The Massachusetts School Building Authority has given the green light for facility upgrades in four Holyoke public schools as part of the state’s Accelerated Repair Projects.

The initiative aims to improve learning environments in schools while making strides in energy efficiency and achieving cost savings.

State Treasurer Deborah B. Goldberg recently announced the approval of these projects. “The Accelerated Repair Program allows us to make critical repairs to more schools in less time,” she said. “By improving the learning environment for our children, the Program also makes schools more energy efficient and generates significant cost savings.”

The MSBA’s recent allocation covers up to $25,897,256 for Accelerated Repair Projects. The MSBA reimburses school districts up to 80% of the cost for improvement or complete construction projects.

Holyoke schools have been designated a substantial portion of the latest amount, primarily targeting structurally, functionally, and educationally buildings needing specific repairs or replacements.

In April, asbestos closed Mitchell Elementary School in Southwest Philadelphia, forcing students to learn virtually for weeks, then crowd into a small space at another school for months to finish out their term.
And though officials promised a reopening for the 2023-24 school year, some worried that the 1915 building needed so much work that repairs might not be finished by Tuesday, students’ first day of school.
On Thursday Philadelphia School District facilities area manager Stephen Manna, who has been leading a team working day and night to get the school in shape, proclaimed: Bring on the students. Mitchell will be ready.
“It’s basically a safe, clean learning environment with brand-new lights, brand-new ceiling tiles,” Manna said.
Some Mitchell staff, however, said they felt unprepared to start the school year. While district officials invited news cameras to tour Mitchell’s first floor, where the hallway was clear and shining and classrooms were mostly ready, the school’s second and third floors were still in disarray.
By midmorning Friday, the second floor, third floor, and basement still had desks, chairs, boxes, and assorted teaching materials stacked and pushed against walls in hallways. Shaw MacQueen, a Mitchell teacher, said that “everyone’s at their wits’ end,” and the staff asked for more time to get the school ready for students, but was denied.
 

CHEYENNE — The Wyoming School Facilities Commission announced during a special meeting Wednesday the proposed replacement of a Cheyenne elementary school as part of the $95 million the Legislature set aside for school construction this year.
Laramie County School District 1, under the design and construction portion of the state’s budget, flags on three capacities and three conditions, with two of the conditions being “very high,” according to Jerry Vincent, director of the State Construction Department. Three Laramie County elementary schools have the highest capacity need in the state, with Arp Elementary School in the lead, according to the SCD report
Capacity need refers to the number of students which can be legally contained in a classroom, and condition refers to the safety and functioning space of the physical building.
Andy Knapp, executive director of facilities and planning for LCSD1, said the state would not specifically name what the project funds are for, and there are “several schools in need of condition remedies” in the district.
“I would anticipate we would be making some sort of plan to deal with Arp,” said Knapp, who confirmed the south Cheyenne elementary school was one of the top priorities.
 

Nick Gibb, the long-serving Conservative schools minister, is right that safety is the most important consideration when deciding whether to close school buildings deemed to be dangerous. The public is all too familiar, post-Grenfell, with the horrific consequences that can follow from ignoring warnings that buildings are structurally unsound. But the announcement that more than 100 schools in England will not reopen next week, due to the possibility of concrete ceilings falling in, is enormously troubling. Not only will this last-minute decision disrupt thousands of children’s education, with knock-on effects on parents and carers, it also points to the extent of the harm caused by the Conservatives’ refusal to invest in the nation’s schooling.

A new facilities master plan is near ready for adoption by San Carlos School District officials who on Thursday reviewed a draft of the document, which calls out more than $400 million worth of campus improvements.

The district’s facilities master plan, a 206-page document, was drafted in collaboration with the public and is meant to outline both needed and desired improvements the district could pursue over the next 10 years.

More than $400 million worth of improvements across the district’s nine campuses are identified in the document from installing new heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems and new fire alarm systems to major modernization projects.

LONDON — More than 100 schools across England were ordered to close buildings because they were constructed using unsafe concrete, the Department for Education said in a statement Thursday afternoon, a few days before the start of a new school year for most students.

The affected buildings contain reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, a lightweight concrete material known as RAAC, (pronounced Rack), that was used between the 1950s and mid-1990s and has been determined to be prone to failures and crumbling.

In all, 104 schools were ordered to close buildings. The concerns about the concrete have been known for years, and schools had been told to prepare for the possibility that evacuations would be necessary at some point. Some 156 schools were confirmed to have used the lightweight material in their buildings, but 52 have put in safety measures to mitigate the risks.

The government said it would work with local authorities on “individual solutions” for the affected schools. That could mean using other buildings for classes, sharing space with other schools or, in some cases, erecting temporary buildings. Online classes are a last resort, the government said.

England’s education secretary, Gillian Keegan, said the government was trying to be vigilant for the safety of students and staff.

JEROME COUNTY, Idaho — Shoshone School District voters failed to offer the necessary supermajority support needed to pass an $8.2 million bond intended to build a new facility and remodel existing buildings.
The school district crosses over Lincoln County borders and into an adjacent Jerome County neighborhood. Both counties offered the election on their ballots for those who qualify; however, it came out to a mostly one-sided result.
"Yeah, it's up to the Lincoln County voters," Jerome County Clerk Cy Lootens said. "We [mailed out] two ballots, but I think there are a couple other houses. So, those people just aren't registered."
The number of qualifying voters for the Shoshone School District bond election is so small, the county decided to make it a mail-in precinct. It is legal to do so with permission from the Secretary of State given the number of registered voters in the last general election is less than 140, according to Idaho Code, 34-308.
 

Just south of the Northeast Metropolitan Regional Vocational High School in Wakefield sits 30 acres of pristine, untouched forest, home to wetlands and diverse species.

But that forest is now facing destruction as the school’s building committee prepares to cut down trees and blast a portion of the hillside to make way for a new school building to replace the old one, which is outdated and in need of repairs.

The Save the Forest and Build the Voke coalition, made up of residents and environmentalists, is calling for the committee to change the site location for the school, also known as Northeast Metro Tech or “the Voke,” and to build on already-developed land instead of moving into the forest.

POLSON - Students are back roaming the halls this week in Polson schools with classes officially back in session.
The school district is looking to build off momentum from last spring after passing two bonds at the elementary and high school levels.
“There’s a ton of energy and excitement to start the year for lots of reasons, and one of those factors is that we passed our bonds in the spring," said Polson High School Principal Andy Fors.
Polson voters backed their school district in a big way last spring approving two bonds, providing $40 million in funding to drastically improve outdated school buildings.
“We feel the support of our community, and that’s a huge thing to know that we have people here that believe in what we’re doing and want to help us create a better environment for our students," Fors told MTN News "It goes a long ways to know that we have that community support."
 

Lincoln Public Schools hosted a webinar Tuesday night to allow community members the chance to ask questions and voice their opinions on proposed boundary changes for Kooser and Campbell elementary schools.
The Lincoln Board of Education's Planning Committee proposed the changes in an attempt to decrease enrollment at Kooser and increase it at Campbell, which has seen drops in attendance in the past 10 years. The new boundary would assign Campbell the area from Folkways Boulevard to Interstate 80, and 14th to 27th streets, which was previously part of Kooser's zone.
Only three people were in attendance at the virtual meeting, questioning if other neighborhoods were considered for the proposal and what happens to students when they hit middle school.
The committee looked at three other north Lincoln neighborhoods within Kooser's boundary before deciding on the proposed area, said Liz Standish, associate superintendent for business affairs at LPS.
The committee chose this area because it believed it would provide a good balance of families to avoid shifting too many students to Campbell, Standish said.
One parent also asked about middle school boundary lines and how students can avoid being split up from their classmates.
Campbell students are assigned to either Dawes or Goodrich middle schools, and all of the proposed area is included within the Dawes attendance zone. 
It's common across all of Lincoln for elementary schools to be split among middle schools, Standish said. There are currently no proposed changes to middle school boundaries.
 

CANTON, New York (WWNY) - Canton Central will be a secured school even as a $38 million construction project continues into the new school year.

This September, the campus will not only have students and buses, but construction equipment and crews as well.

According to Scott Sanderson, the district’s operations director, the school will be as secure as other years.

Security cameras and key-fob accessible doors will be working too to prevent any non-school related personnel from walking the halls.

“School’s security is always in the forefront of our mind. A locked door saves lives. Every door on the perimeter of our district, the doors are always locked. People have badges to get in and out of the school building. The doors will continue to be locked whether we have a project going on with contractors in or out of the building,” he said.

RED BANK, Tenn. — Red Bank parents and community members have told us in the past that they are upset with some of the school facilities recommendations put together by Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp and his task force.

They say merging schools isn't a step in the right direction.

Alpine Crest Elementary is one of 3 Hamilton County elementary schools that a task force recommended be consolidated into one big school at Dupont Elementary, according to a report released earlier this month.

But these plans aren't set in stone, and Alpine Crest Elementary parents hope Wednesday night to move the needle back in their favor.

The three West Maui public schools still standing after the Lahaina wildfires will not re-open to students until at least after fall break in mid-October, as officials continue to assess the safety of the campuses and the stability of their electricity and internet services, the state Department of Education announced today.

Lahainaluna High School, Lahaina Intermediate and Princess Nahienaena Elementary school have been closed since the Aug. 8 wildfires. They are continuing “environmental assessments for air, water and soil quality, as well as ensuring stable power and sufficient broadband connectivity,” a DOE news release said.

Fall break for Hawaii’s public schools runs from Oct. 9 to 13. The decision to set a “tentative goal” of reopening after fall break was reached after a meeting today of school-level staff, a DOE news release said. Exact dates for students to return will depend on each school’s phased reopening schedule.

INDIANAPOLIS — Indianapolis Public Schools is asking the Board of School Commissioners to consider $95 million in improvements to the district’s high schools and other facilities.
During Tuesday’s agenda review session meeting of the IPS Board, the commissioners are expected to host a public hearing and discuss the 2023 deferred maintenance improvement projects. According to a draft of the project resolution, which accompanied the agenda for Tuesday evening’s meeting, this includes athletics improvements, high school repairs and improvements, and fire safety upgrades.
IPS is proposing to issue bonds to pay for this project, with a payoff schedule of 19 years. The district said the estimated maximum tax rate impact would be $0.0873 per $100 of assessed value. The district stressed it would not increase the current 2023 non-exempt debt tax rate if it is approved.
This comes after voters approved a $410 million capital referendum in May. According to the district’s website, this referendum gave the district the chance to move forward with building improvements to more than 20 elementary and middle schools in the district.
Parents we talked to said these projects are necessary.
“I feel like this is better for her environment,” said parent Carlos Ortiz. “Especially with this heat and temperatures, if we take care of getting air conditioning units, it should help.”
 

LYNCHBURG, Va. (WSET) — The Lynchburg City School Board Finance and Facilities Committee voted to recommend that the school board look into closing two local elementary schools as part of the Facilities Master Plan.
During the Finance and Facilities Committee meeting Tuesday night, the committee voted to recommend that the school board close Dearington Elementary School and T.C. Miller Elementary School.
According to the Lynchburg City Schools' website, Dearington Elementary has been a part of the Lynchburg community since 1927, and they serve over 175 to 200 students every year.
The website also said that T.C. Miller has been in the community since 1932 and has served about 225 students every year.
For the last year, LCS leaders have been working on the future of the division and this Facilities Master Plan. School board Vice Chairman Dr. Martin Day, who also serves on the Finance and Facilities Committee said closing Dearington and T.C. Miller makes the most sense.
"Those two are the two most expensive to operate per student according to my estimates," Dr. Day said. "They would bring our overall capacity into the range that's been recommended to us by the consultants."
 

FINDLAY, Ohio (WTVG) - A new superintendent, a new elementary and new middle school, and a newly renovated high school, it’s all being celebrated ahead of the new school year at Liberty-Benton in Findlay.
Staff members inside the new Liberty-Benton Elementary and Middle School building were busy mopping floors and washing windows, getting ready for the first day of class Sept. 5.
“At the time that we passed our bond in 2019, we had ten portable classrooms,” new superintendent Bruce Otley said.
Otley, a Bowling Green native, has been with the school district for the last 18 years. For the last four years, he served as director of operations.
Otley said the new building, which houses the elementary on the first floor, and middle school on the second, has 141,000 square feet for learning.
“The old school just wasn’t conducive to modern learning; the classroom sizes, in particular, were greatly undersized,” Otley said.
Second-grade teacher Holly Myers explains some of the new technology that’s at her fingertips.
“To be able to have wireless technology and something great like this BenQ board, it’s all touch screen, our kids have been very fortunate to have one-to-one technology for several years now, but the fact teachers now have touch screen technology, we can mirror an iPad what we’re doing on a board, it just makes instruction so much more effective I think, and much more time efficient for teachers,” Myers said while scrolling through her smart board located at the front of her classroom.
 

As residents of Hempfield recently learned, the cost associated with school building projects can easily climb above $100 million.

For decades, school administrators could turn to what was known as PlanCon to pursue state funding to help ease the local burden.

PlanCon — short for the Planning and Construction Workbook — was a set of forms and procedures school districts could use to apply for state reimbursement of large building projects.

That ground to a halt in 2012.

PlanCon has fallen by the wayside as a potential funding source for new projects, but a recent state court decision has led to an upcoming series of fall hearings across the state, where school infrastructure once again will be a big part of the discussion.

When PlanCon was active, school districts underwent a lengthy process to enroll renovation and construction projects in the program in order to secure a percentage of reimbursement, but a backlog of projects waiting on those payments — estimated at more than $1 billion in the mid-2010s — ultimately led to a 2012 moratorium on new applications.

While partial state reimbursement for school construction projects has been happening in some form since the 1950s, PlanCon’s current form took shape in the 1970s, and the state has contributed more than $8 billion to the program since the late 1970s.

On a sunny afternoon in a cluttered music room at East High in Denver, two sophomores practiced violin while their music teacher, Keith Oxman, labored over a desk in an adjoining office.

The ceiling fans were off to prevent the sheet music from scattering. The windows were sealed shut. East High is Denver’s largest high school and among the oldest, and there is no modern ventilation system.

As the pandemic broke out, Mr. Oxman, 65 and a cancer survivor, feared getting sick or carrying the virus to his 101-year-old father. So he left the school when it first closed, in March 2020, and did not return for more than a year, staying home during later virus surges.

“We were supposed to have the windows open,” he said. “But the windows don’t open.”

Poorly ventilated spaces offer ideal transmission conditions for the coronavirus, and at the height of the pandemic, schools like East High were a searing point of controversy. An outbreak that began in November 2021 sickened more than 500 students — about one in five — and 65 staff members, one of whom died.

The pandemic led to repeated closures at tens of thousands of schools across the nation. The shutdowns sent educational achievement tumbling, disrupted the lives of millions of American families, and set off a wave of anger, particularly among conservatives, that has not subsided.

Thousands of students will head back to class Monday and in D.C., some will be going to a brand new school. WTOP got a sneak peek of the new MacArthur High School in Northwest D.C. during a tour Saturday.
Dozens of nervous yet excited students and their parents toured the halls of the high school in D.C.’s Palisades neighborhood.
“The building looks great. Obviously, still a work in progress. But they’ve done a lot and it looks ready to go,” said Gayle Kramer, whose sophomore daughter will attend the school.
“They have a lot of nice facilities, like theater and stuff. And you know, I’m pretty excited to come here,” student Eli Pasternak told WTOP.
Pasternak will be one of 200 incoming freshman Mammoths — that’s the school’s mascot. About 50 sophomores will round out the new student body.
“We are really thrilled to welcome students here,” D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Lewis Ferebee said.
MacArthur is the first new high school for D.C. Public Schools since 1972 when H.D. Woodson opened its doors.
“It’s a long time coming,” Principal Harold McCray said. “But I’m definitely excited to lay this groundwork, to be able to open up a new school has been a phenomenal experience.”
The school will only offer pre-AP, honors and AP courses, McCray told WTOP.