The MetroHealth System and Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School (CH-UH) District are proud to announce the opening of the new Heights Wellness Center at Heights High School and the significant expansion of health care services offered to the district’s students, families and staff.

The renovation and expansion of Heights High School’s health clinic and the addition of new health care services throughout the school district are possible because of a nearly $4.5 million state grant awarded last spring to MetroHealth’s School Health Program. In addition to the new Heights Wellness Center, the funding will allow MetroHealth to expand services through its mobile unit that serves other schools in the CH-UH district.

MetroHealth and CH-UH officials celebrated with a ribbon cutting and open house on Tuesday, January 17, at the Heights Wellness Center at Heights High School (13263 Cedar Road Cleveland Heights, OH 44118). 

“Our goal at the School Health Program is to increase access to health care to support student success in and out of the classroom,” said Katie Davis, RN, Executive Director, Community and Corporate Health at MetroHealth. “We are excited that this funding has allowed us to build a physical space that can support the entire district – students, family and staff – to focus on both health and wellness. Being in the building allows our team to build trusted relationships with students and strengthen our partnership.”

BLOUNTVILLE — Juggling may not be taught in Sullivan County Schools, but that doesn’t mean Sullivan County school officials aren’t learning to do it on the fly by sheer necessity.
They increasingly find themselves between the proverbial rock and a hard place when it comes to funding capitol projects with federal COVID relief funds.
On one side are deadlines to use the ESSER or Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds, on the other are costs spiraling upwards, sparse bids and bids with longer timelines than allowed by the deadlines.
It is to the point that the school district may consider additional capitol projects to use up the COVID funds before they evaporate because of the deadlines. Particularly difficult to get done in a timely manner are HVAC projects.
 

The new Fawcett Elementary school continues to emerge, with noticeable construction progress over the past few months. As the school takes shape, it has brought with it some exciting opportunities, from cutting edge construction technology and first responder training to a blast from the past harkening back to when our country celebrated its bicentennial in 1976.

"Things have been very busy and it’s really moving along,” said Stacy Page, the district’s facilities communication coordinator. "They’re working at lightning speed and we’re really happy about that.” 

While the school is being built, students are attending the former McKinley Elementary School site in anticipation for Fawcett’s opening. By this summer, furnishings can start going in and things put together for the students and staff to walk through the doors of their new school in September for the 2023-2024 schoolyear. 

The school will be 55,000 square feet to serve pre-kindergarten through 5th grade with 21 classrooms, a music room, makers space, STEM room (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), and more. It will be in the shape of an "L” with two stories connected by an elevator. The exterior will be eye-catching hues of blue and gray with yellow accents. There will be two play areas – an asphalt playground and a large turf field with soccer posts. A covered area close to the building will offer play areas on rainy days. The school perimeter will be improved with ADA accessible sidewalks and curbs, lighting, and all exterior landscaping will be fresh for the campus with newly planted trees and shrubs.

"The exterior siding and insulation are just about complete,” Page said. "We’ve already finished the siding on the east side classrooms so we’re going to do the west side now. The first-floor classrooms are done with sheetrock and the second floor is now starting. Inside, we’re already painting the gymnasium, cafeteria and music area.” 

Cornwall-Lebanon School District is poised to spend between $88 million and $136 million in capital improvements to its aging secondary school buildings on the Cedar Crest campus.
School board members, during the Jan. 9 workshop meeting, heard a recap of proposed renovation of the district’s middle and high school buildings from Superintendent Philip Domencic. Electric, plumbing, and mechanical updates are needed to both, he noted, not having seen major work since the mid-1990s.
A connector space between the two buildings is planned as well, providing classroom space during renovations as well as a variety of future uses. Construction will occur between March 2024 and June 2029, and the connector building will be constructed first.
Director of Business Affairs Jean Hentz proposed a financing plan that would take advantage of the district’s existing debt service practice. Currently, it pays $5.5 million in debt service on existing bonds. As those debt obligations phase out, Hentz said, any new loans or bonds issued to cover construction and the middle and high school could be “smoothed” in.
The district’s intent is to maintain the same or similar debt service payments to avoid major tax increases in the future, Domencic said.
Since 2016, no state funding has been made available for school construction reimbursements.
 

More than half the energy used in K-12 schools goes toward heating and cooling buildings. And more than 60 percent of school HVAC systems’ energy use is tied to on-site burning fossil fuels, the primary driver of climate change.
All told, emissions from HVAC systems in schools each year roughly equal that of 5 million gas-powered cars, and imposes on society at least $2 billion in costs.
These are among the takeaways from a new report published Thursday by sustainability nonprofits RMI (Rocky Mountain Institute) and UndauntedK12. The report synthesizes federal data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration and other sources to highlight K-12 schools’ substantial carbon footprint, and outlines how schools can reduce that impact by prioritizing energy efficiency.
And one way to do that, the report argues, may be to take advantage of funding opportunities available now to install HVAC systems powered by electric heat pumps.
Schools’ contributions to climate change are drawing greater scrutiny as the planet continues to heat up and governments around the world are slowly grinding into action to reverse its most devastating effects. HVAC systems have also entered the spotlight during the pandemic because of their role in preventing the spread of infectious disease.
Heating and cooling are among the biggest drivers of schools’ energy output, according to the report. Outdoor temperatures are becoming more extreme in both directions, which will only increase the pressure on schools’ HVAC systems—and hamper students’ learning experiences—in the coming years.
Right now, only roughly a quarter of schools use electricity for heating, and roughly one in 10 schools currently use heat pumps for heating and cooling, according to the report’s analysis of federal survey data.
 

The city is getting its first new public high school in decades. It’s opening this fall at the former Georgetown Day School on MacArthur Boulevard.

What’s happening: MacArthur High School is expected to eventually enroll 800 students, starting with 200 ninth graders and 50 tenth graders during the 2023-24 school year.

Why it matters: Upper NW needs at least four new public schools to reduce overcrowding at Jackson-Reed High School. But there’s substantial NIMBY opposition in the Palisades neighborhood because of how much traffic MacArthur may bring.

Details: Hardy Middle School will feed into MacArthur, and Alice Deal middle-schoolers will have the option to attend. Current ninth graders at Jackson-Reed will be able to apply to transfer to MacArthur for the 2023-2024 school year.

Students from other parts of the city will be able to apply for out-of-boundary spots through DCPS’ public school lottery. There are also seats set aside for students from vulnerable populations.
DCPS officials tell Axios they don’t know how many out-of-boundary students are expected to attend and that it depends on the number of neighborhood students who enroll.
Of note: Hardy students will no longer have in-boundary rights at Jackson-Reed.

Just ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, state Superintendent Elsie Arntzen issued a celebratory announcement that she’d accepted $46.3 million from the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. Her message came complete with a photo of a large novelty check made out to “Montana’s K-12 Schools” and emblazoned with the image of a remote state-owned cabin site in Sanders County.

“Our precious state trust lands are working for our most precious treasures — our students,” Arntzen said in a statement accompanying the announcement. “The money earned from our trust lands directly benefits all Montana’s public school students while easing the burden on Montana taxpayers.”

The celebration spoke to a line often repeated by politicians and conservationists about the role that public lands — and, more specifically, the money they generate — play in Montana’s public school system. For decades, activities such as natural resource development and livestock grazing have been touted as a boon for school funding, producing approximately $50 million annually that state law earmarks for the benefit of students. It’s a source of financial support for public education that’s actually enshrined in the Montana Constitution, designed to channel dollars to classrooms in perpetuity.

But as with so many revenue streams in state government, the full story is far from simple. The $46.3 million Arntzen accepted last fall will eventually reach public schools across the state, but not before traveling a path that will take it through the Montana Legislature, which convened for the 2023 session on Jan. 2. In fact, lawmakers on a joint subcommittee tasked with overseeing Montana’s next education budget received a detailed briefing Monday on the various formulas and mechanisms in place to guide state dollars to local schools. 

During a Mountain Home Public Schools strategic planning meeting this past Thursday, members of the school board, along with Superintendent Dr. Jake Long, strategized how to ask the public once more to swallow a millage tax increase to pay for the new construction of a replacement high school building.
“The needs have not gone away. They’re not going to go away,” Dr. Long said.
The existing high school structure remains an issue for students, teachers and support staff. For the last five years, Dr. Long and the district have been working to create a plan to fix the high school’s infrastructure problems.
The issue of rebuilding the high school goes back to the school board’s decision 30 years ago to simply cover up the high school campus’ aged 1960’s buildings with a giant metal roof to save money for voters.
While the can may have been kicked down the road 30 years ago, it can longer be ignored.
Last August, an election was held for voters inside the Mountain Home school district for the question of whether to raise millage rates for the purpose of covering new construction costs.
The measure failed with a 16-vote spread. Recent increases in Baxter County property tax assessments, misinformation and a national recession are the most likely suspects in the defeated millage increase.
 

The head of the new state school construction agency is asking the Legislature to fund three additional positions to help build and renovate up to 200 preschool classrooms by June 2024.
The School Facilities Authority, created in 2020, has $200 million for the task but is off to a slow start with only three people working on it so far.
Executive Director Chad Keone Farias presented his case Monday to the House Finance Committee, asking lawmakers to create three additional positions, including a project manager, a planner and a budget analyst.
“The challenge is the race against the clock,” Farias said in an interview after the legislative briefing. “We’re working as fast as we can.”
The state has long dealt with a need for preschool classrooms as many that exist are at total capacity. That issue was heightened by the coronavirus pandemic, which forced some facilities to close their doors permanently.
Last year, lawmakers allocated $200 million to offset those shortages with the construction, expansion or renovation of prekindergarten facilities across the state. But the School Facilities Authority must spend the money by the end of June 2024.
Farias, a former principal and complex area superintendent at the state Department of Education, said he needs more staff to get the work done faster as the authority barely has a working website and a temporary office in Hilo. He said he also hopes to get a permanent office for the state authority in Honolulu.
During the meeting, Rep. Bertrand Kobayashi said people were unsupportive of the new authority when it started and asked Farias if he anticipates any milestones in the next couple of years.
“I’m a little surprised that you still don’t have staff fully on board,” Kobayashi said.
Farias said the authority will make progress by next year. When lawmakers introduced legislation to create the authority, many questioned how the agency will work, transparency and oversight, and duplication of the DOE’s duties.
“Since then, I felt a bunch of pushback in certain places, so I’ve become aware that maybe people weren’t fully supportive of this,” Farias responded. “I still believe in our core mission that we can do this work.”
 

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — West Virginia's governor has appointed a longtime educator to lead the state's School Building Authority.
The office of Gov. Jim Justice said he has named Andy Neptune as executive director of the West Virginia School Building Authority.
In a news release Friday, Justice said Neptune replaces David Roach, who became superintendent of the West Virginia Department of Education.
Neptune served 34 years in the Marion County school system, working as a principal, assistant principal, teacher and coach.
He served 14 years in the county’s central office as an administrative assistant, supervising personnel, student nutrition, student services, transportation, maintenance, facilities and athletics, the news release said.
 

SHERMAN — The Sherman School Building Committee is starting to develop a comprehensive plan to address much needed repairs at the school.
“Really they’ve kicked off their deeper dive looking into the school and trying to develop their thoughts to put together a plan for the repairs,” said Matt Vogt, chair of the Sherman Board of Education. “I’m excited to see what kind of plan they can come up with to bring to the voters.”
The Sherman School, located at 2 Route 37 East, opened in 1937 and has since expanded with five additions over the last 86 years. Sherman School Building Committee Chair Pam Bonner said the closed historical "K-wing," the antiquated heating, ventilation and air conditioning system, and the issues with the school's well water are the facility's biggest challenges.
 

PHOENIX (AP) — A lawsuit over how much money Arizona's lawmakers allocate for school maintenance, buses, textbooks and technology won't go to trial next week, after a judge granted a request for a delay by the state’s incoming attorney general.
Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes said her office needs time to determine whether some or all of the claims can be resolved without a trial.
The trial was set to begin Monday. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Dewain Fox approved Mayes’ request Friday and scheduled a status hearing for March 17, the Arizona Republic reported.
A group of school districts and associations representing school officials and teachers sued the state in 2017. They argued that the Legislature had shorted them billions of dollars in capital funding for more than a decade.
The lawsuit sought a declaration that Arizona’s school funding scheme was unconstitutional because it violated the “uniform and general” clause of the state Constitution. The state Supreme Court ruled in 1994 that it is the state’s responsibility to provide cash for new schools, major maintenance and things like textbooks. The Legislature began cutting that spending during the Great Recession of 2007-2009.
 

CORAL SPRINGS, FL – In 2014, voters approved $800 million in a bond referendum for Broward County Public Schools to renovate buildings, purchase equipment, and make other long-needed improvements at campuses.
In Coral Springs, 19 high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools are benefiting from the funds that focus on safety, music and art, athletics, renovation, and technology (SMART), according to school officials.
All school construction in Coral Springs and across the school district is expected to be completed in 2025, if not sooner.
Here’s what Coral Springs High School did or plans to do with $15.9 million from the program.
As one of Coral Springs High School’s most popular educational tracks, the culinary program is known for bringing “real-life experiences” to students interested in going into the food industry, Principal Vivian Suarez said.
And so, the school is reconstructing its culinary “lab” through the Smart program.
“It’ll be a state-of-the-art lab that I can’t wait to see,” said Chef Aruna Lein, who heads up the culinary program which has won many state and regional competitions over the years. “We’re going to be a force to reckon with.”
Expected to be completed as early as next month, the area will have new equipment as well as be set up to look like “the back of the house” in most restaurants and catering halls to “mirror what our students will face when they go out to get jobs,” Lein said.
Added Suarez: “We will continue to raise the bar on this program. I don’t know how much higher we can raise it.”
 

Nearly four years after its inception, Bard High School Early College DC has found a new, permanent home in Congress Heights.

Upon their return from winter break earlier this week, nearly 400 students gingerly entered their newly renovated school building. Days later, on Thursday, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) and several other District officials commemorated this milestone with a ribbon-cutting. 

Once construction of the building, formerly known as the Malcolm X Opportunity Center on Alabama Avenue in Southeast, reaches full completion later this year, it will have nearly three dozen classrooms, rooftop solar panels, a theater and gymnasium, a soccer field, track field and basketball court along with several energy-saving amenities. 

For many students, including Josiah Best, the new building not only represents the fulfillment of a vision, but the end of a tumultuous journey. 

Carly Flandro 01/05/2023
SALMON – A cracked foundation. Collapsing sewer lines. Outdoor food storage. 

These are just a few of the problems at Salmon’s Pioneer Elementary School, which was built about 70 years ago. 

“It is quite atrocious,” said Troy Easterday, the superintendent of Salmon School District. 

Renovating the school could cost as much as $2 million, Easterday estimated. But in a community that has an extraordinary 0-12 record of bond failures since 2006, ballot measures cannot be counted on for major upgrades or a new elementary. 

Salmon is one of many Idaho school districts that has struggled to pass bonds. Nearly half of all bond proposals have failed in the past 23 years. As the Legislature gears up and education committees plan to address school facilities needs, school districts are hoping politicians will come to their aid with a new infrastructure bill and surplus funds earmarked for public school buildings.

From the outside looking in, Eagleville Elementary Charter School might look like any other elementary school. But as an environmental charter school, it has a unique focus.

The school, which was founded in 1849, used to be a traditional elementary school, serving students in first through fifth grades. The current building housing the school was built in 1931.

But since the 2004-05 school year, the school is a tuition-free, public 5K through sixth-grade independent charter school that also includes a foreign language, Spanish, in its curriculum, according to the Mukwonago Area School District.

The school primarily focuses on environmental education and using the outdoors, said principal Colleen Hoyne.

For example, to bring environmental components into a math class one day, Eagleviille’s older students calculated how many plants would be needed for the school's butterfly garden.

As the Prince George's County school system prepares to build six new schools in three years under a public-private partnership, questions surround who's building the schools and how workers are being compensated.

Lanham-based DC Plumbers Local 5 is one of many trades asking the Prince George’s County Council to hire union on construction projects.

“We’re not advocating so much for the union workers; we’re advocating for workers, period,” said T Smalls, who represents the union.

New majority on the Council is requesting a labor project agreement ensuring a percentage of county workers are hired and that the construction jobs are union.

“Our residents have health care benefits, retirement and things that most people take for granted,” Council member Ed Burroughs said.

The move caused backlash. Almost 50 Black businesses signed a petition saying they're concerned their construction companies tend to be smaller and some don't have union affiliations.

“There's just institutional barriers and challenges of things that have been in place for years and years that minority small businesses, new businesses, have to overcome, and that's what this creates – more of those barriers,” Warren Builds President and CEO Shane Warren said.

Lead exposure can have serious health consequences for children, but only a fraction of Georgia schools have signed up for a free testing program. Advocates worry school leaders are worried about the cost and consequences of discovering lead in their water systems, which the state has not provided funding to address. In July 2021, the Georgia Department of Education announced a new initiative to provide free funding and resources for schools across the state to test their drinking water for lead. At its launch, the “Clean Water for Georgia Kids” program, administered by RTI International, a North Carolina nonprofit, aimed to test “up to 800” schools during its first year.
More than a year later, just 96 schools and day cares have enrolled in the program, and 82 have completed testing — a small fraction of Georgia’s more than 2,300 schools and 3,100 day cares. In a meeting on Dec. 8, Georgia’s state Board of Education voted to renew RTI’s contract for the testing program. The Georgia program’s underenrollment stands in stark contrast to the successes of the pilot program on which it was modeled. In North Carolina, from June 2020 to September 2021, RTI International succeeded in testing lead levels at every operating day care in the state. Schools were not included.
 

 Guilford County Schools maintenance crews are doing repairs at over 50 sites during the winter break.
The repairs are in response to the freezing temperatures that were seen in the Triad during the holidays and the impact that it had on GCS facilities.
Crews have currently completed 23 projects since Monday and 44 projects are still pending. Most of the issues are related to pipes, leaks and boilers.
Crews say that the status of each project changes on a daily basis.
Crews have currently completed 23 projects since Monday and 44 projects are still pending. Most of the issues are related to pipes, leaks and boilers.
Crews say that the status of each project changes on a daily basis.
Another local administrator also praised the efforts of the maintenance crews.
 

SAN DIEGO —  Seven new parks are under construction, and 12 more are slated to be built soon as part of San Diego’s campaign to speed the creation of parks across the city by partnering with local school districts.
Building relatively small joint-use parks on public school campuses allows the city to build parks more quickly and cheaply, because the land is essentially free and there is no need for a time-consuming and controversial site search, officials say.

City officials can also target neighborhoods that lack parks, including many older communities and lower-income areas south of Interstate 8. A 2017 survey found nearly a quarter of San Diegans didn’t live within a 10-minute walk of a park.

Four of the 12 parks slated to be built soon are in southeastern San Diego’s low-income Skyline-Paradise Hills neighborhood, two are in City Heights, and one is in Encanto.

The parks already under construction include two each in Clairemont and Mira Mesa and one each in University City, Serra Mesa and Southcrest.