MILWAUKEE — Three Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) schools remain closed for a fifth week, as crews work to clean up lead hazards inside of them.
Starms Early Childhood Center, Fernwood Montessori and LaFollete school have not been open to students and staff since Friday, March 14.
A group of parents are growing a grassroots advocacy group called Lead Safe Schools MKE. The group is circulating an online petition demanding more answers from MPS and the Milwaukee Health Department (MHD).
It's also encouraging Milwaukee residents to call the Milwaukee Mayor’s Office, Common Council members and state representatives to demand quicker action in lead remediation.
In an Instagram post Monday, Lead Safe Schools MKE called out Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson for not doing more when the city owns MPS buildings.
“At the end of the day, we believe that the city has a lot of responsibility in this situation, because they own those buildings,” said Ron Jansen, MPS parent and organizer of Lead Safe Schools MKE. “The mayor’s input is really important. He should be seeking financial assistance for the district, whether that be loans, grants, so we can lift the district out of this crisis. My message would be, that we have seen you drag your feet on the lead crisis in Milwaukee long enough.”
 

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - Voters in Livingston Parish will soon decide on a tax renewal that would help keep their schools up and running.

As Louisiana’s 8th largest school district, there’s a lot that Livingston Parish Public Schools’ Superintendent Jody Purvis has to take care of.

“We’re maintaining almost 600 buildings, we’re maintaining almost 800 acres each day, and we’re over 13 million square feet of buildings that we’re maintaining,” explained Purvis.

With some of those buildings dating back to 1911, you can imagine how much TLC it takes to keep these campuses up and running.

“Day-to-day maintenance. Something breaks, someone puts in a work order, and this is what fixes that,” said Purvis.

AUGUSTA (WGME) -- A long-awaited report that could shape the future of how school construction projects in Maine are funded has been delayed.

The Governor’s Commission on School Construction was expected to release its final recommendations on Tuesday, offering the first comprehensive look at potential fixes for Maine’s aging school infrastructure in decades. But commission members now say they need more time, calling the process “highly-involved.”

While a progress summary is still expected to be published later this month, any formal recommendations for lawmakers and the public won’t be released until later this year.

"I think it became very clear to all of us, pretty quickly, that the volume and scope, depth and complexity of information was more than we could come to some final recommendations within four months or so," Commission Chair Valerie Landry said. "So, we asked for an extension on that work and that was granted."

Legislation aimed at making schools and other buildings safer during emergency events, like active shooters, passed through the Senate on Monday.

House Bill 651, sponsored by Rep. Amy Regier, R-Kalispell, creates an exemption in state fire code for temporary door locks in public buildings.

Temporary door locks can help save lives, according to a study published in the Journal of Mass Violence Research. In fact, the Sandy Hook Commission, a report by the federal government, found in 2015 that there has never been an active shooter event where the shooter breached a locked door.

“Currently, our fire code is fairly direct and provides no exceptions,” Regier said during the bill’s hearing on March 21 before the Senate State Administration Committee. “It states it is unlawful to obstruct a fire exit or any hallway corridor or entrance way leading to a fire exit. Yet in an active shooter emergency, one of the first steps that is recommended to protect potential victims is to secure the door.”

A code official, or whomever has jurisdiction of a building, would have to approve of the use of temporary locks, and they could only be used in a “shelter-in-place or emergency lockdown situation.”

The Orleans Parish School board is preparing to sell seven properties at a live auction later this month, as the cash-strapped agency seeks to offload dozens of vacant school buildings and empty lots across the city that it has been holding onto for years.
Among the properties on offer is an 88-year-old art deco building at 727 Carondelet St. that recently appraised for $6.5 million. Commercial real estate broker Paul Richard of NAI/Latter & Blum, who is handling the auction, said it would be a prime candidate for redevelopment into a hotel or apartments.  
The other big-ticket property in the portfolio is a red-brick structure at 401 Nashville Avenue. The Uptown building dates to the early 1900s and was recently appraised at $3.7 million.
Along with three other former schools in Algiers and Gentilly and two vacant lots, the properties, which will be auctioned individually, could fetch as much as $14 million.
The school board is dealing with a $50 million budget hole, and while School Board President Katie Baudouin said some of the money generated from the auction, scheduled for April 30, could go towards plugging that revenue shortfall, it more likely will go to a building and facilities fund and used to pay off capital expenses.
 

New York City’s Education Department is severely out of compliance with a federal law mandating regular inspections of school buildings containing asbestos, an audit released Wednesday by comptroller Brad Lander found.

Out of the city’s roughly 1,600 schools, a whopping 80% have been identified to have asbestos and are required by federal law to be inspected by an accredited professional once every three years. Yet, only 18% of the more-than 1,400 schools containing asbestos had such inspections between 2021 and 2024, the audit found.

School buildings with asbestos are also required to have routine inspections by a trained employee, such as a custodian, every six months. But the city only began systematically tracking those inspections in 2023 and completed them at just 22% of schools between 2023 and 2024, the audit revealed.

“[The Education Department] has stunningly failed to follow the minimum national standard for asbestos management for years,” Lander said in a statement. “I am urging the Adams Administration to take swift action to come into compliance because no parent, teacher, or school staffer should feel unsafe walking into a school.”

The audit advises the Education Department to create new policies, tracking systems, and accountability plans to quickly improve its compliance.

The $600-million effort to rebuild the three L.A. Unified schools burned in the Palisades fire has hit an important milestone ahead of schedule — all debris has been cleared from the properties, Supt. Alberto Carvalho said Friday.
Calling the debris removal a “pivotal moment for all of us,” he detailed rebuilding plans that aim to get students back to campuses quickly.
“Today we recognize that people of goodwill can carve out common ground to achieve great things together in unity,” Carvalho said alongside Mayor Karen Bass at Palisades Charter Elementary School, one of the campuses that burned.
About 70% of the school was destroyed by the fire that began Jan. 7. Now, nearly three months later, tidy expanses of soil are all that is left in spaces where structures once stood.
Bass touted the speed of debris removal across the area scorched by the Palisades fire, which destroyed nearly 7,000 structures and burned more than 23,000 acres, saying, “We are absolutely committed to making sure that Palisades is rebuilt as fast as possible.”
 

The Burlington County Institute of Technology, or BCIT, in Medford recently unveiled its renovated welding and heating, ventilation and cooling system shops, and a new video game design lab.
About 17 miles down the road, the Camden County Technical School’s, or CCTS, Pennsauken Campus expanded its culinary arts program.
These are just two of the many projects across the state that have benefitted from a 2018 bond measure that appropriated $350 million to expand county vocational schools and their programs.
Jackie Burke, executive director of the New Jersey Council of County Vocational-Technical Schools, which represents vocational-technical school districts in the state, said officials across the state gathered input on how to spend the money.
“They talked to employers, they talked to students and parents, they talked to everyone to see what the landscape is,” she said.
Major expansions take place at BCIT and CCTS
BCIT’s two campuses had their first major improvements in two decades.
In February, officials cut the ribbon on the $8 million major expansion of its welding and HVAC shops. The welding shops include a renovated classroom, storage area and four additional welding booths. The HVAC area was expanded to include a classroom, shop area, supply and tool storage and dedicated brazing area.
 

Following the brutal tornado of March 14 and the subsequent damage that resulted, the Poplar Bluff School District officials say they have renewed a commitment to be available to the public in times of emergency. The district received an opportunity to test that Sunday.

A severe storm front was forecast to hit the area Sunday. Poplar Bluff found itself categorized at level three by the National Weather Service, making it a prime spot for tornado activity.

According to Assistant Superintendent Charles Kinsey, the decision was made to open the FEMA Shelter at the O’Neal School, as well as the Poplar Bluff Junior High, to the public by 2:30 p.m. Sunday.

“After going through what we just went through, I think the school wants to be a part of helping the community,” Kinsey explained.

Kinsey said he understands some people may be dealing with high levels of stress and anxiety as a result of the recent tornado, but he is glad the school was able to provide shelter.

“At the O’Neal location, we had about 400 people show up,” Kinsey noted. “We only had about 40 people show up at the junior high, but fewer people were probably aware that location was available as a shelter.”

Three schools in Milwaukee remain temporarily closed two weeks after “significant lead hazards” were found inside the buildings.
Meanwhile, the Milwaukee Health Department is still revising a “Lead Action Plan” from Milwaukee Public Schools. The plan will outline how the district will inspect other school properties for lead and clean those found to have hazards.
Three schools — Starms Early Childhood Center, Fernwood Montessori and LaFollette School — all temporarily closed March 17 after staff with the city health department noticed lead hazards like chipping paint when inspecting the properties. Students have been transferred to different schools while remediation is underway.
During a Friday press conference, Tyler Weber, the Milwaukee Health Department’s deputy commissioner for environmental health, did not give a timeline on when the schools might reopen.
“We want to get these kids back into a safe environment for the wellness of the children and parents,” Weber said.
“Renovation work is happening and they’re (schools) not ready to be opened,” he added. MPS, not MHD, manages the remediation work.
The closures come as four other Milwaukee Public Schools have been recently investigated for high levels of lead. One of those schools, Trowbridge School of Great Lakes Studies, was shut down by the Milwaukee Health Department in late February due to “unsafe lead dust levels.” It reopened two weeks ago.
Children younger than age 6 are particularly vulnerable to lead poisoning, according to Mayo Clinic. Lead poisoning can affect children’s mental and physical development.
 

Indiana lawmakers have revived a proposal that could lead to Indianapolis Public Schools sharing its school buildings and transportation systems with local charter schools.

The plan creates a nine-member Indianapolis Local Education Alliance (ILEA) made up of district, charter, and city leaders who would be charged with creating a school facility and transportation plan for the city.

The recommendations made by the body would not be binding. But they could be far-reaching, as members would be tasked with developing strategies related to facility use and transportation, including any “structural changes necessary … for a collaborative system of schools that can serve all students within the geographic boundaries of the school city fairly,” the amendment says.

Only IPS would be required to participate in such a group. Other districts could opt into pilot programs that would create independent boards to oversee school facilities and transportation systems, including by authorizing property tax referendums.

The proposal has been significantly pared down since the original version, House Bill 1501, did not move through the chamber before a mandatory deadline.

Author Rep. Bob Behning said last week he would add the language to another bill, and did so with an amendment on Wednesday to Senate Bill 373, a broad education matters bill.

The ILEA would begin meeting in July 2025 and submit its recommendations to lawmakers and the state education secretary by December 2025 under the bill.

The plan is the latest version of a push by Indiana lawmakers this year to exert control over Indianapolis schools and direct more resources to the city’s charter schools. In addition to HB 1501, lawmakers are also moving to require the district to share more local revenue with charter schools. On the extreme end, House Bill 1136 would have dissolved the district completely and replaced it with charter schools, but it didn’t advance this session.

Knowledge of structural problems at Jenkins Middle School in Colorado Springs School District 11 began around a decade after the school was built. Now, it sits empty, waiting for repairs to its foundation that could have a high price tag.
The district has released a final report on the structural and fire protection concerns that resulted in the January closure of Jenkins Middle School. The report confirmed the preliminary findings, released last month, which said the decline was a result of soil settlement related to an increase in moisture content from the time the building was built until the recent inspection.
According to the Colorado Springs Fire Department, the agency and the district have been "closely monitoring the building structure and fire protection systems … for the past few years."
The statement from CSFD at the time the school shut down comes after years of citations during routine annual inspections, according to CSFD Fire Marshall Brett Lacey. 
“Back in 2013, my inspectors began to notice degradation of those fire protection features and they would write them up,” Lacey said, “and [the district] would come back in and correct them with fire rated materials or caulking or trying to shore up those passive features.”
When Jenkins Middle School was built in 1999, building codes didn’t require the installation of active fire suppression systems, such as a sprinkler system. And though there are some sprinklers in the cafeteria, the rest of the school uses passive fire protections, specifically fire barriers. 
The recently released final report covering a geotechnical inspection found parts of the foundation of the building had shifted up to 5.5 inches in some cases, causing fire barriers to no longer stay flush with their frames, rendering them ineffective.
“If you picture a door and a door fits within a door frame, as the structure begins to move, that can begin to warp the frame. Which then, the door may not fit appropriately,” said Colorado Springs Fire Marshal Brett Lacey. 
 

Salinas Union High School District is working on updating its facilities master plan across its 13 schools. Officials so far have hosted several town hall meetings, tours and study sessions, identifying numerous projects including new classrooms, air conditioning, ADA accessibility improvements and more.

There is $130 million available, just a fraction of the $546.3 million needed for SUHSD’s project priority list. That means it will have to pick and choose which projects move forward.

The proposed plan has raised concern from teachers and parents at El Sausal Middle School, the second-oldest school in the district.

El Sausal lacks accessibility – people with mobility issues can access the school from a side entrance, but not the front door – and there are leaky roofs, lack of air conditioning in some buildings, substandard bathrooms with rusted soap dispensers and hand dryers, among other issues. El Sausal staff members provided a detailed document with feedback on the proposed master plan.

Safety is another concern. “Ceiling tiles are falling literally inches from students and staff,” it reads.

Jackson County Public Schools is planning to build its first-ever middle school after receiving a $52 million grant from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction last September. 
Jackson County has long operated without a dedicated middle school, relying on K-8 schools to feed into the county’s only high school, Smoky Mountain High. JCPS also operates a K-12 school, Jackson Community School.
"This is a huge undertaking,” said JCPS superintendent Dana Ayers. “We’re one of only eleven counties in NC that doesn’t have a middle-school model. I just want to catch up to what the rest of our state is already doing.” 
 The introduction of a dedicated middle school will allow JCPS to offer new opportunities to students and teachers. Ayers said a large aspect of this change will be increased collaboration between teachers and age-specific programs for students. 
 Each school in Jackson County teaching middle-grades has only one teacher per grade, per subject. The schools are spread throughout the county, making it difficult for teachers to come together.  
 

The latest assessment from the American Society of Civil Engineers says U.S. public schools still are doing a poor job keeping their facilities in good condition.
America's public schools have received a near failing grade for their lackluster efforts carrying out needed improvements to the nation's aging education facilities.
The American Society of Civil Engineers has given the public school sector a D-plus in its newly released 2025 Report Card for America's Infrastructure. The engineers found that school buildings are continuing to age and deteriorate as the funding provided to bring those facilities to a state of good repair falls well short of meeting needs.
"The annual funding gap to reach a state of good repair for the nation’s public schools 
has grown from $60 billion in 2016 to $85 billion in 2021," the report card says. "Critical needs at school buildings include water upgrades to remove lead and installation of cooling systems amid increasing temperatures."
 

Most of us would rather not think about what our lives will be like in the aftermath of the Big One – a magnitude 9.0 rupture of the offshore Cascadia earthquake fault. Yet, it’s worth considering where you’ll go if your house slides off its foundation or your apartment lacks heat, electricity and running water.

For many, if not most Pacific Northwest residents, walking to their neighborhood school to find earthquake relief is a reasonable first instinct. The trouble is the majority of Oregon schools were built before the state had a seismic building code and could well be unusable. 

Emergency preparedness advocates made another try at the Oregon Legislature this spring to raise the standard for new school construction. But it might take a political earthquake to overcome opposition from wary school associations.

“Let’s be clear, the Cascadia Earthquake will most likely be the most powerful natural disaster in modern U.S. history, and we must be bold in our efforts to build a strategic resilience vision for Oregon,” said state Rep. Paul Evans, D-Monmouth.

Evans introduced a measure in the Oregon House that would require new schools to be built stronger and to include disaster shelter features as a condition of receiving state construction support. House Bill 3707 would apply in earthquake country west of the Cascades and in Klamath County, but it didn’t receive a hearing or have a work session scheduled by the March 21 deadline to keep bills moving.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — In the state Senate, a bill is being discussed to change the name of the state School Building Authority.
The Senate Education Committee began discussions on Senate Bill 261 on Monday.
The bill would rename the SBA the “School Maintenance Authority,” and it would transition the purpose of the authority from an organization that primarily focuses on financing school construction and improvement projects, to an entity that has the primary focus of financing school maintenance projects.
The bill also includes the definition of “maintenance project,” and modifies the definition of “major school improvement projects.”
Putnam County Senator Eric Tarr said he was left to the understanding that school maintenance projects were the responsibility of local school systems and not directly funded through the state.
“The way I understand it, and correct me if I’m wrong, is that much of the school maintenance is afforded at the local level, because in the School Aid funding formula, there’s a step for the square footage that’s in the buildings, that we fund counties for the purposes of maintaining their schools already,” Tarr inquired.
 

BRIDGEPORT — Acting Superintendent of Schools Royce Avery believes the school system must first secure the funding and construct new school buildings before it moves forward with a proposal to shutter several old facilities.
A recently completed study found the district’s aging buildings will need $702.5 million in upgrades over the next decade and recommends closing seven aging schools to save money on costly repairs. 
But Avery said during a community forum Tuesday that the schools should stay open until new buildings have been erected to replace them — a process he noted could take three to four years to complete. 
“We can’t close buildings until we get new facilities,” Avery said. “So until that happens we’re not even going to talk about school closures because we have nowhere to put the kids.” 
 

KETTERING, Ohio (WDTN) — With school buildings going on 70 years or older, Kettering City Schools has been working with state officials and contractors to create a plan to address the aging infrastructure.
On Thursday night, officials unveiled their plans during a public forum, sharing some pretty big changes in the works, including both potential renovations and demolitions to buildings within the Kettering City Schools system.
Partnering with the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission (OFCC) for funding, city officials had multiple plans — some involving the consolidation of elementary and middle schools in the district.
“We’re presenting some bold plans for the future, does the community want to consider consolidating Kettering Middle School and Van Buren into one combined middle school?” said Mike Ruetschle, architect. “And might it be at Fairmont High School? It’s kind of an extraordinary idea.”
Many of the schools in Kettering’s district are coming up on 70 years old and after inspections with the OFCC, they wouldn’t fund renovations of some schools due to age and poor condition.
Dealing with a forecasted decline in enrollment and facing the mounting potential costs of renovations, officials had to propose funding in the hundreds of millions.
 

A new study that takes a comprehensive look at the state of school infrastructure across Michigan identified billions of dollars in needed repairs.

The School Finance Research Foundation, a nonprofit that began its statewide analysis in spring 2023, estimates Michigan schools will need $22.8 billion in infrastructure investment over the next decade. The costs include critical repairs for HVAC systems, roofing and electrical work, among other maintenance needs.

In a public meeting announcing the findings, education leaders from across the state emphasized how aging buildings are impacting student learning—for instance, when temperatures soar.

“You will notice that all schools don't close in those instances, but there are some that have to close because of the ventilation system, because of the HVAC,” said Daveda Colbert, superintendent of Wayne County Regional Educational Service Agency. “Students can't learn in those situations. Staff can't perform in those situations.”