LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) - School leaders in Fayette County are concerned about the cost of a new middle school in the Hamburg area.
At Monday night’s school board meeting, officials found out bid prices for the school construction have gone way up.
School leaders have known for a while that the Hamburg area in Lexington is growing and a new school is going to be necessary. However, the revelation that building that school is going to cost significantly more than they had planned is forcing officials to rethink things.
Originally developed in 2013, the construction of a new middle school on Polo Club Blvd. is the next big project on the school district’s development plan.
Now, the cost for that school is nearly $23 million more than initially planned.
“Construction costs are increasing and they are increasing significantly,” said Myron Thompson, FCPS Chief Operating Officer. “The pandemic has, unfortunately, caught up with us at this particular point.”
Thompson that material costs have gone up over time. In fact, the $12.6 million cost of materials is a 50% increase from the initial plan.
All totaled, the project is 52.4% over budget, the most for school projects in this last year.
 

Harrah Elementary School Principal Rob McCracken’s voice echoes across the empty new gymnasium as he lists off its exciting features: a drop-down screen to bisect the space, half-and full-size basketball courts, room enough to host local tournaments.
Seemingly every inch of the new building has some state-of-the-art feature.
The “cafetorium” — that’s a combination cafeteria and auditorium — boasts high ceilings and seats nearly 300 students. Classrooms come with high-tech smart projectors that double as whiteboards. Some energy-efficient outlets sense motion and turn off automatically when the building is empty. A huge library with big glass windows has so many movable shelves that the school likely will not have enough books to fill them all at first.
And there’s more to be discovered.
Walking into what he described as a typical classroom, McCracken finds a black, oval-shaped device charging on the counter. A worker tells him it’s a mini microphone system that each classroom is equipped with, allowing teachers to amplify their voices easily. McCracken tests the system out, delight quickly spreading across his face.
The new building will house Mt. Adams School District’s kindergarten through eighth grade students in January. Though it’s just down the road from the 85-year-old Harrah Elementary School where K-fifth grade students currently learn and play, the two buildings are literally decades apart in terms of design and technology.
 

On a hot late August day, less than 24 hours before students were set to return to classrooms at Science Leadership Academy at Beeber in Philadelphia – the majority for the first time in 18 months – city council member Helen Gym joined educators, parents and students gathered in front of the school's red doors and stately columns to protest the unsafe conditions inside, where an ongoing construction project had left asbestos exposed, layers of dust caking hallways and a shortage of working bathrooms for 700 students.
An emergency order notified parents and school staff earlier that day that, as a result of the facilities issues, high school students would begin the school year learning virtually and middle school students would be relocated to a vacant school nearby for the entirety of the academic year.
"Our children deal with lead, asbestos and mold," Gym says of the School District of Philadelphia, where schools are on average 70 years old. "We had to start school weeks later than schools in the suburbs because we don't have air conditioning and classrooms can reach 90 degrees or higher on our hottest days, which are becoming more and more frequent."
Gym, a potential 2023 mayoral contender and longtime education activist, had been arrested weeks prior to the rally for banging on the doors of the Senate gallery inside the state Capitol in Harrisburg to protest the way the state funds the city's public school system – a longstanding issue that goes on trial in the commonwealth court next week.
"We have windows that don't open fully," she says. "Even now we struggle with the basics of functioning cafeterias, bathrooms that don't flood and roofs that don't cave in."
Five years ago, when Philadelphia performed a cursory assessment of its buildings, it estimated that basic repairs to bring schools up to code would cost roughly $4.5 billion, to say nothing of long-standing larger renovation needs or modernizing its K-12 system top-to-bottom. In 2019, the school district took out a $500 million bond for routine capital projects to begin facilities improvements.
 

The Chicago Public Schools’ facilities chief is out in the midst of complaints of troubled management of school cleaning services that has left some children learning in filthy conditions this fall, three sources told the Chicago Sun-Times.

As of Thursday, Clarence Carson, a CPS parent with facilities experience who’d been brought in to help sort out earlier school cleaning problems, no longer works in his $175,000-a-year job.

His departure comes less than a week after the Sun-Times documented conditions that were so bad at a Southwest Side elementary school that teachers and administrators had been wielding mops and brooms themselves. Eberhart Elementary School students, parents and teachers complained about seeing roaches and about floors and bathrooms that went unwashed in the absence of enough custodians at the school.

JACKSON COUNTY, Miss. (WLOX) - The Jackson County School District is working to find funding to improve school facilities. After the failure of last spring’s facility bond proposal, district officials moved forward with a detailed plan to address facility needs in county schools.
“The delay of moving forward with facilities was due to the pandemic this past summer and fall, but now it’s time to make improvements. A key part in this process is closely listening to our board members and the community as a team unit,” said Superintendent Dr. John Strycker.
The money would be used for repairs and improvements to facilities. In February, a $67 million bond project was presented to the school board detailing all of the upgrades and repairs.
However, the proposed plan was voted down, with 75 percent of residents voting against it.
Strycker said this new proposed plan will allow for the maintenance of facilities and also make up for tax revenue that will soon disappear. The Mississippi Coal Power Plant is going to be decommissioned, which means $6 million fewer annual dollars for the district in 2027-2028.
 

At Discovery Elementary School in Arlington, Virginia, students can check out a digital energy dashboard to track in real time how much power the school is producing with the help of more than 1,700 rooftop solar panels. Essentially, the amount generated is equal to the annual energy use of the building, making it one of the largest net-zero energy schools in the United States.
Building on the success of Discovery, which debuted in 2015, the Arlington School District opened a second net-zero elementary school, Alice West Fleet, four years later. This school year saw the addition of Cardinal Elementary School, which is poised to be the district's third net-zero energy school, once the building is officially verified, Cathy Lin, director of facilities for the school district, told ABC News.
"Always the intent is to build a sustainable school," she said.
Schools with solar power are on the rise in the U.S. -- growing 81% from 2014 to 2019. Still, the number is relatively small -- just 5.5% of K-12 public schools currently use solar energy, according to a 2020 report from Generation180, a nonprofit that advocates for the transition to clean energy.
The country's K-12 public schools are also "major energy consumers," consuming about 8% of all the energy used in commercial buildings, according to the Sierra Club.
 

NORTH TEXAS (CBSDFW.COM) – Phil Carpenter put up signs urging his fellow Allen ISD residents to reject the school district’s two bond propositions valued at $23.6 million.
“We’re happy that voters spoke loud and clear.”
After the measures failed, Superintendent Dr. Robin Bullock issued a statement on the district’s website. “Moving forward, the district will have to make tough choices to ensure that our extracurricular facilities remain functional for our students and staff.”
The district had hoped to build a track at Ford Middle School, make improvements to the high school’s tennis courts, and the turf at Eagle Stadium, which cost taxpayers $60 million when it opened nearly a decade ago.
Carpenter said parents, residents, and taxpayers came together to oppose the projects. “We demand accountability into how those dollars are being spent and utilized. Full disclosure. Transparency.”
Last November, voters in the district rejected most of the items in this year’s bond measure.
In the Fort Worth ISD, voters said no to three of four bond propositions totaling $280 million dollars that would be spent on making improvements to stadiums, recreational and fine arts facilities.
Residents did approve spending $1.2 billion to fix-up and construct new school buildings by a margin of 42 votes.
 

Vermont U.S. Rep. Peter Welch visited Burlington High School’s temporary downtown campus on Monday to discuss the $1.75 trillion social spending bill before Congress and the proposed $1 trillion infrastructure bill.  
Burlington High School has been in session in the old Macy’s building near the Church Street Marketplace since March, challenging school leaders and students alike to adapt to their new location. Some students meeting with Welch admitted their discomfort with this new campus, but said they ultimately accepted the situation.   
“As I look around, we need a new school for the kids. The situation you have is extreme,” he said to those gathered for his visit. 
In detailing his experiences in Washington, Vermont’s lone congressman expressed optimism for passing the landmark legislation awaiting action in Congress. He stressed that a lot of work has gone into reaching an agreement on both sides. 
“A lot of us in Congress are trying to get money from the federal government to help out, not to pay for the whole pie, but to help out,” he said.
Through negotiations, the cost of the package has gone from $3.5 to $1.75 trillion. Welch said he is trying to get some of this money back to help with school infrastructure, arguing that federal investment is necessary to relieve local tax burdens.  

CRESSKILL — More than 100 parents rallied on Monday outside the public library to push for help with reopening the district's middle/senior high school, which has been shut since the remnants of Hurricane Ida flooded the building. 

The school sustained more than $19 million in damage from the storm. 

About 1,000 sixth to 12th graders have now been out of school for a nearly 600-day period, stretching back to the beginning of the coronavirus shutdown. 

"Our kids need help. Their school was destroyed," said Suzanne Joshi, a parent. "We are really starting to see the mental health impact on a lot of the kids."

Specifically, the parents want additional support from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the state and the county to expedite funding, inspections and approvals for the complicated project. The rebuilding must comply with state Department of Education and fire marshal requirements. 

There is some good news for students, who are scheduled to return to classrooms in a nearby parochial school next Monday. Two grades will return per day on a rotating schedule to St. Thérèse of Lisieux Church school in Cresskill on Nov. 8, Superintendent Michael Burke said. 

CHARLESTON — Twenty-six county school systems are requesting nearly $166 million from the West Virginia School Building Authority for school construction, consolidation and renovation projects.

The Authority’s board members will vote in December on which projects to fund with the limited dollars the state Legislature provides the state agency annually.

Authority Executive Director David Roach said he expects the board will have about $80 million to $90 million to dole out in December. He tried to say that quietly during a break in Monday’s meeting on the proposals, but when it was clear an HD Media reporter heard him he said “that’s an estimate.”

A program to test water for lead at public schools in Georgia is underway. The test kits are free, and environmental advocates are encouraging schools to sign up. All licensed childcare centers in Georgia will be eligible for the program soon, too.

Lead is dangerous to children — even small amounts can affect their brains and nervous systems. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there’s no safe blood lead level for children.

The Georgia Department of Education program, funded by a federal grant, is meant to check sources of drinking and cooking water at schools in the state.

Jennifer Hoponick Redmon, Director of Environmental Health and Water Quality with the research group RTI International, which is distributing the test kits to Georgia schools, said lead typically doesn’t come from the water source itself.

“It can accumulate on the way to your tap from the distribution piping and building plumbing,” she said at an outreach meeting last week. “That’s why it’s so important to test at the tap, even if and when it’s tested at the water system.”

Redmon’s organization is sending out lead testing kits to any Georgia public school that requests them. The group will also provide training for people at the schools to collect the samples themselves then send them back to RTI for testing. The results will be posted publicly online.

The project doesn’t include funding for addressing lead contamination if any is found. But Redmon said she doesn’t want that to deter schools from signing up.

Three renovation projects at Portland schools are facing around $1.4 million in additional costs and a lengthier construction timeline because of delays in getting the necessary building permits.

The projects at Longfellow, Reiche and Presumpscot elementary schools were approved by voters with a $64 million bond in 2017 along with a fourth school, Lyseth, where a ribbon cutting was held last week to celebrate the recent completion of renovations.

Construction on the remaining projects is being delayed, however, due to a lack of building permits that officials say has already added additional costs and will likely extend disruptions to education.

“We submitted the building permit for Longfellow in May and it’s almost November,” said school board Chair Emily Figdor. “We have been eager to meet the city’s needs at every step and yet we’re still here six months in without the building permits. School construction projects are different than other construction projects because in this case we’re disrupting kids’ education in addition to the $1.5 million it’s cost us so far.”

In addition to the Longfellow building permit, applications were submitted for permits at Reiche in June and at Presumpscot in July and are still pending.

PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, Md. (7News) — At dismissal time at Kenilworth Elementary school in Bowie Monday, parents were not pleased to hear their children’s 57-year-old school is one of only two in the state to rate poor for how the building is maintained.
“Poor isn’t good at all,” said one dad. Another adding, ”I’d like them to do better of course.”
Parents for the most part haven’t been allowed in school buildings to see for themselves because of the pandemic but state inspectors from the state’s watchdog commission on school construction visited 42 Prince George’s County schools as part of an annual maintenance assessment.
The results were presented to the County School Board’s budget committee recently by the Interagency Commission on School Construction.
The majority of schools were given a not sufficient rating on maintaining things like the HVAC systems, parking lots and playgrounds.
The IAC presenter summed up the report by saying , ”It appears that maintenance on average is simply not adequate.”
“To me that’s a huge concern because that means our students and staff are not working and learning in the most conducive environment,” says School Board member Raheela Ahmed.
She says an overworked staff in the second oldest buildings in the state simply isn’t keeping up with the workload.
“A lot of this could be attributed to deferred maintenance due to underfunding of our schools,” says Ahmed.
Shawn Matlock, head of capital programs for PGCPS agrees and says the answer is to build new schools as quickly as possible.
 

STORM LAKE, Iowa (AP) — It’s easy as an adult to take shots at high school students, criticizing them as being concerned about little more than the latest social media craze they call up on their smartphones.
It’s a big mistake to do so, because teenagers will never cease to display an awareness beyond their years about what’s important in this world.
Take for example a Storm Lake High School project that’s turning an overlooked school courtyard into an environmentally sustainable space with outdoor classrooms.
“All my student groups always wanted to help improve the school courtyard environment,” said science teacher Angela Mesenbrink, whose advanced ecology classes came up with the project. “Everything just lined up perfectly.”
Right now, the Courtyard Conservation Project might not look like much, with mounds of black dirt and construction equipment and supplies filling the courtyard. But as workers last week pounded pavers into place atop the compacted sand that marks future walkways, it wasn’t hard to envision students enjoying fresh air and sunshine on a warm spring or fall afternoon amid two rain gardens and native plants and grasses.
 

The Guam Department of Education has set aside $140 million in federal funds to tackle major capital improvement projects - and part of the discussion on how that money will be spent now involves a new middle school. 

GDOE has a long list of necessary capital improvement projects under the master facilities plan. According to GDOE officials, there is over $100 million in deferred maintenance at public schools identified by the Army Corps of Engineers.

For months, GDOE has discussed how to prioritize the spending of American Rescue Plan funds - and while well-known issues such as inoperable bathrooms and aging canopies are on that list, there are bigger items which are in active discussion, like the need for a new middle school in central Guam.

“We are incorporating that issue into our master facilities planning process. Earlier today and yesterday, our planners under contract with the Army Corps of Engineers conducted meetings with our northern mayors as well as our central mayors to talk about some of the issues associated with the middle schools - the need for a new middle school in the central area and looking at the impact a new middle school would have on the surrounding areas up north, down south and in the central areas,” said GDOE Superintendent Jon Fernandez.

Gov. Ned Lamont returned oversight of the state’s massive school construction financing program Friday to the Department of Administrative Services, ending a controversial two-year experiment that had placed the venture within his budget office.
The reversal came one day after deputy budget director Kosta Diamantis of Farmington — who directed the school construction unit — retired in the face of an investigation for unspecified misconduct.
“Given the departure of the former director of the office of school construction we felt it made the most sense to bring the team back to DAS [Department of Administrative Services,] said Josh Geballe, Lamont’s chief operating officer.
The program, which sends hundreds of millions of dollars annually to municipalities to help build new and renovate existing schools, had long been located within DAS. And with Diamantis’ departure, Geballe said, the department is best positioned to manage the program.
Max Reiss, Lamont’s director of communications, declined to discuss specific allegations against Diamantis with the CT Mirror on Thursday night, writing only in a brief statement that: “The Governor’s Office removed Mr. Diamantis because of a personnel matter that is still under review.”
 

School district leaders who have dealt for years with a backlog of urgent maintenance and renovation needs for their school buildings were dealt a blow last week from the federal government.
A massive spending package still making its way through Congress likely won’t include federal funding to improve school buildings, nearly seven months after President Biden proposed $100 billion in grants and bonds to fix the nation’s K-12 facilities. A White House framework for the investment package includes universal pre-K, teacher pipeline programs, expanded free school meals, and expanded access to home broadband for K-12 students—but nothing to improve the nation’s school buildings, many of which are in major disrepair.
That means the wait for the first substantial federal investment in school buildings since the Great Depression will be even longer for administrators like Andrew O’Leary, assistant superintendent of finance and operations for the New Bedford school district in Massachusetts. The district has 13,000 students—40 percent are Latinx, and more than 70 percent come from low-income families.
Five of the district’s school buildings were constructed more than 100 years ago, three were built before 1940, and 10 were built between 30 and 50 years ago.
Among the problems in the school’s oldest buildings, according to a facilities assessment prepared for the district in July by a contractor:
Exposed heating pipes and a buckling wood floor in the gymnasium
No sprinkler system
No mechanism for measuring air quality and ventilation
No elevator for two-story building
Basement spaces serve as cafeterias and gymnasiums because the buildings were constructed before those services were components of a traditional school day
Windows nearing the end of their useful life
Electrical system with insufficient capacity
Cracks and holes in the parking lot
Water leaking from outside into the walls
Sixty percent of the district’s buildings require moderate renovation, and 16 percent require extensive renovation, O’Leary said.
O’Leary had hoped to tap into federal funding from the infrastructure plan to tackle some ambitious, long-needed facilities projects. Now he’s scaling back his ambitions.

LYNWOOD, Calif. (KABC) -- In June 2020, a section of an exterior roofing panel collapsed from a building at Lynwood High School. At the time, no students were present due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it did prompt an investigation.
"What we're talking about is tons of concrete that collapsed on two employee vehicles during the pandemic," said Gudiel Crosthwaite, the Lynwood Unified School District Superintendent. "Fortunately, because no school was here, no one was injured during this incident."
After the collapse of the ceiling, the Lynwood Unified School District determined it was best to move the approximately 1,900 high school students to the Lynwood Middle School campus, which had to undergo several upgrades to accommodate.
"The district was able to situate us in a campus where there's enough space to hold all of us," said Chris Gutierrez, a Lynwood High School senior student. "Although there are a few things they are still working on like we still don't have the chem labs ready, but I know we'll have that by the end of the year."
The investigation into why the building collapsed is still ongoing, and since the collapse, there's been an investigation into all the buildings on the campus and more defects have been found.
 

The Education Department objects to a proposal to lower class sizes by requiring more space per student — testifying at a hearing Wednesday that the plan would lead to a shortage of school seats across the city.
“The proposed legislation would create a seat deficit at every grade level, require the building of hundreds of thousands of new seats across the city, and be incredibly disruptive to the school system as a whole,” DOE Chief Academic Officer Linda Chen said. 
Under mayoral control, the Council has little ability to set school policy. The bill uses a workaround: it would amend the city’s administrative code to require 35 square feet of space per child in all grade levels, compared to the 20 square feet required now. That would mean many fewer students per classroom. 
Chen said the city would need to create the space for 200,000 more seats to meet the requirement.
“Our typical new elementary school has approximately 500 seats and typically takes about five years or longer to site, design and construct. It can take even longer if the site is complicated or the school is not a simple design,” she said.
The School Construction Authority estimates that, under the current capital plan, it would take about 15 years to build 75,000 seats.
“It would take several decades for SCA to construct enough seats to meet the mandate,” Chen said.
 

CLENDENIN, W.Va. — The Kanawha County school system has paused construction on the new Clendenin Elementary School after pyritic sulfur was found in the soil.
KCS Superintendent Tom Williams said the county’s clerk of the works recently noticed significant iron staining in and around the foundation trenches. The soil was tested and pyritic sulfur detected.
According to Williams, pyritic sulfur can potentially be expansive which could compromise the new school’s foundation, some of which has already been poured.
Williams said the soil was tested before construction started but it’s very unusual for pyritic sulfur to be found in sandstone.
“Normally from my understanding (it’s found) in shale and we’re talking about sandstone at the Clendenin site,” Williams said. “It’s not normally tested for in this area because it’s just not down here, especially in sandstone.”
Pyritic sulfur impacted the Ramada Inn in Morgantown a few years ago but that was shale rock, Williams said.
The school system is now looking for experts to help with the next step.
Williams said they are trying to stay upbeat.
“The positive is that it was discovered now rather than later and if it’s going to be an issue we would rather take care of it now before the building is constructed than later,” Williams said.
The school is being built to replace the former Clendenin Elementary that was destroyed in the June 2016 flood. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) approved $27 million in federal funds for the project in June 2020 which was to represent 90% of the total cost. The school is being built at a mountaintop site just off of U.S. Route 119 on Wolverton Mountain Road near Clendenin.