Maurice Pritchett, a student at the Bancroft School in the city’s East Side neighborhood who served as the school’s principal from 1975 to 2005. Pritchett died last year. Construction for the school that will serve students in grades one through eight was fully funded by the state.

The Wichita School Board has unanimously approved a plan to significantly reshape the state’s largest school district — a plan filled with school closings, consolidations and new “right-sized” buildings as the district braces for shrinking future enrollment. School district officials also laid out the stakes of a $450 million bond issue that would be needed to pay for the plan. The specifics of the bond issue are expected to be discussed and voted on by the board on Sept. 9. A bond issue would require approval from voters during a special election.
Superintendent Kelly Bielefeld said the “newer and fewer” plan is necessary because the district has $1.2 billion in future deferred maintenance needs that it can’t afford and declining enrollment. The school district already closed two middle schools — Hadley and Jardine — and four elementary schools — Clark, Cleveland, Park and Payne — earlier this year. The plan approved Monday calls for closing L’Ouverture, OK, Pleasant Valley and Woodland elementary schools and converting Isely and Cessna elementary schools to K-8 schools.