PRESS RELEASE - Hampton, S.C. - State Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman today announced the allocation of $52 million in state funding to Hampton County School District to assist in the renovation and replacement of antiquated existing school facilities with safe, modern facilities to accommodate current and future county enrollment trends. The funding is part of the $140 million under Proviso 1.92 of the General Appropriations Bill for Fiscal Year 2022-2023.

In April of 2022, the SCDE commissioned independent facility studies of schools in the state’s poorest counties to aid in decision making for capital funding appropriated by the General Assembly for disadvantaged schools. Hampton County is composed of ten separate schools and a career and technology center. Current enrollment of the county-wide district is approximately 2,455 students.

The Worcester County Board of Education unanimously approved several capital improvements projects last week, along with a $142.5 million capital improvement plan (CIP) for FY24.

The CIP is a six-year strategic plan that identifies capital improvement needs across the district, while attaching to each project a timeline and a budget.

The district’s CIP includes planning and designing requests for Buckingham Elementary School and a design funding request to replace the roof at Snow Hill Middle School/Cedar Chapel Special School.

The plan does not include any construction funding requests.

The district in January finished work on a new roof at Pocomoke Middle School and is now in the process of constructing a 24,800 square foot addition at Stephen Decatur Middle School.

According to district officials, work is proceeding on time and on budget for a December completion.

New Hanover County Schools is under investigation by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights for allegedly failing to provide adequate facilities at New Hanover High School – but decrepit facilities are a trend across the nation, experts say. 

Originally built in the early 1920s, New Hanover High School over the decades received significant wear and tear with renovations and repairs not keeping pace, one parent alleged in a complaint to the Office for Civil Rights, especially in the wake of a 2014 school bond. The complaint alleged the district was discriminating against Black and Hispanic students because New Hanover has a majority Black and Hispanic student body, while the district's other high schools -- Laney, Hoggard and Ashley -- have majority white student bodies. Hoggard and Laney both received more funding from the 2014 bond to renovate some academic facilities and build new gymnasiums.

AUSTIN (KXAN) — If your child is going to a school in the Austin metro, their campus may be generating power for your home. A new report published by the nonprofit Generation 180 found schools in the Austin metro are using more solar power than all other Texas school districts combined.
Schools in the state are in general lagging behind. About 8,409 K-12 schools in the United States use solar power, either through their own generation or by opting to use solar power through their local utility. Only 139 of those schools are in Texas. Seventy-two of which are in Central Texas.
This is according the 2022 Brighter Future report published by Generation 180 earlier this month. The report, published every two years, tracks the usage of solar power and green initiatives in school districts. Since they began reporting in 2015, the usage of solar has tripled in school districts.
Over the past year, Texas schools generated 12,399kW of solar power. California schools, which topped the list, generated 703,507kW of power.
“We’re finding schools across the country in all settings going solar. schools in rural areas and urban areas, large school districts, small school districts,” said Tish Tablan, the author of the report. “I was surprised to see that nearly half of the public schools with solar in the country are serving low-income students.”
Fifty-two schools in the Austin metro use solar power.
 

WESTFIELD — The Baker-Polito Administration today awarded $24 million in Skills Capital Grants to 14 different high schools. Each school received awards between $1 million and $2.5 million, which will enable the schools to modernize labs and significantly expand student enrollment in programs that provide career education.

Governor Charlie Baker, Lt. Governor Karyn Polito and Education Secretary James Peyser visited Westfield Technical Academy to make the announcement and visit with students exploring advanced manufacturing and culinary arts programs. The high school received more than $1 million to modernize its advanced manufacturing and electrical instructional labs. The school will also launch a Career Technical Initiative program, supported by this funding.

The high schools receiving grants will make strategic investments over the next two years to grow their career education programs to provide more learning opportunities for both traditional high school students and adult learners, with several schools expanding their Career Technical Initiative (CTI) programs to offer more learning opportunities in the late-afternoon and evening. Over the next 5 years, today’s grant awards will directly impact approximately 10,000 students across 38 different programs.

The funding for this round of grants was included in An Act Relative to Immediate Covid-19 Recovery Needs, passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor, which included $100 million in state resources to provide capital improvement grants to vocational high schools and public schools operating career and technical education programs.

Next to a bee yard, a field of horses and a solar farm rests Trinity School, Canyon Creek’s elementary school, located northwest of Helena.
Students from every grade are outside on the playground for a physical education class together surrounded by mountains, hills and quiet Montana charm. 
Jennifer Kueber teaches second and third grade and has 11 students in her classroom. She’s been at Trinity School for 14 years and is now the supervising teacher.
“I was interested in a small school. I had taught multi-age grades before. I started when my daughter started kindergarten (at Trinity School) because I stayed with them when my kids were little,” said Kueber. “...I just like the country feel and you get to have the kids for so many years that you become part of their family. You love them.”
Kueber said Trinity School is the “oldest continually run school” in Montana and has been in operation since 1893. Today, the school is the biggest it has ever been physically and in enrollment size.

The RI Attorney General’s office announced Tuesday that three Rhode Island-based drywall installation contractors have been arraigned in Providence Superior Court on felony and misdemeanor charges following an investigation by the Attorney General and the Department of Labor and Training into allegations that they stole more than $64,000 in wages from 14 workers during the construction and renovation of RISE Prep Mayoral Academy in Woonsocket in 2018 and 2019.
In total, four contractors have been charged with wage theft and related charges stemming from an investigation into alleged wage theft during the construction and renovation of RISE Prep. Earlier this year, an East Providence contractor was charged with stealing over $93,000 in wages from workers employed at the RISE Prep construction site.

Historic heat waves across the United States thwarted the start of the 2022-23 school year, forcing schools to shut down, pivot to remote learning, or dismiss students early in the day.
2022 marked the nation’s third-hottest summer on record, with several states seeing record-breaking temperatures stretch into September. Schools across the country—in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland, Denver, and San Diego, among others—closed due to excessive heat. In Columbus, Ohio, teachers went on strike demanding air conditioning in classrooms.
Experts say all of that is a foreboding harbinger of what’s to come.
As climate change accelerates, temperatures will continue to rise well into the school year, including in regions that aren’t used to hot weather. Many schools don’t have air conditioning units that are equipped to cope with sweltering heat. And a body of research shows that hot classrooms are detrimental to student learning.
“Schools are not prepared for the extreme heat, and we need to change that now,” said Jonathan Klein, the co-founder of UndauntedK-12, a national nonprofit supporting climate action in public schools that tracks school closures due to heat and other extreme weather.
It’s also an equity issue, he said: “Our most vulnerable students are the most vulnerable to extreme heat.”
How does heat affect student learning and well-being? How well are schools prepared for the longer, hotter summers to come? Here’s what you need to know.
 

CEDAR RAPIDS — A community-led “vote yes” committee was “vital” in getting taxpayer approval for a $15.7 million general obligation bond in Anamosa to build a new competition gym for the school district, Anamosa school Superintendent Darren Hanna said.
“You would feel less positive about your project if there weren’t a group of people excited about it and willing to spend time promoting it,” he said.
The bond issue passed with almost 70 percent approval earlier this month.
Cedar Rapids leaders are beginning to express interest in rallying support for a “yes” vote on a $312 million general obligation bond referendum the Cedar Rapids school district plans to put before voters, perhaps in March.
The bonds would pay for a new middle school, a new aquatics center and for renovations and updates to the district’s middle schools and high schools.
School board President David Tominsky said Friday that the submission of Superintendent Noreen Bush’s resignation last week will not affect the Secondary Facilities Master Plan or plans to put the bond issue on the ballot next year.
“All initiatives are moving forward, and community input is being gathered for the board to review at our upcoming Oct. 24 working session,” he said.
Bush, who is on medical leave, is resigning at the end of the school year.
Bonds in Iowa
In Iowa, school bond issues — basically, loans that schools take out, typically for 10, 15 or 20 years — require a supermajority of 60 percent to pass. In passing bond issues, voters agree to repay the loan, with interest, through their property taxes.
 

BEACHWOOD, Ohio -- Beachwood Schools have learned that those who responded to a recent survey on its elementary school properties want to renovate and update Hilltop and Bryden schools, both built in 1956, rather than tear them down, and do not want to consolidate the buildings into one.

On Sept. 12, residents gathered at the Fairmount School/Board of Education building to hear the results of the survey, and three days later at Bryden School, to work in small groups to give input to representatives of ThenDesign Architecture (TDA), the firm that will design what residents prefer, and Project Management Consultants, the company that is overseeing the entire project.

At the Sept. 12 meeting with residents, Clint Van Dine, senior partner of Triad Research Group, went over the results of the predominantly online survey. In all, 564 adult residents answered the survey, which took place from July 27 to Aug. 15. “We had, what I think, is a very good response rate,” Van Dine told those in attendance.

In a sweeping about-face, Oregon’s largest school district on Friday said it will “strive” to increase a key measure of air quality to minimum levels long-trumpeted by a wide swath of experts nationwide.
Portland Public Schools’ announcement comes after an investigation by The Oregonian/OregonLive in May found nearly 500 classrooms with subpar ventilation rates. Experts said those ventilation levels could increase the risk of airborne-disease transmission as well as lower the ability of students to think and learn in classrooms with stale air.
The district’s announcement also comes on the heels of clarified COVID-19 guidance from the Oregon Health Authority, brought about by questions raised by The Oregonian/OregonLive earlier this month. On Thursday, the health authority told school officials it “recommends a range of 3-6 air changes per hour” in classrooms and other “public indoor spaces,” along other strategies to improve air quality.
Air changes measure the number of times a room’s total volume of old, stale air is replaced by fresh air within an hour’s time.
 

APPOMATTOX, Va. (WDBJ) - It’s a project that has been 25 years in the making for Ora McCoy. She’s been working to tell the history of a Rosenwald school building in Appomattox.
“I graduated from Carver-Price High school in 19 and 60, and you know we love our school and we just wanted to preserve it,” said McCoy.
In 1928, Carver-Price High School was built to serve the African American community during segregation. Led by Mrs. Mozelle J. Price, it had three teachers, with elementary and high school students.
“It was a really close-knit school,” said Hattie Gibson.
Hattie Gibson stayed with Mrs. Price, who housed students at her place called Camp Winonah. Gibson was from Nelson County.
“She was a smart woman. And she was a good person,” added Gibson. “She was wonderful to us.”
Gibson was the only graduate in the 1949 class.
“I mean a lot of doors that are open now to girls my age and my color, it wasn’t that way during that time. I mean you had to really work hard,” explained Gibson.
 

Seven Indianapolis Public Schools buildings would shut down at the end of this school year under the district’s proposed reorganization plan, which would make them available to charter school operators for the low cost of $1. 

District officials, however, are betting on their ability to successfully lobby the state legislature to keep those closed buildings. Current state law says such buildings must first be offered up to charter schools or state educational institutions for a $1 sale or annual lease price.

The district’s Rebuilding Stronger plan, which the school board will vote on in November, is a sweeping shake-up of the state’s largest district that attempts to tackle declining enrollment figures, racial inequities, and looming financial instability. 

The potential closure of seven school buildings comes five years after voters approved a referendum to pay for roughly $7 million in safety upgrades and construction for these specific sites and Sidener Academy for the Gifted, which would vacate its current building under the proposed plan. The funding was a portion of an overall $52 million capital referendum, one of two referenda passed in 2018. 

NEW JERSEY, NJ — As part of Gov. Phil Murphy's fiscal year 2023 budget, the state allocated $1.55 billion to advance more than a dozen school construction projects in Schools Development Authority districts through fiscal year 2026, a state government news release said.

Murphy visited the Dayton Avenue Educational Complex in Passaic City last week to cut the ribbon on the $241 million SDA project, highlighting the significant school construction investments in the budget, the release said.

"We are so excited to see a 21st century modernized educational campus in this area, and we are even more excited for the students who will benefit from all that it will have to offer,” Passaic School Superintendent Sandra Montanez-Diodonet said.

The new 448,000-square-foot campus, which broke ground in 2018, will house four schools educating up to 3,000 students from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. Those schools, and respective classrooms and facilities, include:

School district building plans are being negatively impacted by rising construction costs, Kentucky Department of education staff told the Superintendents Advisory Council (SAC) during its Sept. 21 meeting.

Chay Ritter, director of the Division of District Support Services, said district construction costs can grow for various reasons, from supply chain shortages to inflation. Interest rates – which have continued to rise – have put even more financial pressure on districts, he said. If building costs and interest rates increase while a school district is awaiting approval for its capital projects, then those projects sometimes become too expensive to build, Ritter said.

“A lot of people put a lot of their weight into these [capital] projects and they really want these things to happen in a way that’s good for everybody and it’s a school you can be proud of,” Ritter said.

When Menifee County first gathered estimates for a new board office in August 2021, the initial estimates were $2 million to $2.5 million. The May 2022 estimate was $3.5 million. The district has now decided to remove the basement and storage construction from the project to save money.

Nine North Carolina school districts stretching from Hyde County in the east to Cherokee County in the west will share more than $300 million in new state lottery-funded grant awards for school construction, renovation projects, and other capital improvements.

Among the projects to be funded by the grants, aimed at districts in economically distressed counties, are seven new or replacement school buildings, including three high schools, two schools combining middle and high school grades, an intermediate school for upper elementary and middle school grades and a Career and Technical Education Center. Some of these districts receiving the grants were hardest hit by natural disasters like flooding and an earthquake.

Several of the new schools will replace at least two existing schools with combined facilities.

In all, the Department of Public Instruction received 164 grant applications from 72 districts across the state totaling more than $2.4 billon.

President Joe Biden issued a major disaster declaration on Wednesday for Puerto Rico, unlocking additional federal assistance as island residents navigate the aftermath of Hurricane Fiona.

Gov. Pedro Pierluisi had asked the Biden administration on Tuesday for an expedited declaration, two days after Fiona pelted the island with heavy rainfall and knocked out its fragile power grid.
A feud over whether and how to shift Puerto Rico toward wind, solar and other renewable power is one factor in the years of wrangling over the direction of the territory’s energy policies.
The American Red Cross said Wednesday during a news conference with FEMA officials that some residents were benefiting from an initiative that installed solar panels and battery systems at about 150 schools at a cost of $40 million after 2017’s Hurricane Maria. Now, after Fiona, more than 50 of these schools are being used as shelters.

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (WCHS) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have drawn up a new battle plan in the fight against COVID-19 and other infectious diseases in schools.
The new strategy is improving school ventilation following a new CDC survey that shows most schools have not yet upgraded their ventilation systems.
And according to the CDC, there are federal monies available to schools to help with the cost.
Cabell County Schools is getting eight new heating, ventilation and cooling (HVAC) systems and four of them are going into schools currently being built.
From the outside chiller that creates cold air, to the boiler room that provides heat in the winter, to the classroom where the air students breathe, is an important part of the educational process.
When asked what the difference is between a modern system versus an outdated system, the Cabell County Schools' energy manager’s answer was simple.
“For lack of a better word, older systems have stagnant air,” Chip McMillan said. “Students are re-breathing the same air all day long.”
With schools back in session, the CDC is urging schools to upgrade their ventilation systems to help keep COVID-19 in check.
 

WASHINGTON D.C., DC — In the four months since the school massacre in Uvalde, school security has been under a microscope. Now, records obtained by WUSA9 reveal blind spots in DC Public Schools.
Hundreds of school security cameras aren’t working.
Ward 7 School Board Member Eboni-Thompson Rose said that technology is essential to student and teacher safety.
“You both want to make sure any threats outside are deterred from coming in,” Thompson said. “You want to make sure that if something bad does happen, you're able to go back and figure out exactly why it happened, how it happened, and who we need to hold responsible.”
The list of “non-working” CCTV or closed-circuit security cameras show there were 313 broken security cameras spread across the DC Public School System as of Sept. 8. WUSA9 is not naming the individual schools due to safety concerns.
DCPS records show one high school had a staggering 82 security cameras that were not working as the fall semester got underway. An elementary school was listed with 34 non-working cameras. One middle school had 18 broken security cameras. Another high school had 13.
Add it all up, and that’s 60 different DC Public Schools spread across the city that have at least one security camera that’s broken.
“My reaction is why aren’t they fixed,” said Ruth Wattenberg represents Ward 3 on the DC School Board.
 

Kalispell Public Schools will begin extensive long-range facility planning as more of the district’s schools near capacity levels.

The district released a request for qualifications Monday to hire consultants to facilitate the planning process. The goal is to develop a “big picture” master plan that officials can reference for the next 20 years, Superintendent Micah Hill said.

The work will include a facilities review, a demographic study, recommendations and an implementation plan, among other items.

In addition to evaluating facilities in terms of capacity and condition, Hill said the district wants to look at long-term growth from both a city and county perspective, nodding to the surrounding 13 partner school districts whose students eventually attend Flathead and Glacier high schools. “What does that long-range growth look like? And then a demographic study — where are those things happening? What are the growth rates on individual grade levels or age groups?” he said.

The district’s hope is to complete the long-range facility planning process by June 2023.