A problem with the HVAC system at Dexter Elementary School has caused the school district to move everyone out of the building and is the subject of pending litigation, according to Dexter Consolidated School District Superintendent Heather Garner.

The fix also is expected to require additional state funding of at least $1.5 million, she said.

“The crux of the issue is that it is nonfunctional,” Garner said about the heating-venting-air conditioning system installed in 2020.

Garner, who became superintendent in July 2022, said the exact extent and nature of the problems are being investigated and that the pending litigation prohibits her from discussing the problems in detail. She also said she could not identify the contractor by name.

Beginning next school year, the Pine Bluff School District will operate just one high school and one junior high school "in order to be good fiscal agents," Superintendent Jennifer Barbaree announced in a video released Wednesday.
Barbaree announced "her intention" to close Jack Robey Junior High School and to have all seventh-, eighth- and ninth-grade students attend the present Robert F. Morehead Middle School campus with the possibility the present Dollarway High School will be used to hold some of the students. Meanwhile, all 10th-, 11th- and 12th-grade students will attend Pine Bluff High School. The decision comes nearly two years after the Dollarway School District was annexed into the PBSD.
Barbaree said in the video she met with each campus principal and visited all nine district campuses to inform faculty and staff of the upcoming changes, making good on a statement she made following a school board work session last Thursday when she publicly indicated the district cannot financially support as many campuses after this school year. The decisions announced Wednesday must be made in order for the district to leave state control.
 

When wildfire smoke blocked the sun and turned the sky orange above the San Francisco Bay Area in September 2020, Andra Yeghoian’s two young children, ages 3 and 5, were scared. And they had questions: What was going on? Was this normal?
Yeghoian did her best to explain and to comfort them.
“I can’t not talk about climate change with my kids,” she said. “It’s the same for teachers with their students.”
It’s a fascinating read, full of useful ideas for teachers, lawmakers, government agencies, school districts and kids. It was written by university researchers and staffers at a variety of nonprofits, advocacy groups and other organizations, with funding from the Schmidt Family Foundation, which is backed by former Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt and his wife, Wendy.
The report’s basic argument is that schools are uniquely positioned to help solve the climate crisis.
California’s elementary and secondary schools have a huge physical footprint, covering 125,000 acres of ground and 730 million square feet of buildings. That means they’re prime spots for solar panels, batteries, heat pumps, electric buses and efficiency measures that can reduce the need for fossil fuels. The report estimates that K-12 public schools produce 9% of all carbon dioxide pollution from the state’s nonresidential buildings — not counting pollution from cars and buses going to and from schools.
 

HARRISBURG, March 1 – State Reps. Elizabeth Fiedler, D-Phila., Robert Merski, D-Erie, Bridget Kosierowski, D-Lackawanna, and Tarik Khan, D-Phila., today partnered with state Sen. Tim Kearney, D-Delaware, to announce legislation addressing toxic school buildings in Pennsylvania.

Gathered outside the lieutenant governor’s office, Fiedler, Merski, Kosierowski and Khan said they plan to introduce legislation to fund the school construction program PlanCon to address the school facilities crisis in Pennsylvania. The lawmakers’ legislation would fund the maintenance program within the traditional PlanCon program for vital projects including repairs to roofs, HVAC systems, boilers, plumbing and electrical wiring.

Under the legislation, the lawmakers propose opening applications only to the new Maintenance Program created under Act 70 for a temporary 3-year period. After this period, the Department of Education would re-open the program for traditional PlanCon projects, with the Maintenance Program returning to its 20% share of available funding. 

The lawmakers announced they are also introducing another piece of legislation to address toxic school buildings. This legislation would make changes to the commonwealth’s Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program to make it easier for public schools to submit applications for building improvements.

Their announcement comes on the heels of the Commonwealth Court’s ruling in the William Penn School District lawsuit, that Pennsylvania’s system of funding public education is unconstitutional. The group of lawmakers stressed that in addition to the need for basic education funding, the lawsuit highlighted school facilities issues. 

“When a child is sitting in a classroom with peeling paint and asbestos, shivering because they’re too cold or has a nosebleed and a headache because they’re too hot, they can’t learn,” Fiedler said. “School buildings are a statewide educational and public health issue, and we need to start funding them with that importance. The recent Commonwealth Court ruling provides the state an excellent opportunity right now to ensure all children can go to school in a safe building and pursue a quality education.”

Asbestos has closed a Philadelphia high school to in-person learning, officials said Wednesday.

Inspectors discovered damaged asbestos-containing plaster and paint at Building 21, a district school in West Oak Lane, during a routine inspection Tuesday night, according to a letter sent to families by principal Brianne Macnamara.

The damaged material was discovered in the auditorium balcony and two stairwells. The affected areas were immediately closed to students and staff, officials said.

“The School District of Philadelphia’s Office of Environmental Management & Services is immediately working on repairs,” Macnamara wrote. “All repair work will be monitored by asbestos inspectors licensed by the City of Philadelphia. The inspectors will also perform air monitoring when the project is complete to confirm that the spaces are ready for students and staff to safely use.”

The Austin school district is prioritizing security and maintenance upgrades to improve safety at some older campuses and replace aging infrastructure as it begins rolling out its $2.4 billion bond projects, according to a timeline it recently released.

The district last week announced its project timeline, with work beginning this year and expected to be completed in 2028. It has about 300 projects planned on all of its 116 campuses and a few other facilities.

The district has planned full, comprehensive upgrades at 14 campuses and completing part of a full upgrade at an additional 11 campuses, according to the district’s timeline.

Four other schools will get renovations to their open concept floor plans, a design popular in the 1960s and 1970s that featured fewer doors and walls. The design layout was meant to promote collaboration, but since then, officials have called it distracting and unsafe.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) – The board of education for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools approved the 2024-2028 Capital Improvement Plan, a $2.9 billion plan that includes a bond to add new schools and provide renovations for several existing ones.

Originally the plan consisted of an escalated current total of over $5 billion for 125 projects. Gradually that was cut down to 30 projects for $2.9 billion.

CMS interim superintendent Crystal Hill stated the money will go toward increasing capacity and significantly improving conditions at some of the district’s older schools.

The plan passed 8-1, giving the green light for the 30 projects within the district. These include replacement buildings for 15 schools, building three new middle schools and completing ongoing work at schools across the district.

Speaking as a board member and a parent, Summer Nunn, who represents District 6, says she is pleased with the plan, stating the significant figure of $2.9 billion is a step in the right direction.

The DeKalb County School District has completed the work state officials ordered to make several dozen repairs at Druid Hills High School, interim Superintendent Vasanne Tinsley said.
“Done. Completed. Finished,” Tinsley told the school board at a meeting last week. “I’m very proud of that.”
Last year, the Georgia Department of Education intervened and told the district to address poor conditions at Druid Hills High and other facilities issues. In what a state official described as an “unprecedented move,” the state appointed a special advisor to work with the district on the corrective action plan. The advisor, Tanzy Kilcrease, worked with the district through November, according to a final report she wrote.
“They have been very receptive of all feedback and suggestions,” she wrote about DeKalb, the state’s third-largest school district. “They have a plan to continue to perform due diligence in ensuring they have practices that will foster operational effectiveness and efficiency.”
 

When Carlotta Berry viewed two TikTok videos of students giving a tour of their affluent high school less than 45 minutes away from her home in Avon, Indiana, she was speechless. 
The video, posted earlier this month and which has since gone viral, shows Carmel High School students showing off their sprawling school’s vast amenities — which include a recording studio, a 10,000-seat stadium, a café and a planetarium.
But when the video kept appearing on her time line, Berry, who originally planned on keeping her thoughts to herself, decided to post a response, pointing out the lack of diversity of the students in the video and the inequality of resources for neighboring schools in the region, like Avon High School, which her daughter attends.
“I think that was the most appalling part to me. … At what point do you say, ‘Let me stop throwing money at this high school and consider the other schools in the area,” Berry told NBC News. “If you’ve got a natatorium and three cafeterias, can we get all the schools within a 20-mile radius of the school to have one cafeteria? One gym?”
About 17% of students are Black, and 62% are white at Avon, which is in a suburb west of Indianapolis. At Carmel High School, which is in a suburb north of Indianapolis, more than 70% of students who attend the school are white and 3.6% are Black. Meanwhile, the median household income in Avon is $92,684 compared with Carmel, where the average is $119,772, according to data from the U.S. Census.
 

Sen. Jesse Lujan wants the Guam Department of Education to take ownership of its facilities at the school level with the introduction of Bill 48-37, which aims to hold the department accountable for reporting school inspections.

The bill would require the GDOE deputy superintendent for assessment and accountability to report all school inspections online on a government website to be developed by GDOE, as well as the school website, within 30 days of the inspection.

The bill allows the public to hold GDOE accountable by increasing transparency through the online postings – a right, Lujan said, parents deserve.

“Parents deserve to know the conditions of the schools their children are in,” Lujan stated in a news release.

On an 81 degree day last September, environmental city planner Sharon Danks went onto the playground at a California elementary school with an infrared camera. Grassy areas in full sun measured 83 degrees, but unshaded asphalt was 107 and rubber surfaces under an exposed play structure came in at 135. Asphalt shaded by tree canopy was more than 30 degrees cooler.

Danks, the author of Asphalt to Ecosystems, a book published more than a decade ago to guide the transformation of schoolyards, wasn’t surprised at what she found. She and her colleagues had made similar measurements many times over.

But shade itself had gained heat that September with the announcement that $150 million had been set aside in the California state budget for a two-year program to fund school forests and green schoolyards at K-12 schools. The decision was driven by the need to protect the health of students as average temperatures in the state continue to rise.

LINCOLN — Voters would have to approve agreements to finance new schools via little-used interlocal agreements under a legislative bill given first-round approval Wednesday.
State Sen. Lou Ann Linehan of Elkhorn said Legislative Bill 299 would close a “loophole” in state law that allows financing of new school construction without a public vote.
“If you’re going to put people in debt, people should have the right to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ ” Linehan said.
She cited a recent case in Beatrice, where voters twice rejected bond issues to build one new elementary school to replace four aging neighborhood elementary schools.
The local school board, however, approved construction of a $43 million elementary school through another route, by joining with Educational Service Unit 5 to secure a loan to finance the building project.
Such an interlocal agreement does not require a public vote, which Linehan described as a “workaround” from the typically required school bond elections to approve new construction projects.
 

MONMOUTH JUNCTION, NJ — The state will make $120 million in grants available to expand preschool facilities, which Gov. Phil Murphy says will bring New Jersey closer to his administration's goal of universal Pre-K.

The funding will come from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 — a federal COVID-19 stimulus package. The New Jersey Department of Education will accept grant applications from regular operating districts (RODs) from March 1 to May 31. The number of awardees will depend on the applications received, according to a department spokesperson.

Since first campaigning for governor, Murphy has stated a goal to guarantee full-day, "high-quality" preschool education to all 3- and 4-year-olds in the state. The governor has shifted his administration's target date for universal pre-K during his time in office, but Murphy said in late 2021 that New Jersey would reach the goal in "2030 (at) the latest. I hope sooner than that."

The Arkansas House approved a bill Monday that would allow school districts to use state funding to aid in the construction of "safe rooms" and early childhood education facilities.
House Bill 1337, by Rep. Julie Mayberry, R-Hensley, received a vote of 53-15 with 15 lawmakers voting present. The bill moves to the Senate for further action.
Under current law, school districts may not use funds allocated through the Arkansas Public School Academic Facilities Fund Act to build "safe rooms" or prekindergarten facilities. A "safe room," as defined by the bill, is a building, space or other area designed to protect occupants from "a natural or manmade intrusion."
The Arkansas Public School Academic Facilities Fund Act establishes a partnership program under which the state is required to provide cash payments to school districts for eligible new construction projects based on a district's academic facilities wealth index.
Rather than relying on this state aid to build "safe rooms" and prekindergarten facilities, districts have to turn to grants, private donations or their budgets, said Mayberry.
Since schools are required to build "safe rooms," Mayberry said it is a "no-brainer" to allow districts to use money from the state's partnership funding program for their construction.
 

Severe weather can force students at To’Hajiilee Community School to evacuate and lose an entire day’s worth of learning because the building is in such disrepair that it’s dangerous for people to be inside.

“Whenever it rains, it leaks through our roofs and floods our school. It becomes really muddy, and the dirt becomes like clay,” sophomore Nataliah Sandoval said.

The tribally run school serves more than 300 Navajo students and is one of the top employers in the community located more than 30 miles west of Albuquerque.

So when schools are shut down because rain falls onto student’s desks and causes flooding in hallways, the impact is widespread across the only Navajo Nation community located in Bernalillo County.

Sandoval’s mother, Pamela Arviso, said she has to leave work anytime the school closes.

“It’s hard to get off from work and pick up my daughter when there’s flooding or electrical problems. But I think it’s going to get easier because they’re facing these challenges,” she said.

The challenges of rebuilding a new school will be taken on in part by a $90.4 million appropriation Congress included in the omnibus spending bill approved last December.

U.S. Representative Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) said she saw the need for her constituents in To’Hajiilee and secured the money so a new school can be built in a safer and higher location where water does not concentrate and flood.

“For me, the story and history and just the beauty and resilience of this community in the school is what has driven me every day,” said Stansbury at a celebration in the school’s gym on Friday. 

The celebration was hosted by Sandoval, the sophomore that has had water drip on her head from the leaky school roof.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - A bill allowing voters to increase local sales taxes in order to fund school construction projects was shot down in the General Assembly, but Albemarle County Public Schools is hopeful the bill will get another try in the coming years.

“In Albemarle County Public Schools, we very much support giving localities taxing authority. This bill is particularly effective because the community the ability to choose,” ACPS Public Affairs Officer Helen Dunn said.

The bill would’ve allowed localities to add an up to 1% state tax surcharge.

“Anytime we know that our community has bought into something like this, we are in support of it because we feel the community is one of our partners. When the community is doing well, the schools are doing well and vice versa, so we were very hopeful that this bill would pass,” Dunn said.

Solar power systems will be installed by Secure Solar Futures on the rooftops of buildings at 12 school sites across Prince William County. They include three high schools: Battlefield High School, Freedom High School and Gainesville High School. In addition, solar panels will go to two middle schools, Beville Middle School and Potomac Shores Middle School, and seven elementary schools: Chris Yung Elementary School, Covington-Harper Elementary School, Jenkins Elementary School, Kilby Elementary School, Kyle Wilson Elementary School, Leesylvania Elementary School, and Minnieville Elementary School.

“One of the largest school districts in the country going solar makes Prince William County Schools a national leader on clean energy and sustainability,” said Ryan McAllister, CEO of Secure Solar Futures. “The schools will showcase solar power systems right on location. That will send a powerful message to students that they don’t have to wait for the clean energy economy to arrive in the future. It’s already here.”

With a capacity of 7.9 megawatts total, the combined solar arrays will save the district more than $16 million in energy costs over the next 25 years.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The air-conditioning gave out as students returned from summer break last year to Jim Hill High School in Jackson, Mississippi, forcing them to learn in sweltering heat. By Thanksgiving, students were huddling under blankets because the heat wasn’t working.

Along the way students dealt with broken showers in locker rooms, plumbing issues and a litany of other problems in the nearly 60-year-old school building.

“There’s been times we’ve been cold, there’s been times we’ve been hot,” said Mentia Trippeter, a 17-year-old senior. “There’s been times where it rained and it poured, we’ve been drowning. We go through it — we go through it, man.”

Like other schools serving low-income communities across the country, Jim Hill has long dealt with neglected infrastructure that has made it harder for students to learn. So when Jackson Public Schools received tens of millions of dollars in federal COVID relief money, it decided to put much of the windfall toward repairing heating and plumbing problems, some of which temporarily caused the school to switch to remote learning.

SAN ANTONIO — Building new schools in Texas could get even more expensive.
The Texas Permanent School Fund's Bond Guarantee Program has a $117 billion cap. At the end of December, the state was just $26 million away from reaching it.
This comes after dozens of districts passed bonds in November that included plans to build or renovate schools.
Bonds issued under this program allow school districts to borrow at a lower cost.
If the cap is reached, districts will have to pay more in interest for lower renovation funds.
That could lead to big problems for your school district and your wallet.
"The estimate is that for all school districts in Texas, it would be about 425 million—almost half a billion dollars per year—in added cost if we can't get this problem corrected," said U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin.
Congressman Doggett has filed a federal bill that would do away with the cap on the Permanent School Fund. Districts would still need insurance on their bonds.
"We need to see that every dollar we can get goes into necessary construction," Doggett said.
 

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (FLV) – A Florida House subcommittee unanimously passed a bill that would provide exemptions for upgrades at education facilities that are used as emergency shelters during storms.

The bill will exempt any costs that is less than $2 million for upgrades that improve the capability of education facilities that serve as an emergency shelter from the Cost Per Student Station.

Since 1997, Florida has used the CPSS analysis to quantify construction costs related to traditional kindergarten through grade 12 school facilities, according to the Florida Department of Education.

Eligible upgrades are limited to those “necessary for an area to be designated as an enhanced hurricane protection area.”

These upgrades include electrical and standby emergency power systems, renewable energy source devices, and energy storage devices.

The bill’s co-sponsors, Rep. Joe Casello, D-Boynton Beach, and Rep. Lindsay Cross, D-St. Petersburg, introduced the bill in the PreK-12 Appropriations Subcommittee. The bill passed with a vote of 15-0.