WINCHESTER, Indiana — Where homes once stood in Winchester, these properties have been reduced to plots of land with debris scattered across them.
James Lanter saw the approaching storm two minutes before he says a tornado ripped through his home Thursday night in Randolph County.
"It’s unimaginable that you’re standing in a house fully furnished with stuff, and then, the next second, it's all just ... pew!" said Lanter, whose home was destroyed, and he was left with a broken nose and a gash in the back of his head. "I’ve seen pictures on TV and stuff before, houses like that just blown right down, but now, I’ve experienced it firsthand."
Lanter is just one of the hundreds of people who came to Winchester Community High School on Friday for a hot meal or to pick up some donations.
Amber Price said her home was damaged by the tornado, forcing her family to move into the high school.
"Well, first off, there was a gas leak in the area, and we were told to evacuate the area and then told not to stay. The police had told us we could not stay there," Price said. "We were allowed to get things and then get out. And we have no heat, no electricity, and it’s not livable without heat because it’s pretty cold right now."
 

BALTIMORE —
A state lawmaker who represents Baltimore City and oversees K-12 education funding said she wants her colleagues to visit Baltimore City Public Schools campuses to see the conditions of the buildings.

Baltimore City Delegate Stephanie Smith, D-District 45, agrees that the issue is funding and said some people need to see it to believe it.

"I just think we have to continue to make the case to our colleagues that our students are going to schools they wouldn't even want their pets to enter," Smith told 11 News Investigates.

CRANDON (WLUK) -- Officials say carbon monoxide is to blame after 39 patients received medical attention at the Crandon school district building.

The building was evacuated Thursday after two students and one staff member fell ill with the same symptoms.

The Oneida County and Wausau hazmat teams were requested by the Forest County Sheriff’s Office to assist. Oneida and Wausau hazmat determined it was a mechanical issue with the furnace that created elevated levels of carbon monoxide inside the school.

In the last 10 years, Pennsylvania K-12 schools have nearly tripled the amount of solar installed, according to a new statewide report on schools’ solar uptake published by Generation180, a clean energy nonprofit. The solar capacity installed at statewide schools over the past 10 years grew from 14 MW to approximately 39 MW.

The new report, “Powering a Brighter Future in Pennsylvania, Second Edition,” examines the state of solar at K-12 schools, including how schools are funding it, and local success stories. While a growing number of schools have seen the benefits of solar adoption, less than 2% of Pennsylvania’s 6,000 K-12 schools produce their own solar power, leaving a lot of potential for growth.

“All schools and communities in Pennsylvania — regardless of their size, geography or wealth — should have access to clean and affordable power,” said Shannon Crooker, Generation180’s Pennsylvania State Director. “We are helping schools across the state gain the cost-saving and educational benefits from generating their own clean power.” Generation180 provides free technical assistance to schools interested in exploring how solar energy would benefit them.

Peninsula School District is putting together a Long-range Facilities Advisory Board to address issues related to school buildings and district support facilities, like its transportation and maintenance building.

Among other topics, the group will discuss a possible future bond or capital levy. No measure is on the horizon, according to district officials. The district hasn’t even started public discussion of any proposed bond, a critical early step. But part of the advisory board’s mission will be to evaluate whether and when a bond or capital levy is needed, according to Chief Financial Officer Ashley Murphy.

“Let me show you why I’m so smart and my school is so junky,” said five-year old Nolan Adam Smith, breathless, as he enthusiastically prepared to give a tour of the Jack Egnaty Senior School in Sleetmute. It’s where students from kindergarten through 12th grade attend public school in the village.

Smith showed off the reading chairs in his kindergarten and preschool classroom. “If you’re sitting in the black chair or this other chair, you have to be reading,” he said.

The walls are bright yellow, the trim around the windows is royal blue. Smith’s tour features his desk, his math book, and even the ceiling. He points upward and his face is serious. Up in the corner, three ceiling tiles are missing. Others are stained brown, the color of dark tea. “It’s been leaking,” he said. And then points to the floor. “That bucket’s there because it’s been leaking.”

Decatur, GA — The City Schools of Decatur School Board will meet on Tuesday, March 12, at 5 p.m. for a regular meeting. The meeting will be held in person at the Wilson School Support Center, 125 Electric Ave., and virtually via Zoom.

During the work session, Chief Operating Officer Sergio Perez will present the state of operations report to looks at the district’s facilities and maintenance needs.

“It emphasizes the crucial role of the Operations Division in maintaining the district’s functionality and normal operations,” the agenda packet states. “Despite facing challenges such as rising material and energy costs, extended lead times for equipment, and increased vendor labor costs, the division ensures smooth operations in areas like lighting, HVAC, utilities, meals, transportation, medical services, and safety and security.”

“The report discusses the life cycle of assets, highlighting the continuous process from creation to use, maintenance, and disposal,” the agenda says. “It notes that the average age of [the] buildings is 78.3 years and focuses on addressing aging HVAC equipment to prevent disruptions in heating or cooling.”

The Middleton City Council is considering an unprecedented ordinance that would restrict developers from building subdivisions that would overcrowd schools.

“Kids have a constitutional right to education in this state,” said Dave Murray, a Middleton councilman who sponsored the ordinance.

Developers must obtain a signed statement from any school district verifying that a proposed subdivision will not contribute to any public school that will be serving the subdivision to exceed 110% capacity, the ordinance reads.

“We are saying that if we are at capacity, you can’t build,” Murray said. “To our knowledge, this is the first of its kind in the entire state.”

Middleton’s Planning and Zoning Commission will hold a public hearing on March 25 and the city council expects to vote on the issue at its April 17 meeting. Middleton’s city attorney wrote the ordinance and it was reviewed by two outside attorneys.

And Murray is confident that the code is constitutionally legal in Idaho and federally.

“We wanted to make sure we did it right, because if it catches on it will cost developers money,” Murray said. “People are finally starting to pay attention. If we do this, and we make people aware, they will put pressure on their city and county to follow suit.”

When Denise Massey’s daughter was 6 years old, she put the girl, who has Down Syndrome, on a van every morning for speech therapy in El Centro: 100 miles round trip, sometimes braving 120-degree heat, monsoons and severe dust storms known in the desert as haboobs.

Thirteen years later she’s still making that daily trek, because her Imperial County school district is so small it can’t offer a full gamut of special education services, and so remote that there’s nothing closer.

“It was hard at first. My daughter was really tired, and she’d act out,” Massey said. “But it’s been worth it because it’s so important my daughter gets the services she needs.”

Special education is only one of the challenges in rural districts like San Pasqual Valley Unified, a 591-student district in the southeastern corner of the state where Massey’s daughter, Annabelle, is enrolled. Transportation, recruiting teachers, finding contractors, tracking mountains of paperwork and complying with state regulations have become so burdensome that superintendents in those districts are begging for relief. Meanwhile, students like Annabelle sometimes miss out on opportunities that their peers in more populated areas take for granted.

Synopsis

Natural hazards, some fueled by a changing climate, have a devastating effect on children’s education and lives in every corner of the globe. Through its Global Program for Safer Schools (GPSS), the World Bank works hand-in-hand with client countries to ensure the resilience of school infrastructure. Managed by the Bank’s global unit for disaster and climate risk management and primarily funded by the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), GPSS uses a comprehensive approach to inform school infrastructure investments and government capacity building encompassing technical assistance, knowledge, and analytical support. A prime example of how knowledge, financing, and grants from the World Bank can combine to create impact at scale, over the last 10 years, GPSS has made schools safer for 121 million students across 35 countries.

When caregivers meet with teachers, they want all the details on how their children are doing in school: Are they making friends? What subjects do they need a little extra help with? Where are they excelling? But they’re probably not asking about something that could be having an outsized impact on their kids’ education: How’s the classroom air quality?

Boston University environmental health researcher Patricia Fabian has studied indoor air quality for more than 20 years and says the better the air in a school, the better kids perform: improved ventilation has been associated with reduced absences due to illness and higher scores on math and reading tests. Now, a new research collaboration between Fabian and Boston Public Schools (BPS) could lead the way in helping schools improve their indoor air quality.

Since 2022, Fabian has been working with the school district to study the quality of air in the city’s classrooms, leveraging sensors that were installed in more than 4,400 classrooms through $6.7 million in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds.

Fabian says there are relatively few standards for indoor air quality, despite a growing body of evidence to suggest that pollutant levels indoors may be significantly higher than outdoors. But the pandemic has reshuffled priorities, as the airborne transmission of COVID-19 called attention to the safety of enclosed, shared spaces and generated increased interest in, and funding for, projects to implement or improve heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems in aging public buildings, such as schools.

BURRILLVILLE – Members of the Town Council voted unanimously to approve a bond of up to $6.4 million to finance repairs to school facilities, including a costly but urgent boiler replacement for Steere Farm Elementary School.
“It needs to be done sooner rather than later,” explained Finance Director Leslie McGovern at a meeting with the council on Wednesday, Feb. 28.
To finance the project, McGovern told councilors they could wait until November to seek voter approval, or approve it under their own authority under state law. Rhode Island General Law and the Town Charter allow the council to borrow up to 3 percent of the total assessed value of the tax base without putting the issue on a ballot.
“You can put it to the voters, but you’ll be waiting for that vote to take place in November,” McGovern said.
McGovern noted that for the last bond for a school construction projects in Burrillville, a $7 million referendum was approved by voters in 2020. But if the council were to wait this time, funds would not be available until March of 2025 and interest rates, which are now low, would be subject to change, she said.
 

In Idaho, 60 percent of school district leaders reported “poor” or “fair” conditions in their schools, often comprised of older buildings, reported the Idaho Capital Sun in January. Gov. Brad Little said during his State of the State address that he personally saw sewage leaking under a school cafeteria. “Folks, we can do better,” he said. “The can we are kicking is getting heavier, and we are running out of road.”

Idaho schools aren’t alone in dealing with aging infrastructure. The National Center for Education Statistics released survey results last month that put the average age of K-12 public school buildings in the United States at 49 years. Many students attend older schools that often face infrastructure issues such as poor ventilation, neglected repairs, and mold, which can need thousands of dollars in repair costs.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides guidelines for healthy schools, including maintaining proper heating, ventilating, and air conditioning systems and replacing air filters. But in 2020, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that about 41 percent of U.S. public school districts required changes to their heating, ventilation, or air conditioning. About half of the schools the GAO visited were troubled by HVAC system problems such as leaks, which can result in mold or damage to floor tiles.

PASSAIC — Plans for a new city high school that will cost $328 million are moving forward and will be paid for with funds from the New Jersey Schools Development Authority, the district's school board announced.

The announcement comes two years after the SDA gave its approval for the project in April 2022.

In a Feb. 7 memo, the SDA estimated the cost to demolish the current high school at 170 Paulison Ave. and build a new one at $328.1 million, which includes the cost of housing the students during the construction.

"This achievement underscores our unwavering commitment to providing our students with state-of-the-art facilities conducive to learning and growth," said Passaic Board of Education President L. Daniel Rodriguez. "I extend heartfelt gratitude to the SDA, Gov. [Phil] Murphy, Assemblyman [Gary] Schaer and Mayor [Hector] Lora for their invaluable support and advocacy in securing this opportunity for our community."

The Georgia Senate approved a measure last week that will allow school systems to assess impact fees for development when the development alters the educational infrastructure needed.
Last week, the Georgia State Senate approved Senate Bill 208 and Senate Resolution 189, both measures sponsored by Sen. Greg Dolezal, a Republican from Cumming.
SB 208 introduces development impact fees for education, as the current law only allows impact fees to be imposed by county governments and municipalities. Specifically, the bill would require that a school system be considered ‘high growth’ in that it expects:
a total increase in system wide student enrollment of 20 percent or more during the immediately preceding ten-year period; AND
total expenditures of $250 million or more on the construction of new educational facilities during the immediately preceding ten-year period.
 

HONOLULU (KHON2) — With a growing population in Central Maui, the Legislature already approved designing a new Maui middle and a new elementary school in the area before the Maui wildfires. Following the disaster, the School Facilities Authority, a state agency tasked with building new schools, said this is needed more than ever.
“A significant portion of the population has moved to both central and south Maui because there’s just no housing and more will come right as people get placed in long-term housing,” said Ricki Fujitani, School Facilities Authority Interim Executive Director.
The School Facilities Authority said the projects need to be completed within the next four years. Its statistics already show Paia Elementary School is at 164 percent capacity, Iao Intermediate is at 120 percent, and Maui High School is at 116 percent.
 

WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) – After the Wichita Public Schools board voted to close six schools, parents are petitioning to have the decision reviewed on the state level.

Parents KSN News has spoken to are upset, and you can see it. In the video above, you can see signs dotting a lawn, protesting the BOE decision and encouraging parents to get involved.

On Tuesday, parents started going door to door to get a petition signed trying to stop these closures. Parents say closing the six schools was a decision they don’t feel they had a say in.

“I think it’s pretty evident that most of us already felt like the decision was made when we walked in the building,” said Thomas Montiel, a parent at Cleaveland Traditional Magnet Elementary School.

“We found out the same day the staff members found out and the staff members only got notified I think an hour or two before the news stations published their articles so we all were in shock together,” said Ruth Lehman, a parent at Cleaveland Traditional Magnet Elementary School.

The district says no one likes to close schools and that their hands were tied.

The county’s recent school facilities assessment recommends spending at least $94 million dollars on construction projects in the next 10 years on all structures owned by the Board of Education.

That proposed price tag, which is expected to increase to $121 million once all design fees, permits, insurance and professional fees are factored in, was presented to members of the Board of Education and the Transylvania County Board of Commissioners at a special joint meeting of the two boards Monday afternoon.

Last year both boards established a special education capital work group composed of Transylvania County Manager Jaime Laughter, School Superintendent Lisa Fletcher, retired Henderson County Manager Steve Wyatt, retired Henderson County Schools Superintendent Bo Caldwell and representatives from the Axias consulting firm to assess all school buildings and identify repairs that need to be made throughout the school system within the next decade.

“Our recommendation is that you take the reality of where you are and you make the best decisions that you can make,” Wyatt said to the gathering of the two groups Monday. “Those decisions lead to investments because time is money and you’ll get more bang for your buck the sooner you can make decisions and move forward.”

“Now is the opportunity to fix things and fix them right,” added Caldwell. “Here you have an opportunity as county commissioners and the school board to work as a group to provide the facilities that these children can learn in for the next several years.”

Bayfield School District officials look to put together a “Master Facilities Plan” to address long-term maintenance needs for multiple, decades-old school buildings.

The district’s Board of Education on Feb. 27 authorized Assistant Superintendent Bill Hesford to issue a Request for Qualifications proposal to launch the plan, which partially stems from the Bayfield Middle School building – which was built in 1977 – having various maintenance issues like a leaking roof, according to a news release on the district’s website.

“The master plan should explore a variety of options, based on a thorough assessment of the facilities, to develop a strategic implementation plan for the long term facility needs,” the proposal document says.

The district is in the process of searching for a company that will put together a plan about what to do with the buildings. Prospective planners interested in responding to the proposal are invited to attend an optional site visit on Thursday.

The deadline for applicants to submit their proposals is March 28.

Finalists will be interviewed on April 8, and the committee will decide on the top candidate that same day.

Hawaii's legislature is considering measures to boost home building for teachers who struggle to meet mounting living costs and cannot afford to work in the profession.
Lawmakers believe exorbitant rents in particular are making it difficult to retain educators.

01:07
How Millennials Are Shifting The Housing Market
By Omar Mohammed
Reporter, Economy & Finance
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Hawaii's legislature is considering measures to boost home building for teachers who struggle to meet mounting living costs and cannot afford to work in the profession.
Lawmakers believe exorbitant rents in particular are making it difficult to retain educators.
Home prices in Hawaii, like the rest of the country, have skyrocketed since the pandemic. The median price was $627,000 in April 2020, and as of January 2024, prices have leapt to about $851,000. Meanwhile, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Honolulu has shot up by 188 percent to nearly $4,000 a month, compared to a year ago.
The average entry level pay for a teacher in Hawaii is about $67,000 per year as of February 26, 2024, according to salary.com, though the range can vary between an estimated $56,000 and $82,000.
"The legislature finds that Hawaii continues to suffer from a shortage of licensed teachers, with over one thousand vacancies each year," according to a bill in Hawaii's House of Representatives. "Housing costs constitute a big portion of each teacher's paycheck."