EVERY BOSTON CHILD deserves access to a high-quality education. Despite years of discussion about the need to close achievement and opportunity gaps, this has been an unfulfilled promise to Boston children and their families caught in a system of “haves and have-nots” when it comes to high-quality school options. As a result, our city’s education outcomes have lagged further and further behind, enrollment is historically low, and families are frequently pitted against each other for access to a high-quality education for their child. And while the ongoing pandemic did not create these problems, it has exacerbated them, with profound impacts on student learning and student mental health. 
The way forward to delivering high-quality education does not have to tread in the path of previous mayoral administrations. Past efforts have largely worked around the margins, yet such efforts don’t change the reality that most of Boston’s students — the majority of whom are Black and Latino — do not reliably have access to high-quality schools from pre-K through 12th grade. It’s time for the city to forge a path forward with a more comprehensive approach that centers access to high-quality schools for every child, in every Boston neighborhood.
Our new mayor, herself a mother of BPS students, has stated her willingness to confront Boston’s “culture of no” in pursuit of transformative changes, both big and small. With education as a top-three priority among Boston’s voters in this last election cycle, the impetus for such changes within the city’s education landscape is both urgent and overdue. To that end, this new administration can seize upon three interconnected policy pathways that would signal to all Bostonians that our city values the potential of all of its children; further, Boston doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel to make progress, as several cities have engaged in similar efforts with success.
School buildings must be safe and inspiring places to learn. The foundation of school quality – and the most visible signal of our investment in children– is the condition of the physical spaces in which students learn. In Boston, our outdated facilities can neither provide the most basic assurances of health and safety nor meet the demands of present-day instructional practice. Despite the city’s $1 billion, 10-year investment in BuildBPS announced in 2015, there is more disruption than progress to show.
 

LEBANON — Supporters of school modernization plans for Lebanon High School and Hanover Street School hope this will finally be the year the projects get over the hump with voters.

The high school renovation would add a new student center, a large music suite — including a band room and individual practice spaces — and a new fire alarm system, as well as a secure, Americans with Disabilities Act-accessible main entryway and reception area. These upgrades would cost roughly $5.1 million.

The Hanover Street School renovation would add a new cafeteria with a stage that can seat 150 students, four new classrooms and an ADA-accessible nurse’s suite, and will improve existing special services and student support spaces as well as expand the library and media center. A stairwell located near the media center would also be enclosed for student safety. These renovations would cost roughly $9.2 million.

Junior Angelina Truong, a Lebanon High band librarian, said it is important for the community to invest in music programs the same way it does other extracurricular activities.

“The football and basketball team and other sports teams get a lot of new equipment and new gear, but in the past few years, the music and art program have not had as many funds given,” said Truong. “It’s nice to be taken seriously … and to have this space for students where they can practice and be together in a comfortable, open space.”

GREENWICH — Central Middle School was closed effective immediately due to concerns about the building’s structural integrity, the Greenwich school district announced Friday.
Superintendent of Schools Toni Jones and Central Principal Tom Healy sent an email to parents saying the decision was made Friday morning by town building inspectors to close the building “until it is deemed safe for occupancy by the engineering firm who specializes in this type of structural work.”
“We understand it could be unsettling,” the email said. “GPS is in discussions with the reputable engineering firm, and as of noon today, we are optimistic that they will provide a safety clearance in conjunction with making some temporary immediate implementations.”
The entire school district was closed Friday due to bad weather, so there were no students in the building.
 

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic Atlanta Public Schools (APS) has lost about 2,000 students, according to data presented to the community during the Facilities Master Plan meeting.

The district began the process of creating the district’s 18-month Facilities Master Plan with a community meeting on January 25. The plan is made to act as a guide for the district to follow when making decisions about APS owned buildings and sites.

The district works with multiple government and private organizations to put the plan together. During the meeting representatives from the Sizemore group presented the data that the district will be using to put together the final Facilities Master Plan.

The majority of the losses are occurring at the elementary school level while high schools and charter schools have seen growth in the last two years.

Projected kindergarten enrollment numbers play a significant role in the district’s longer term planning. In order to get accurate predictions the district’s consultants look at national and local birth rates and trends to look five years ahead.

While the birth rate has been steadily declining, the large drop in enrollment the district experienced last year is not expected to be a long term trend.

When it comes to capacity and enrollment numbers the district also has to consider the steady growth of charter schools is expected to plateau.

In the coming years the majority of growth is expected to come from new housing developments, the majority of growth will be in the Midtown cluster and some in the Jackson cluster. 

Parents of students in Batavia Public School District 101 got their first look at the district’s sweeping “Building Our Future Together” master facilities plan at the Feb. 1 community engagement session at Batavia High School.
The session, titled “Where We’ve Been, Where We Are and Where We Are Headed,” centered on a general overview of the district’s facilities and planned improvements.
“The challenges that we face can be categorized into two types; functional and operational,” said Chief Financial Officer Anton Inglese. “Functional in terms of facilities, support, learning and educational programs, and operational in terms of logistics in the way students and teachers and families use those spaces apart from academics, and how we maintain them and how we improve them overtime.”
Part of the plan would involve the replacement of the district’s four oldest elementary school buildings, including H.C. Storm Elementary, according to the district’s master facilities plan website.
“H.C. Storm School was built in 1978,” Inglese said. “Car and bus and pedestrian traffic all intersect in one spot. If you live in that neighborhood or you’re a parent who picks up their child, it’s chaos.”
 

Warren County Schools officials are optimistic that the expanded North Carolina Needs-Based Public School Capital Fund will help the school system address needs related to aging school buildings.

Superintendent Keith Sutton discussed the expanded program during the Warren County Board of Education’s Jan. 25 work session.

School facility needs have been ongoing topics of discussion for Warren County Schools officials. When an outside company evaluated school system buildings several years ago, the condition of the elementary schools was identified as a major concern because the buildings were constructed between 1957 and 1969. 

The study gave several options in terms of renovations, additions and new construction to address the needs of the district’s elementary, middle and high school buildings. However, the cost of such work has been a barrier in moving any project from plan to reality.

According to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, the North Carolina Needs-Based Public School Capital Fund was established by the North Carolina General Assembly in 2017 for construction of new public school buildings, with funding to come from the North Carolina Education Lottery.

During last week’s school board work session, Sutton reported that the expanded grant fund program now covers additions, repairs and renovations in addition to new buildings. The NC Education Lottery remains the funding source.

Sutton added that $395 million in funding is available for grants in the fiscal year 2021-22 awards system.

The maximum grant that any school district could receive is $30 million for elementary schools, $40 million for middle schools and $50 million for high schools. However, Sutton noted that one district is not likely to receive the maximum amount for all three.

Two of the three school buildings in Evergreen School District #50 in Kalispell, Montana, have aging air systems that provide poor ventilation and lack air conditioning. The district is setting aside about 75% of its Emergency and Secondary School Emergency Relief III funds for HVAC replacements later this year. 
But even after a year of planning and designing for the upgrades and more than two years to go until the Sept. 30, 2024, ESSER deadline for obligating those funds, the timeline is making Superintendent Laurie Barron nervous. 
In the best-case scenario, the project, which went out to bid this week, would finish before the start of next school year, with construction occurring over the summer to be less disruptive to student learning. 
In the worst-case scenario, the district could fail to receive any acceptable bids, equipment could face shipping delays, and the project experiences a shortage of construction employees. The district would have to return any money not spent by the deadline.
"The money that has been put into schools to support us has been nothing short of what feels miraculous, right?," said Barron, whose 700-student, K-8 district sits about 40 minutes from Glacier National Park. "But with all the stipulations on it, there's that stress and anxiety of will we be able to expend it in the most appropriate and effective ways to benefit staff and students. And so, that's my concern."
 

Kevin Richert 02/03/2022
We really don’t know what shape our school buildings are in. Or if we’re spending enough on upkeep.

A new and damning state report is a tale of neglect. Because state officials have long treated school construction and maintenance as a local responsibility, they haven’t bothered with basic oversight and process. They’ve gotten careless with 46 million square feet of school buildings, carrying a replacement cost well into the billions of dollars.

And if lawmakers didn’t know the problem they’ve created, they do now. The state’s Office of Performance Evaluations made it all painfully obvious.

Ten senators — the entire Senate Education Committee, and Senate Pro Tem Chuck Winder — came at the issue with a good question. Is Idaho’s tried-and-true method of bankrolling schools with local money becoming obsolete?

“The ability to fund school facilities through bonds may be breaking down,” the senators wrote in a March 5, 2011 letter, requesting an OPE report. “Some communities are growing so fast that they are faced with the challenge of repeatedly going back to the taxpayers for more bonding authority. Other, often rural communities with no or slow growth have very aged school facilities.”

Fair enough. And no neglect of a serious matter here.

Kentucky school districts impacted by the death and devastation of December’s tornadoes can now apply for aid through an application that went live on the Kentucky Department of Education’s website Tuesday.

Through House Bill 5, $30 million has been set aside for impacted school districts, and on Tuesday, state education officials met virtually with school district superintendents to go over the process for requesting and receiving the money.

“From our perspective, things are going really well,” Bowling Green Independent School District Superintendent Gary Fields said during the meeting. “We feel like we’re meeting the needs of families as best as we can.”

As his school district works to return to a new normal, staff are also juggling other efforts, including distributing toys collected through a campaign headed by Kentucky first lady Britainy Beshear.

The Green River Regional Educational Cooperative agreed to distribute the donations for the state, and Fields said there are about 15 pallets worth going to his school district.

BGISD is also working to resettle many Afghan refugees that recently arrived.

“We’ve enrolled about 30 Afghan students in the last week. So that influx is now coming in,” Fields told Education Commissioner Jason Glass.

Oklahoma recently injected millions of dollars in new funding for hundreds of school districts with under-resourced facilities.
The state distributed $38.5 million in Redbud School Grants for the first time on Friday. Lawmakers created the program last year to put medical marijuana tax dollars toward districts and charter schools that earn below the state average in local taxes that support school buildings. 
“It’s going to be huge for a lot of school districts and finally bring some parity," Rep. Kyle Hilbert said. 
Hilbert, R-Bristow, was an author of Senate Bill 229, the legislation that established the grant program. 
Oklahoma school districts earn an average of $330 per student from local tax sources for their building fund, which supports school facilities. Of the 540 districts and charter schools in the state, 337 fell below the state average in building fund revenue. 
Redbud grants raise those districts' funds to the state average. 
Although some received only a few thousand dollars, the majority of benefiting districts gained tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands in new funding. 
Lawton Public Schools had its building fund nearly double with a $2 million Redbud grant, the largest sum of any district in the state. 
 

Columbus City Schools could potentially build 19 new schools by 2042.
The district’s Facilities Master Planning Committee recommends that the district build six new high schools, six new middle schools and seven elementary schools, Jim Negron, chair of the Facilities Master Plan Committee, said during Tuesday’s Columbus City Schools Board of Education Meeting.
Each new high school would have over 1,200 students, each new middle school would have over 800 students and each new elementary school would have over 600 students, according to a presentation during the board meeting. 
The location and size of these potential schools were not discussed and no board action was taken. Instead, the Facilities Master Plan Committee presented its recommendations to the board after conducting a six-step master plan from March 2021 to January. 
“This has been an extensive process,” said Dennis Paben, a senior architect with Legat Architects. 
The committee also determined that the district has too many schools for the current student population. Schools that would potentially close or be consolidated were also not discussed at Tuesday’s board meeting. 
 

Across Virginia, more than 50% of schools—1,040 out of 2,005 that districts reported—are at least 50 years old. That’s according to the Virginia Department of Education’s (VDOE) 2021 School Building Inventory. If every school older than 50 on the list required a replacement, the estimate would exceed $24 billion. 
Sen. Jeremy McPike, a Democrat who serves Manassas, Manassas Park, and part of Prince William County, sponsored a bill aimed toward regulating and monitoring school building maintenance. The legislation was recommended by the Commission on School Construction and Modernization, which in part determines school construction and modernization funding needs.
Senate Bill (SB) 238 would require local school boards to report the age of each school building in their district—and the estimated cost to renovate them—to the VDOE. The bill notes that districts would need to complete the task “in a timely fashion,” but gives no deadline indications at the present time. 
 

Few would argue there are higher priorities than protecting children from harm. We agree with the need to provide protection for children, and want to see that protection extended to those who work with children in the places where they spend vast amounts of time: schools.

Our work to identify and eliminate toxic chemicals in schools has been ongoing for decades, but a big push in recent years has been targeting polychlorinated biphenyls, also known as PCBs. While the government banned the manufacture of PCBs in the U.S. in 1979, the chemicals remain in buildings that were constructed or renovated before or around that date.

PCBs are a group of human-made compounds that contaminate air, water, land, and sediments. They last for decades in the environment, building up in the food chain, causing toxic effects to the immune, reproductive, nervous, and endocrine systems in people and animals. PCBs also cause cancer in animals and are believed to cause cancer in people.

The Plan
In 2014, the Washington Legislature passed a law requiring state agencies to purchase PCB-free products whenever possible. In 2015, we culminated years of research and data with the release of a chemical action plan addressing PCBs. The report made a number of strong recommendations to reduce PCBs in the state, including:

A new report estimates Idaho’s public K-12 school maintenance backlog to be at least $874 million while the state isn’t enforcing a law requiring districts to report their buildings’ needs.

A 2005 Idaho Supreme Court decision found the state legislature failed to meet its constitutional duty to sufficiently fund school buildings.

Lawmakers at the time boosted some funding and required districts to regularly submit 10-year maintenance plans, which most schools don’t follow.

The report from the Idaho Office of Performance Evaluations released Monday estimates the backlog for school repairs to be at least $874 million to bring them up to a “good” condition.

Casey Petti, the analyst who wrote the report, said that figure is likely lower than the real deficit because of the lack of data available.

Rep. Steve Berch (D-Boise) said that number is eye-popping, considering lawmakers are on the cusp of passing a historic $600 million tax cut. State economists are forecasting a $1.9 billion surplus this year.

The state is launching a 17-member panel to study how to fortify public school buildings against hurricanes and devise best practices for schools when storms strike, officials said Tuesday.
"Over the last two years Louisiana has been catastrophically impacted by six hurricanes – two of which were among the strongest in our state's history," state Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley said in a statement.
"Many coastal public schools have been devastated from the repeated barrage of high winds, torrential rain and flash floods, resulting in billions of dollars in damages, roofs torn off, hallways flooded, walls collapsed," Brumley said.
The study, the first of its kind, will be done by The Protect Louisiana Schools: Hurricane Preparedness Commission.
Brumley said in an interview state officials have tried to support school systems when storms strike.
But he said he was struck by the lack of any playbook to offer assistance.
"How can we be prepared for storms and how can systems respond quickly and appropriately in the aftermath of a storm," Brumley said. "There really was not a source of information."
The state has about 1,700 public schools.
 

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee is proposing three Memphis schools relocate due to the possibility of flooding, a school building change not currently part of a new facilities plan Memphis-Shelby County Schools unveiled last spring and started in earnest in a recent set of board votes on school closures, mergers, school building additions and HVAC improvements.

Inspired by the story of a school in Waverly, Tenn., the $200 million Tennessee initiative includes 14 schools across the state in urban, rural and suburban districts. The schools were identified through a study by the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency as high risk for flooding damage, said Penny Schwinn, state commissioner of education. 

In Memphis, that includes Lowrance K-8, in southeast Shelby County and American Way Middle School in Parkway Village, both MSCS schools. It also includes relocating another Parkway Village school, Wooddale Middle School; the school is currently part of the state-run Achievement School District under charter operator Green Dot Public Schools, but the building is owned by MSCS. 

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona laid out four key priorities for U.S. public education in a major address last week, as many schools still struggle to keep teaching and learning on track during the pandemic.

Here’s how the Education Department listed Cardona’s priority areas:

“Support students through pandemic response and recovery. — Engaging families as core partners to educators — Addressing missed instruction through intensive tutoring, extended learning time, and other evidence-based practices — Increasing access to social, emotional, and mental health supports for all students — Encouraging every student to participate in at least one extracurricular activity.
“Boldly address opportunity and achievement gaps. — Increasing funding for Title I schools and for IDEA in order to close gaps in access to educational opportunity — Providing every family the opportunity to start on a level playing field through free, universal pre-K and affordable high-quality child care — Investing in, recruiting, and supporting the professional development of a diverse educator workforce, including special education teachers, paraprofessionals, and bilingual educators so education jobs are ones that people from all backgrounds want to pursue — Challenging states and districts to fix broken systems that may perpetuate inequities in our schools.
“Make higher education more inclusive and affordable. — Providing targeted loan relief to student borrowers — Holding colleges and universities accountable for taking advantage of borrowers — Ensuring borrowers have loan payment options that reflect their economic circumstances — Making long term improvements to programs like Public Service Loan Forgiveness and creating a strong Gainful Employment Rule so career programs aren’t leaving students with mountains of debt and without good job opportunities.
“Ensure pathways through higher education lead to successful careers. — Reimagining the connection between p-12, higher education, and workforce — Collaborating with the Department of Labor and Department of Commerce to invest in career preparation programs that meet the needs of today’s economy — Prioritizing grant programs that allow students to return to higher education or pursue career and technical education programs at any point in their lives and careers — Investing in colleges and universities that serve underrepresented groups and increase access to and funding for programs like Pell Grants.”
There are several important issues on that list, but there’s one the secretary didn’t mention: the sorry state of many of America’s school buildings.

More than half of U.S. public schools need to update or replace multiple systems or features in more than half their buildings, and failure to address them could pose health and safety problems for children and adults, according to a 2020 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

American schools have a lot of money to spend right now. They received $122 billion dollars last spring from the American Rescue Plan, the largest ever one-time investment of money by the federal government in public education. The money can go towards buying COVID-19 tests, hiring counselors, repairing air filtration systems, or anything else that could get students through the pandemic. Schools have until September 2024 to spend the money.

But, according to a letter to Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona from a coalition of school associations, networks and campaign groups, they need more time.

One of the schools that would like an extension is Claremont School, in New York’s Hudson River Valley. It’s in Ossining school district, which received $10 million from the American Rescue Plan.

“There was a wow factor, and a sincere gratitude,” said Ray Sanchez, the Ossining school district superintendent, about receiving the money. “Then there’s a heavy responsibility associated with it.”

Sanchez wants to use some of the funds to replace unit ventilators in the schools. They’re used for air flow, and to heat the classrooms. The one in fourth-grade teacher Stephanie Altobelli’s classroom has been in place since the school was built more than 60 years ago, and looks its age. Altobelli said it sometimes blows out really cold air.

An effort in the Virginia House of Delegates to give all localities the ability — via a voter referendum — to increase the local sales tax in order to pay for school construction projects was stopped in a subcommittee meeting Friday morning.
The subcommittee voted 5-3 all three times to lay on the table all three bills relating to the issue. A similar bill carried by Del. Dave LaRock, R-Loudon County, was struck from the agenda at the start of the meeting.
Similar legislation cleared the Virginia Senate earlier this week, meaning the overall push isn’t dead, yet.
Del. Sally Hudson, D-Charlottesville, sponsored a Charlottesville-specific bill as well as one that would’ve given all the localities the authorization to ask voters for approval.
“We’ll have another chance when the Senate bills come over to the House,” Hudson said after the meeting. “That means Virginians whose Delegates’ blocked this bill need to make their voices heard if they want the vote to change.”
 

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CN) — To retrofit California’s crumbling classrooms, a new state audit released Thursday predicts voters will have to approve over $7.4 billion in bonds to pay for overdue safety and technological upgrades at K-12 schools.

The state auditor foresees a continued flood of funding requests over the next five years from the state’s over 10,500 schools. To meet the growing need, the report says lawmakers will have to rely on voters to clear the backlog and keep the state’s decades-old modernization program solvent.

Created in 1998, the School Facilities Program is tasked with getting out program funds to schools looking to do things like fix plumbing, improve air conditioning systems or finish technological updates. Bond funding can only be used on classrooms or other school structures older than 20 years and applicants must front at least 40% of the cost.

Schools have turned to the program with increasing regularity in recent years and the state began receiving requests it couldn’t fulfill in 2019. In less than three years, auditors claim the backlog has grown to $1.7 billion.