HDG Architects has been designing school buildings for three decades – from elementary schools to buildings for college campuses – and safety is always top of mind.

The Pittsburgh-based architecture firm completed its work on the new Peters Township High School last year, and is currently working on renovations to Independence Middle School in the Bethel Park School District.

“The need for school security has been prevalent going back to Columbine (Colo.). Unfortunately, because of the continued mass shootings in the United States, it continues to increase in people’s consciousness as a potential danger,” said Kevin Hayes, founder of HDG. “We continue to advise and work with our clients in helping them maintain the best security for their staff.”

Hayes explained that the firm’s philosophy in designing a school building is to “harden” the perimeter, but to ensure the interior of the building is not intimidating.

“The issue is always attention between security, but not presenting a building where students and particularly the staff feel like they’re learning in a prison,” Hayes said.

Mostly, that means adding features such as bollards in front of entrances, and generally having as few entrances to the building as possible.

According to Hayes, this can be accomplished by making most doorways exit-only and having fewer windows. However, it remains a balancing act to make sure the overall design remains conducive to learning.

Energy savings projects are moving forward at Valparaiso Community Schools. The school board Thursday approved various agreements for a $5.8 million guaranteed savings contract.

That means the work will have to pay for itself over the next 20 years, or the contractor, Veregy, will have to pay the difference. The project should pay for itself and then some, according to Bob McKinney with construction manager Stratelign.

"Over the 20 years is a net-positive [roughly] $12 million savings, when you pay off the loan and the interest, apply the rebates, incentives and grant from the [Inflation Reduction Act] and then monetize the savings over the 20 years," McKinney explained.

The project includes solar panels at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School and Thomas Jefferson Middle School, new boilers at Thomas Jefferson Middle School and LED lighting in nine school buildings.

It will be financed through a lease/purchase agreement. Superintendent Dr. Jim McCall said that allows the school corporation to pay for the work without issuing additional bonds.

The body in charge of K-12 planning and construction in New York City was recently profiled by the AIA New York as it prepares for a surge in student enrollment that’s expected over the next decade.

The New York School Construction Authority (or SCA) is a specialty city agency that employs 1,100 people and is tasked with the delivery and maintenance of school buildings in the New York City Public Schools arsenal, a charge which makes it directly responsible for the well-being, safety, and learning environments of more than 1.1 million students. 

With a staff that currently includes 170 architects, Stephen Zacks for the AIANY writes the SCA has a unique talent when it comes to the delivery of high-quality structures within challenging construction schedules and have become national examples of the implementation of efficient project management at a time when the cost of labor and construction materials are hampering projects of all different building types across the country.

Just weeks into the new school year, districts in multiple states are canceling in-person classes for several weeks due to respiratory viruses, including COVID-19, among students and staff.
Two school districts in Kentucky -- Lee County School District and Magoffin County Schools -- said they were closing due to "widespread illness."
LCD canceled classes on Tuesday and Wednesday and switched to virtual classes on Thursday and Friday.
"We're seeing a lot of illness being reported consistent with COVID and influenza," Scott Lockard, public health director for the Kentucky River District -- which includes Lee County -- told ABC News. "Lee County had a surge of cases and attendance dropped below the threshold needed to stay open, so they closed."
He said there's been an uptick in positive COVID-19 cases but the true number of infections may be higher due to at-home test results not being reported to the health department.
Lockard said there is a concern that cases could increase heading into the fall and winter and encouraged people to get vaccinated with the flu and new COVID booster to prevent others from getting sick.
 

Employees of the four fire-affected schools in the Lahainaluna complex will meet at an offsite location Monday and Tuesday to begin their transition back to work.
There is however no clear timetable for when the four schools in Lahaina will be reopened.
Lahainaluna High School teacher Ashley Olson testified during Thursday’s Board of Education General Business Meeting that information was being dribbled out two to three days at a time. She recalled the Hawaii DOE sent out their first email to people who had “no internet, no computer, no home.”
“Sending HTML emails to people who had no way to access them was a prime example of cluelessness,” Olson said.
The DOE said all 327 staff from the four West Maui schools have been on paid administrative leave since Aug. 8, but teachers remain frustrated and lost, testimony reveals.
Lahainaluna High teacher Victoria Zupancic testified to the board that she doesn’t know what the DOE is doing to help the teachers. “You’re not helping us, you’re adding to our stress,” she said.
“No one from state offices have asked these educators who lost their homes if they’re ready, no one has asked them if they’re okay,” Zupancic said. “No one has asked if we’re prepared to drive through Lahaina daily watching the number of crosses grow on the road. No one has asked if they need bereavement time because their families have died.”
Superintendent Keith Hayashi said that the situation remains very dynamic and they are trying to make the best decisions they can with the information they have. 
 

A coalition of trade unions representing maintenance workers at Portland Public Schools (PPS) says the district is failing to adequately maintain its buildings and grounds and should invest more in staffing and preventative maintenance. And a recent study by a maintenance and facilities consulting company supports those claims.

More than half of PPS’s buildings are in poor or critical condition, according to a report published Oct. 2022 by Sazan Environmental Services. The report found that district maintenance crews are significantly understaffed, and that the district is not investing enough money to keep up with preventative maintenance. While that saves money in the short term, it will cost the taxpayer-funded school district more money down the line.

PPS paid Sazan $250,000 to review its buildings and maintenance work during the 2021-2022 school year. Sazan recommended multiple ways to improve the maintenance plan, but so far the maintenance and facilities department has not followed any of those recommendations, said union representatives with the District Council of Unions (DCU). DCU includes 13 building trades unions representing the workers who do skilled maintenance and groundskeeping at PPS. The unions affiliated with DCU are United Association of Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 290, Bricklayers Local 1, Carpenters Local 503, Cement Masons Local 555, IBEW Local 48, Glaziers Local 740, Laborers Local 737, Floor Coverers Local 1236, Machinists District Lodge W24, Painters Local 10, Plasterers Local 82, Sheet Metal Workers Local 16, and Teamsters Local 206.

“We had a labor leader budget overview meeting with the school district in January of this year. I brought up the SAZAN report and Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero was unaware,” said DCU President and UA Local 290 Business Agent Nichet Newsome. “I brought it to a few school board members at a school board forum the PPS coalition put together. They were also unaware. So we’ve made it a point to educate everyone we can.”

San Francisco school officials may soon face up to a question that has long been taboo: Will the district close schools to keep the lights on? 

The San Francisco Unified School District is poised to take the first step in that direction. Next Tuesday, administrators will ask the school board to approve a plan to develop criteria around potential school closures and mergers within a year, among other measures. The goal is to stabilize the cash-strapped district’s finances as it grapples with the end of pandemic-era aid. 

The district said it has lost 4,000 students since the 2012-13 school year—with total enrollment now below 49,000—and anticipates losing another 4,600 by 2032 due to declining birth rates and other factors. As funding is based on total enrollment and attendance, this is a grim prospect, as San Francisco Unified already expects to post a $37.6 million shortfall in the current school year.

“We are wrestling with many external factors that are beyond our control, such as declining enrollment, aging facilities, and staffing shortages,” Superintendent Matt Wayne said in a statement. “We have to change the way that we do business, which includes looking at our resources and aligning them with our student outcome goals.”

The Indianapolis Public Schools Board is suing state Education Secretary Katie Jenner and other top officials in an attempt to legally establish the district is exempt from a law that allows charter school organizations to buy shuttered school buildings for a dollar.
IPS is asking the Marion Superior Court to declare the district meets a new exception for the so-called “$1 law” and proclaim a provision does not apply to the district that allows the Indiana Department of Education to force the closure of underutilized schools.
The district is also asking for a preliminary injunction to prevent the IDOE from enforcing the law so it can proceed with the potential sale of a recently closed school building.
The $1 law was passed by lawmakers in 2011 and revamped this year. The aim of the law is to give charter schools, which do not receive property taxes for facilities, access to vacant buildings. But it remains controversial because traditional public school districts do not want to give facilities to charter schools that will compete for students.
The civil suit comes after years of IPS lobbying the General Assembly to carve the district out of the law as it prepared to shutter multiple schools to address dwindling enrollment. But GOP leaders and school choice advocates have been weary of giving up potentially free schools and letting the district control how it disposes of empty buildings.
 

LEE'S SUMMIT, Mo. — Lee's Summit High School went from the oldest school in the district to one of the most up-to-date.
Since 2021, the school has undergone a massive renovation staff members say touched every corner. It was funded by a voter-approved bond of $80 million.
"I think this has been the lighthouse of the district," said Kari Harrison, LSHS principal. "This facility was originally built in 1952 and has served students here since that point in time, but in recent history, we went through a period where we were adding a new elementary school every year with significant growth in the community.
"We've also added two new high schools in about 25 years. So some of those needs were much more pressing than renovating a building — we needed to get space to hold students along the way."
Some features include updated learning spaces, increased natural lighting and connected campus buildings. What can't be seen is the upgraded power grid and Wi-Fi network to accommodate an increase in digital learning.
 

Fewer than one in three New York City public schools are fully accessible to students with physical disabilities, according to a report released Wednesday by Advocates for Children that calls on the city to ramp up funding for building upgrades.

With the city expected to release its initial five-year capital plan for schools in November, the group is pushing for $1.25 billion to more quickly address major gaps in building accessibility.

That funding, which would run from 2025 through 2029, would allow roughly half of the city’s schools to be fully accessible according to the report, addressing a longstanding problem that has drawn criticism from parents and federal prosecutors officials alike. The City Council is slated to approve the capital plan in June, though it is typically amended twice a year thereafter. 

Officials have made some strides in recent years, in part due to pressure from advocates who successfully lobbied the city to devote $750 million to the effort in the current capital plan, which runs from 2020 through 2024. 

The city is on track to boost the share of fully accessible programs from about one in five schools to one in three under the current capital program, according to the Advocates for Children analysis. (The figures do not include certain alternative schools, prekindergarten programs, or charter schools. Nor do they include satellite campuses, as schools may have more than one location.)

Alamance-Burlington schools will delay the start of the new year until Sept. 5 as officials work to clean up mold problems at five schools.
Schools in Alamance County had been scheduled to start Aug. 28. The only exception is Alamance-Burlington Early College, where classes have already started at Alamance Community College.
"It has come to our attention that there are recurring mold problems in parts of these school facilities. Upon closer inspection, it appears that some of these issues have been neglected over the years and allowed to worsen. With the recent construction work and fluctuations in weather, the mold growth has accelerated,” Superintendent Dain Butler said in a news release. 
School officials were already trying to clean up mold found over the summer at Andrews Elementary and Newlin Elementary. Last weekend they found more mold problems at Cummings High School, Broadview Middle School and Williams High School.
The district said it has already spent more than $1.2 million on mold remediation and repairing the HVAC systems at Newlin and Andrews.
"This news comes at the worst possible time, just days ahead of students returning to classrooms across ABSS," Butler said. "However, the safety of our students and staff is our top priority.  We must address these issues, understanding that some can be quick fixes while others will require more substantial time and resources to fully remediate."  
The school system said it has run tests for air quality in the schools as it works to clean up the mold. 
 

The government has been accused of “staggering incompetence” after new school buildings it commissioned had to be closed due to safety fears, while others under construction were demolished before they even opened.

Main buildings at two secondary schools and a primary school in England, which were all completed relatively recently using a modular, off-site construction method, were told to close with immediate effect, disrupting the start of the new term for many pupils.

A government minister admitted there were issues with the structural integrity of some buildings, prompting fears they would not be able to withstand extreme events, including severe weather or being hit by a vehicle.

Labour and the Liberal Democrats called for an investigation to find out whether other schools could be at risk after it was reported that the contractor responsible for the affected schools was involved in the construction of at least 15 state schools in England.

The company, Caledonian Modular, has since gone into administration and the government is reviewing all Department for Education (DfE) contracts to identify other projects where the company may have been involved. Other departments have also been alerted.

“The Conservatives have bungled management of the schools estate from top to bottom,” said the shadow education secretary, Bridget Phillipson. “How can parents expect their children to receive a first-class education in second-rate buildings?”

CHICAGO (CBS) – Class was back in session for Chicago Public School students on Monday, but it comes as extreme heat is expected to hit the area.

Chicago is expected to see a heat index of over 110 degrees on multiple days this week, making some parents concerned about whether CPS buildings can handle the heat. CBS 2's Charlie De Mar caught up with school and city leaders to learn about their plans to keep kids safe.

CPS CEO Pedro Martinez and Mayor Brandon Johnson made several stops across the city on Monday, including at Jackie Robinson Elementary School. When it comes to the hot weather the area is expecting, leaders with CPS did not offer any long-term solutions to the infrastructure issue and air conditioning problems within the schools other than to say they hope the heat wave passes quickly.

A new school year brings much excitement and Monday's first day was no different, but a major focus this week will be on the heat. CPS leaders acknowledged that keeping kids cool is a challenge given the aging infrastructure of district buildings.

While Martinez said every classroom has at least a window unit, many of the hallways and interiors of the buildings are not air-conditioned.

In a recent public meeting, various speakers discussed the development and master planning in their community, the differentiation between capital improvements and maintenance, collaboration between entities, and strategies to maximize funding opportunities. This article aims to detail the key conversations from this meeting.
One speaker raised concerns about the lack of master planning within development districts, villages, and town centers. They stated: “We have done a very poor job about master planning.” The speaker suggested a more delineated approach, addressing roadways, water, and sewer. They acknowledged their limited success with small area master plans, expressing uncertainty about future developments.
Another speaker emphasized the relationships they have built and how they tackle planning by absorbing information and making the best plans possible. They mentioned working closely with George Erickson at MetCom and looking forward to a new relationship with Ms. Andre.
 

WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) - McPherson High School dismissed its students before the lunch hour on Monday due to the HVAC system failing, leading to hot classroom temperatures.

It was the second week of class at the high school where temperatures reached 80 to 90 degrees.

“Well, if its that hot the kids are not going to be paying attention. So, they might as well send them home,” said Karen Martin, who lives in McPherson.

Dr. Shiloh Vincent, superintendent for McPherson Schools, said the HVAC system stopped working overnight and the cooling process to get the classrooms to a normal temperature did not occur. The district said a motor failed on top of the chiller. The part is being shipped overnight.

Student learning and test scores are shown to fall when children are faced with extreme heat, a worrying sign as heat waves and rising temperatures become the norm in the U.S.
This past week, millions of students went back to school, even as the Pacific Northwest faced an unprecedented heat wave that is suspected of killing three people. 
The persistent soaring temperatures, especially in areas unfamiliar with them, disproportionately impact children in rural or low-income areas, where school districts may not have adequate air conditioning.
“My colleagues and I have a couple of studies where we find that hotter temperatures during the school year affect the rate of learning,” said Jisung Park, assistant professor in the Department of Public Policy at the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation.
“When we look at how more days above 85 and more days above 90 in the school year, it affects test scores. We find that it actually reduces the rate of learning,” he added.
 

YOUNGSTOWN — Public schools in Mahoning County have made significant updates to safety and technology as they gear up for the 2023-24 school year.

The Youngstown City School District, for example, has made hefty security improvements since the board of education applied for and received one of Gov. Mike DeWine’s K-12 safety grants.

“Our district already has an extensive security plan, and we saw these funds as an additional avenue to help further enhance security measures,” Stacy Quinones, communications and public relations director, explained.

“The funds were utilized to purchase cameras from Verkada, which builds physical state-of-the-art security systems. That is in conjunction with a cabling project to install the new system properly. East (High School) and Rayen Early College cameras were installed this year. We are currently in the process of installing new cabling and cameras at the remaining locations.”

Building realignment this school year involves Rayen Early College Middle School adjusting to follow the same yearly calendars as both Chaney and East middle schools.

The Youngstown school board and administration had ongoing dialogue regarding overcrowding at Kirkmere Elementary School, Quinones said. The school’s enrollment has exceeded available classroom space, leading to students being transferred to Volney Rogers Elementary at 2400 S. Schenley Ave. for the 2023-24 school year. “The district promptly communicated with families about this change and ensured the movement would be smooth. Transportation was not impacted, and especially the quality of education our scholars will receive just a few minutes’ drive from their previous home school,” Quinones said.

When classes started this week in Florida’s Polk County school district, fourth-grade teacher Emily Heath and her students returned to a sweltering classroom with faulty air conditioning and temperatures in the 80s. 

The heat was hard for Heath’s students to bear, she said. 

"They say, 'It’s too hot in here. I can’t focus. I can’t do my work. My head hurts. I’m sweating. I’m thirsty,'" Heath said.

Even in a state that’s used to hot weather this time of year, "the temperatures that are in these rooms, it’s not safe and it’s not beneficial for the kids," Heath said. 

Teachers unions and educators are sounding the alarm about sweltering conditions in classrooms as the school year kicks off following a summer that wrapped the country in record-setting heat.

The issue of excessive heat in classrooms is not new, as in previous years aging school buildings with inadequate air conditioning have led schools to shut down early and switch to remote learning.

But some educators said the longer periods of hot weather, particularly in places that haven’t historically experienced multiday heat waves coupled with inadequate cooling systems, are making it difficult to teach and are putting students even more at risk.

"Kids and staff and teachers are feeling physically sick and lethargic, and just not being able to have that conducive, exciting learning environment that we should have at the very beginning of the school year," said Stephanie Yocum, president of the Polk Education Association, the teachers union.

Less than a week before the start of the school year, only six public schools have passed the sanitary building code inspection.

The Guam Department of Education announced Talo’fo’fo' Elementary and Tiyan High are the latest schools to pass the Guam Department of Public Health and Social Services sanitary inspection. The two schools joined John F. Kennedy High, Inalåhan Elementary, Untalan Middle School and Merizo Martyrs Memorial School in meeting Public Health sanitary building code standards.

On July 24, Public Health increased the number of schools it inspects weekly from one to three by deploying three different teams of inspectors to conduct inspections, based on which facilities GDOE indicates are ready.

Talo’fo’fo' Elementary and Tiyan High were two of three schools up for inspection the week of July 31. GDOE noted Wettengel Elementary was among the scheduled inspections.

The department, however, didn't disclose the status of the inspection for Wettengel Elementary. Wettengel Elementary students were to be hosted at Maria Ulloa Elementary at the start of the new school year, GDOE said Thursday in a news release regarding school schedules.

Because compliance with the sanitary school building code has been pushed back to next school year, GDOE campuses can be opened at the discretion of the superintendent and Public Health.

As Denver Public Schools students head back to class amid expected outdoor temperatures in the 80s and 90s, 11 more schools will have air conditioning. 

For years, DPS has been chipping away at a long list of schools without cooling. The money to add air conditioning to the 11 schools this summer came from a bond issue passed by Denver voters in 2020. The bond money will also pay for 13 more schools to get air conditioning over the next year. That will leave 31 DPS schools without cooling, according to the district.

Denver frequently sees temperatures in the 90s in August and even September. Last year, more than 30 DPS schools called “heat days” during a streak of hot weather in September. The schools either canceled classes altogether or released students early.

The district has taken other steps to try to prevent students from becoming overheated, lethargic, and even sick in class due to high temperatures. In 2021, the school board voted to push back the first day of school by a week — a schedule DPS maintains today. Most DPS schools start Monday, though some schools that set their own calendars started earlier.