Anisa Heming has been working on making schools more sustainable for a decade and a half, now as director of the Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council, a Washington nonprofit. And she’s never seen a moment of opportunity quite like this. “It’s an out-of-body experience, honestly,” she said. “Communities are demanding it, federal money is here, and the districts that didn’t do the prep work are scrambling.”
Since President Joe Biden took office in early 2021, three different giant federal spending packages have passed: the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act. Each includes grants and tax credits school districts can use to benefit the climate while also, typically, saving money in energy bills over time. There are billions and billions for boosting building efficiency; replacing boilers, ovens and other appliances with clean-running electric models; solar and battery installations; electric school buses; charging stations; and more.
In some cases, districts can make upgrades with no upfront cost at all.
The enthusiasm is palpable: The Environmental Protection Agency received so many applications for electric school bus funding, it doubled the amount it originally planned to award, to nearly $1 billion the first year. (More money is coming, up to $5 billion for that one program.) 
So if you are a member of a school community — student, parent, teacher or leader — here are seven steps to claim your piece of the clean, green pie. “Don’t wait. Don’t hesitate. Act and figure it out,” urged Bryant Shaw, sustainability manager for the Dallas Independent School District.

The Fauquier school board at a special meeting Monday morning voted unanimously to recommend that $4.9 million in carryover funds (money left over from the previous year’s budget) be used to help pay for renovations and urgent maintenance at aging schools. 

None of the unused money from the fiscal 2022 budget will go toward bonuses or salary hikes for teachers or other school staff. “In the original carryover, we had the raises for next year,” school board member Susan Pauling (Center District) said at the meeting. “So is there still a plan for us to be able to follow through with our commitment for the 5% in the ’24 school year?” 

Not with the carryover, said Denise Sandlin, assistant superintendent of business and planning. “We have used up the whole $4.9 million, which will not include the 5% salary increase,” she said. School board members will need to look elsewhere in the budget to help fund those raises, Sandlin said. 

Community Board 8 was forced to cancel a much-anticipated meeting on the public school proposed for 160 Van Cortlandt Park South last Friday when School Construction Authority officials backed out with only a few days’ notice, citing a mysterious lawsuit against them.

“SCA has been advised by counsel that they cannot attend this meeting due to pending litigation.

“Therefore, this meeting with SCA is canceled,” wrote district manager Ciara Gannon in a Dec. 5 email notice.

CB8’s officers could only speculate about the details of the suit emanating from a small group of neighbors on Van Cortlandt Park South, a shady thoroughfare in Kingsbridge that cuts across the Major Deegan Expressway.

“I’ve been told it’s a group of residents representing themselves,” said CB8 chair Laura Spalter. “But I know nothing further.”

Spalter wanted a meeting with the SCA to take place before the end of the year in time to weigh in on the architectural designs of the new school, she said. Now, her hopes have been dashed.

The board’s committee chairs aired their frustration and bewilderment in the executive committee meeting two days later.

Whether or not the litigation has any merit, “it has enabled SCA to hide behind the pendency of a lawsuit and cancel the meeting,” land use chair Charles Moerdler said.

“I sincerely believe they just don’t want to meet,” he said.

And he may be correct. But CB8 has little recourse at this point.

The education committee voted to approve the SCA’s site selection a year ago, concluding the community board’s brief advisory role in the new school construction process. Like other public authorities that maintain New York’s bridges and highways, finance higher education, and run its mass transit systems, the SCA’s public accountability is limited. It does not follow the city’s land use review process or register its contracts in the city checkbook.

Community participation in new school construction is comprised of a series of public hearings and a 45-day comment period after SCA announces its site selection but usually before it begins environmental assessment or design.

NEW YORK -- While New York City may have lost tens of thousands of students during the pandemic, schools chancellor David Banks says new class size requirements are going to force the city to build dozens of new schools.
He spoke exclusively to CBS2 political reporter Marcia Kramer.
When it comes to city public schools, parents have been voting with their feet, pulling more than 100,000 student out of public school in favor of charter, private schools and parochial schools.
Despite the drop, Banks said during an interview on CBS2's Sunday morning talk show "The Point," he's going to have to embark on a new building program.
"There will be dozens of new schools. I don't know the exact number of new schools, but it will be significant, and that's not a bad thing in that we want to ensure that our kids have a great school experience. We don't want kids to be in school where there's 150% overcrowding," he said.
One reason for the expansion program is a new state law that takes effect next year that will require the city to shrink class sizes.
The city has to reduce class size in at least 20% of its schools each year for the next five years. Kindergarten through third grade will be capped at 20 students, grades 4-8 at 23 students.
"I think in the short term, it's not going to be particularly difficult over the next couple of years. We'll be able to do that and I think move that pretty efficiently. The challenge comes two years, three years down the line. I think that's when it's going to be more challenging for us. We've got more classes that we're going to have to ensure that they're smaller and the amount of dollars that we're going to have to spend will be much more significant," Banks said.
In addition to more school facilities, there will be the need to hire more teachers.
 

The School Board adopted the $1.3 billion FY2024-FY2029 Capital Improvement Program and Capital Asset Preservation Program budgets Dec. 13 to cheers from Park View High School community members gathered in the meeting room.

The board passed it unanimously with one amendment from Harris Mahedavi (Ashburn) to add $500,000 to the fiscal year 2025 budget for older elementary schools to get updated signs. That amendment passed 5-3-1 with Chair Jeff Morse (Dulles), John Beatty (Catoctin), Tiffany Polifko (Broad Run) opposed, and Denise Corbo (At-large) absent for the vote. 

Included in the plan is a $221.7 million reconstruction of Park View High School, a $38.9 million renovation of Banneker Elementary, a $20 million renovation of Waterford Elementary and a $271 million to build a new high school in the Dulles north area designated as HS-14. 

The Alexandria School Board approved its 2024-2033 Capital Improvement Program budget on Thursday night, paving the way for construction of new schools, swing space and significant renovations over the next decade.

After a series of work sessions and public meetings this fall, the Board approved the $461 million proposal, with $58.7 million to be used next year.

“It is critical that we give our students the best opportunity to succeed by providing optimal learning environments and the resources to support their well-being and academic achievement,” School Board Chair Meagan Alderton said in a press release.

The fiscal year 2024 CIP budget is $37 million less than last year’s approved proposal, although that’s only because the Alexandria City High School Project funding.

In fact, development costs have risen sharply. The school system is contending with price jumps up to 200%, ACPS reported.

Attempts to repair a hurricane-damaged part of Fort Myers Beach Elementary School are set to begin on Wednesday, according to the superintendent of the Lee County School District.

Dr. Chris Bernier told members of the school board that remediation begins Wednesday at the historic part of the school. It's one of five buildings that make up the school, and it's been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1999. The superintendent said a fence would be put in place around the historic part during remediation. He said the fencing would be a public safety measure during repair work.

Bernier added that district officials will meet with representatives from the register of historic places on Wednesday. He said that meeting is supposed to occur at the school.

The school board held a workshop Tuesday afternoon to consider options on what to do with the facility, badly damaged by Hurricane Ian about two-and-a-half months ago. The school had 77 students before Ian. Most of those children now attend classes at another school, off the island.

The Washoe County School District will build a new Vaughn Middle School and tear down the existing building after an independent audit found school facilities unfit for student learning.

The initial findings came from Cannon Design, an architecture and engineering the district hired in September to create a five-year construction project plan.

Dozens of WCSD schools received poor marks on everything from energy efficiency and bathrooms to safety and classroom sizes.

The report revealed the district’s middle schools are a story of “the haves and have nots,” according to Paul Mills, vice president of Cannon Designs. He said many of the district schools in areas of high poverty that were built more than 50 years ago have issues.

Of the district's 17 middle schools, seven were identified as having inadequate facilities. Of those seven, Vaughn, Dilworth, Traner and Sparks middle schools were also identified as also having students with the highest needs.

On Tuesday night the School Board voted to adopt new secondary school attendance zones, moving students in some areas to new schools despite cries from parents to table that change amid recent shakeups in the division.
The board approved a version of Chair Jeff Morse (Dulles)’s plan, which moved the fewest students to new schools and focused on reducing crowding, at Loudoun County High School in a 4-2-1 vote. John Beatty (Catoctin) and Tiffany Polifko (Broad Run) opposed the plan, Harris Mahedavi (Ashburn) abstained and Denise Corbo (At-large) and Atoosa Reaser (Algonkian) were absent from the vote.
The school district projects Loudoun County High School would have approached its building capacity in the next few years without changes to attendance zones. By the 2028-2029 school year, it was projected to be at 99% capacity if efforts weren’t made to reduce student numbers. That was one of the main reasons the division took up the rezoning.
Beatty sought to postpone the vote, arguing students were still recovering from the pandemic and parents didn’t want the change for their kids at this time.
“Moving students without a new high school based on potential growth, I think it’s better to just delay on this, the timing, as we allow students to recover from where we were,” Beatty said. He added the parents he has talked to don’t see a problem with the school’s enrollment numbers.
 

Meg Tarpey and her younger sister survived the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School 10 years ago, then watched the site of that massacre be demolished and a new school built in its place.

In 2016, Tarpey, her sister and their mother visited the new building for the first time along with a comfort dog. Sandy Hook had been reimagined, with community input, incorporating a footbridge leading to the entrance of the school, a gate surrounding the campus and floor-to-ceiling windows for easy views of anyone approaching the school.

“That day was really hard, because in a way I felt like they’re trying to get rid of what happened, like moving on from it,” said Tarpey, who was in third grade, and her sister in first, when the shooter with an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle blasted into their Newtown, Connecticut, school. 

Years later, Tarpey, now 18 and speaking in one of her first interviews with media since the Dec. 14, 2012, killings, said she's come to realize visiting the new site gave her back a piece of herself.

“There’s an aspect of it that is really beautiful,” she said, “making something beautiful from tragedy.” 

Since the 26 deaths at Sandy Hook, at least a dozen schools, from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, to Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, have been the site of mass shootings or killings, according to a USA TODAY, Associated Press and Northwestern University database. A compendium of guidance has been developed on constructing schools to prevent such killings. Yet no national database tracks remodeled or new buildings that incorporate school safety features.

But many experts suggest the changes are creating a system of haves and have nots, where many school districts, particularly those in low-income neighborhoods of color, are left exposed, unable to afford significant upgrades. In addition, these changes may only slow someone intent on killing others and are unlikely to stop them altogether.

WASHINGTON (DC News Now) — Parents and staff at Whittier Elementary School gathered together on Tuesday to say that conditions in the building are unsafe for students.
“I’m asking for someone, anyone to put students and teachers first,” said Assistant Principal Joshua Wiley.
Wiley spoke during an hours-long oversight hearing on DC’s Department of General Services. The hearing was held by Councilmember Robert White after a November audit found that the government agency was failing to manage work orders.
DGS is in charge of District buildings, including more than 100 DC Public School buildings.
During the hearing, Wiley said rodents are a growing issue at the school, heating problems continue to linger and DGS is slow to respond to plumbing and other issues.
“Three and four year olds have been learning in classrooms with sewage issues for approximately 50 calendar days,” he said.
First-grade teacher Melissa Black said it sometimes feels like a punishment to have to work in the building.
“There have been numerous times where I’ve told parents to pack extra sweaters for a classroom that can get as cold as 65 degrees in the winter,” she said. “Teaching is challenging. If I did my job the way DGS does its job, I would lose my job.”
Keith Anderson, Director of the Department of General Services, said the agency is working to address several issues identified in the audit and respond to and repair work orders more quickly.
“Work that has been prioritized will be assessed, scheduled and completed as soon as possible contingent upon resources, manpower and weather,” he said.
 

The Hawai‘i State Department of Education today announced an $18 million partnership with the nonprofit Hawaiʻi 3Rs to improve and replace public school playground equipment across the state.
The initiative aims to repair, replace or add approximately 100 playgrounds across Hawaiʻi. Department officials say there are currently 545 playgrounds in service across the Department’s public schools and conversion charter schools.
“Student health and wellness is a top priority for the Department, and playgrounds are a great way to provide students opportunities to socialize and engage in physical activity,” said Superintendent Keith Hayashi in a news release. “We look forward to working with Hawaii 3Rs on this initiative and thank them in advance for their hard work and dedication in expanding access to new and updated playground equipment for our students.”
Playgrounds benefit child development in a variety of ways beyond physical wellness, Hayashi said, noting such benefits as the expansion of social, emotional and imaginative skills, increasing confidence, improving coordination, and advancing critical thinking and problem-solving capabilities.
 

RIO RANCHO, N.M. — Rio Rancho Public Schools recently completed its five-year Facilities Master Plan, and through that process, learned it would need more than $378 million to fix all of the district’s current maintenance and facility issues.
“The findings were, in order for me to get everything up to par, $10 million a year. Again, my budget’s $3 million, is what I get,” said Melanie Archibeque, executive director of facilities at RRPS. “The idea and the reality is, we can’t get that done in five years, because we don’t have the money.”
Rio Rancho High School needs the most work.
“Rio Rancho High School is the one with the most monetary needs, and that would make sense when you think of the age and the scale of that campus,” Archibeque said.
In case the district does receive funding from the state, Archibeque said her office already submitted a plan to keep up with maintenance work, before it becomes an emergency.
“So we can see if something’s wearing out, we can know that the life expectancy is coming,” she said. “I call it controlled chaos. So if I know something’s coming in, it needs to be replaced, it’s going to be a priority depending on what it is.”
Most of that work would be scheduled during the summer when students are not in class, but again, that can’t happen without the budget for it.
 

The Select Committee on School Facilities is recommending the Wyoming Legislature triple the state’s public school construction budget.

The select committee wants to add $148 million to the supplemental budget to fund inflation and major maintenance work, which includes another $117 million for school construction projects.

The state has $44 million in school projects on the books for the current biennium, so the $117 million more for projects would more than triple this cost to $161 million. 

Inflation And Deflation

Inflation continues to be a major factor in the American economy and one of the most impacted sectors is construction. 

When it comes to funding school construction projects, the largest question the Legislature’s Appropriation Committee deliberated Tuesday morning was how much additional money to factor in for future inflationary increases.

Although there was a general consensus more money is needed to cover ballooning prices, a few legislators were skeptical that prices will continue drastically increasing into the future.

The School Facilities Division determined its inflationary numbers based on an anticipated 22.5% increase in total price of projects. Based on that figure, the Appropriations Committee recommended a lower $20.5 million budget supplement for inflation Tuesday.

The Appropriations Committee already included an inflationary component on the projects it approved last year, which was not factored into the figures presented Tuesday.

The new inflation funding would cover projects that have already been approved but have not gone out to bid.

(The Center Square) – A total of 101 school-related projects totaling $210 million have been committed for Maryland’s capital improvement project budget for fiscal year 2024, after a recent vote from a state legislative panel.
The Maryland Interagency Commission on School Construction (IAC) on Thursday approved the funding allocations within the state’s capital improvement program, with the caveat the commitments represent 75% of the assumed $280 million earmarked.
The approvals came on the heels of statewide education officials submitting funding requests for a myriad of projects, big and small.
Alex Donahue, acting executive director of the IAC, said requests that came in this fall far outpaced the anticipated pool of money. A total of 23 local education agencies (LEAs), in addition to the Maryland School for the Blind, submitted $840 million worth of funding requests.
“This year’s CIP has been a challenging one to wrangle, as the needs across the state clearly are substantial,” Donahue said.
In his presentation to the IAC, Donahue said there is a reason the CIP funding requests have been voluminous as schools grapple with assorted funding issues.
“The CIP is the state’s most flexible school funding program and can be used for almost any category of project,” Donahue said, pointing out the funding bucket can be applied to new school construction, as well as renovations.
 

By the time students poured back into schools this fall, the most disruptive impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic seemed to have finally receded. But the lingering effects on children and learning are unfortunately still very much with us. 
New data from the National Center for Education Statistics show that the pandemic erased more than two decades of progress in reading and math for 9-year-old students. The effect was most profound for students from low-income communities—exacerbating the pre-pandemic achievement gap between those students and their higher-income peers.  
​​​Outside of school, the pandemic also magnified long-standing geographic and racial inequities in economic opportunity and overall health and well-being. A 2020 report from the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC) found that approximately 78% of high-poverty neighborhoods in the U.S.—communities of color in particular—were highly vulnerable to the pandemic’s economic impacts, including loss of jobs and income, compared to just 15% of low-poverty neighborhoods.  
Federal relief funding is helping states and localities address these challenges. Large cities and counties have committed a significant amount of their State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds toward projects in economically disadvantaged communities. And according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, over $9 billion has been allocated for K-12 education and related purposes, including after-school programs and programs for students’ emotional and mental health needs.  
But money alone isn’t enough. Now is the time for local leaders to not only invest more in families and communities, but to invest differently. Given the intricate relationship between neighborhood well-being and school performance, championing and investing in community schools—a model focused on leveraging and coordinating the resources and voices of the entire community to support a thriving educational environment—could be one of the best ways for mayors and other local officials to confront both types of challenges.  
 

Concord School Board members are urging state lawmakers to expand building aid after the district’s fourth-place ranking made the likelihood of state funding for a new middle school low.

Last week, the Concord School Board voted 7-0 to adopt a resolution urging Gov. Chris Sununu and state legislators to add more funds to the State Building Aid Program, which offers grants to help New Hampshire school districts afford costly construction projects.

“Whereas the Concord School Board recognizes the importance of the New Hampshire Building Aid program for school districts and whereas the Concord School District understands that the cost of capital building projects falls heavily on local property taxpayers, we the Concord School Board support the expansion of the Building Aid Program, and urge our state legislators and the Governor to appropriate additional funding for State Building Aid program,” the statement read.

ANN ARBOR, MI - Some of Ann Arbor’s neighborhood elementary schools built in the 1960s and ‘70s could be replaced with new buildings during the second phase of the district’s extensive capital bond construction.
The second phase of Ann Arbor Public Schools’ bond plan recommends construction of several new elementary schools on or near the site of their original buildings between 2025-30, as well as the construction of a new middle school natatorium.
This plan was approved by the Ann Arbor School Board on Nov. 30, providing a roadmap for more significant construction projects possible via a combination of AAPS’ $1-billion capital bond passed in 2019 and its sinking fund. The anticipated cost is $1.44 billion over the next 20 years.
The district is about two-thirds of the way into the first phase of its bond work, which has included numerous air conditioning, lighting, roofing, solar, paving and playground construction projects.
 

SALT LAKE CITY — The Granite School District Board of Education voted this week to close Millcreek, Twin Peaks and Spring Lane elementary schools.

Steve Hogan, director of planning and boundaries for the school district, presented the Population Analysis Committee’s recommendation for the proposed school closures. He said this decision has been a process that started in January and has included a “significant amount of feedback,” efforts in communication with communities through postcards, text, emails, newsletters and more, as well as almost 90 open meetings with members of the school communities.

The committee conducted a study with the goal of creating elementary schools with optimal enrollment of at least three teachers per grade level to “best serve our students and families.”

It originally had three closure options, but ultimately decided the best option would be to close Millcreek, Twin Peaks and Spring Lane elementaries.

GRAVETTE -- The Gravette School District is spending more on energy this school year than originally planned.

During the School Board meeting Nov. 14, Business Manager Dennis Kurczek reported the district was at 47% of the electricity budget and 45% of the diesel and fuel budget, even though the district was only about a third of the way through the school year. He said he is hoping the fuel costs will moderate but that it is not likely with winter coming on.

Kurczek also reported receiving $104,000 in alternative learning environment funds and said a second payment will be coming later in the year.

In other business, Kelly Hankins, director of academic success, gave the student success report to the board and said she was particularly pleased with the school's partnership with the Highlands United Methodist Church. She said the church had been a real blessing as members had brought three loads of food for the school's food pantry.

Superintendent Maribel Childress gave the first quarter district goals report and the full-time equivalent report. The full-time equivalent report, given at the request of the board, outlines each teacher's class load and what courses each one teaches. Childress reported in regard to goals achieved that the school has made more than 1,300 personalized contacts with students and school patrons.