Fixing Philadelphia’s crumbling — and dangerous — public school buildings has been a big item on City Council’s collective to-do list for years. But without a clear source of funding and a system for tackling the $5 billion problem, plans have languished.
That could change if Councilmember Maria Quiñones-Sánchez gets her way with a piece of legislation she plans to introduce legislation on Thursday, the first day the council returns to session from their winter break. The bill would create a working group to investigate the possibility of a new school board building authority modeled after organizations created in New York City and other U.S. cities with underfunded school systems.
Quiñones-Sánchez said the authority would work to figure out the district’s building challenges in both the long and short term while giving the incoming superintendent the ability to “focus on education and academics for the district.”
The new authority would help school officials “get the millions we have budgeted for the school district on the ground and work done,” Quiñones-Sánchez said.
At this point, the district has more than five dozen of its schools under construction and billions of dollars of work in the planning phases as officials focus on remediating lead, asbestos, and other hazards that have long persisted within public school buildings.
 

Although not the $90 million initially sought, a split Middletown Town Council votes Tuesday night for the School Building Committee to see what $60 million can get for each of the schools. The matter still hasn’t been okayed for an Election Day bond, however.
The Town of Middletown issued the following press release on the decision;
The Town Council wants to see what $60 million would get for improvements to the school buildings. 
During a meeting Tuesday night in Town Hall, a split council backed off $90 million plans to upgrade each of schools championed by the School Building Committee, saying the cost was too much without enough specifics when there are many other needs facing the community.
Instead, a split council voted on the $60 million compromise, which allows the School Building Committee to continue its drive to get a school improvement bond before voters in November while taking advantage of state reimbursement money. 
Before the revised application goes to the next step of Phase II to the state Department of Education, it would need to go before the council again for review and approval.
 

SANDY, Utah (KUTV) — At the Canyons School District, the high cost of steel and labor shortages because of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 are either delaying the construction of new schools, or busting the budget.
The district has three schools under construction. One of them, Glacier Hills Elementary in Sandy, has suddenly become $550,000 more expensive because the cost of steel has gone up during construction.
Leon Wilcox, business administrator for the school district, told the school board that the extra cost is covered by the contingency fund set aside for unexpected expenses during the project.
He said other supplies, like school furniture, has gone up in price, too.
Two other schools under construction, Peruvian Park Elementary and Union Middle School, are also impacted by delays in getting materials or by the labor shortage.
Peruvian Park, which was originally set to open in August for the first day of school in the fall of 2022, will now open at the end of September.
Kids who’ve been taking the bus to a middle school where classes are held in the interim will have to start next school year at the interim location, then move to the new school about six weeks later.
 

A proposal to allow all local governments to impose a sales tax to pay for school construction or renovation sped out of a key Senate committee on Wednesday, as a new General Assembly and governor prepare to grapple with an old problem of crumbling school buildings.
The Senate Finance & Appropriations Committee voted 14-2 to advance Senate Bill 472, proposed by Sen. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, to give localities another way to pay for school construction or renovations they otherwise cannot afford.
The option of imposing a 1% sales tax, subject to voter approval, is one of more than a half-dozen recommendations from a commission that McClellan led to address the challenge of repairing or replacing old public school buildings, with more than half of them more than 50 years old.
Other proposed options include the creation of a fund to make grants to localities that cannot afford to repay loans, as well as changes to the state Literary Fund to make more money available to lend to school divisions and their local governing bodies. Former Gov. Ralph Northam included $500 million in his proposed two-year budget to help pay for school modernization.
“We wanted to have multiple tools in the tool kit,” McClellan said. “For some localities, the sales tax will be the solution.”
 

SHERIDAN — Sheridan County School District 1 officials approved a 10-year facilities plan Tuesday evening — looking ahead to regular repairs and enhancements to accommodate population growth and community interests.

SCSD1 Business Manager Jeremy Smith noted the 10-year plan is not required by the state but allows the school board to begin looking ahead at major maintenance and issues facing the district.

The state allocates funding to school districts for facilities based on a formula that includes population, and Smith said SCSD1 can expect to receive about $8.6 million in facilities funding over the 10-year period.

School districts that have relied on emergency aid to recover from floods, fires, and storms are more likely to serve large shares of students of color, economically disadvantaged children, and other vulnerable groups, new federal research says.
While that disaster aid proved very beneficial to many communities, K-12 officials also reported a variety of significant disruptions to students’ mental health, school infrastructure, and other problems stemming from destabilized housing environments and parental job loss, a Government Accountability Office report found. These leaders also told the GAO that federal assistance sometimes fell short of meeting schools’ long-term needs, leading to delays and other problems for recovery efforts.
In recent years, more than half the districts receiving certain disaster relief served disproportionately large shares of at least two groups of vulnerable students, like English-language learners and children from low-income backgrounds.
“School districts serving high proportions of children in these groups may need more recovery assistance compared to districts with less-vulnerable student populations,” said the GAO report, which was published Tuesday.
During interviews with officials overseeing districts affected by disasters, the GAO also found that bureaucratic, financial, and other hardships made it more difficult for less-affluent districts to repair buildings. And in contrast to their wealthier counterparts that were also affected by natural disasters, such districts reported prolonged academic declines among disadvantaged students.
The GAO study looked at districts getting assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Public Assistance program and the U.S. Department of Education’s Immediate Aid to Restart School Operations (Restart) programs from 2017 to 2019.
In all, 840 districts received the Education Department grant assistance, FEMA assistance, or both during the period studied. These districts educate roughly 18 percent of public school students in the U.S., and constitute 4.5 percent of all districts.
 

School districts that have relied on emergency aid to recover from floods, fires, and storms are more likely to serve large shares of students of color, economically disadvantaged children, and other vulnerable groups, new federal research says.
While that disaster aid proved very beneficial to many communities, K-12 officials also reported a variety of significant disruptions to students’ mental health, school infrastructure, and other problems stemming from destabilized housing environments and parental job loss, a Government Accountability Office report found. These leaders also told the GAO that federal assistance sometimes fell short of meeting schools’ long-term needs, leading to delays and other problems for recovery efforts.
In recent years, more than half the districts receiving certain disaster relief served disproportionately large shares of at least two groups of vulnerable students, like English-language learners and children from low-income backgrounds.
“School districts serving high proportions of children in these groups may need more recovery assistance compared to districts with less-vulnerable student populations,” said the GAO report, which was published Tuesday.
During interviews with officials overseeing districts affected by disasters, the GAO also found that bureaucratic, financial, and other hardships made it more difficult for less-affluent districts to repair buildings. And in contrast to their wealthier counterparts that were also affected by natural disasters, such districts reported prolonged academic declines among disadvantaged students.
The GAO study looked at districts getting assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Public Assistance program and the U.S. Department of Education’s Immediate Aid to Restart School Operations (Restart) programs from 2017 to 2019.
In all, 840 districts received the Education Department grant assistance, FEMA assistance, or both during the period studied. These districts educate roughly 18 percent of public school students in the U.S., and constitute 4.5 percent of all districts.
 

SAVANNAH, Ga (WSAV) — Tuesday was the first day of school in a new building for some Savannah-Chatham County Public School students.
New Hampstead K-8 was built with the goal of alleviating overcrowding at other schools, namely Godley Station K-8. Crews broke ground on the new school in the fall of 2019 with the intention of opening for the start of the 2021-2022 school year.
School leaders say weather and pandemic-related issues, including supply chain disruptions, interfered with construction.
“COVID did have some effect on the construction workers,” said Troy Brown, the district’s senior officer of K-8 leadership. “Some of them were out sick or either being isolated or quarantined because of that so that delayed some of the process, we didn’t have enough workers to do the construction.”
The new school is home to 93 classrooms, all equipped with interactive whiteboards and audio enhancement systems. The nearly 150,000 square foot building carries a $42.5 million price tag. It was funded by ESPLOST, a penny sales tax that supports Savannah-Chatham Public Schools.
New Hampstead K-8 sits behind New Hamstead High, connected by a walking path with the goal of creating a campus-like feel.
 

The school has been under repair for the past 141 days - since Hurricane Ida ripped through Southeast Louisiana and caused Destrehan High’s roof to collapse among other things.

“Damage-wise just in this building is astronomical because we lost the whole commons (area), library and administration offices,” Destrehan High Principal Jason Madere said.

School leaders say construction crews worked around the clock, despite supply issues and costs, to get the campus back in shape. However, the school isn’t back to 100%, with some lingering projects that still need to be tended to with no set timetable or price tag yet.

“That’s a whole process that has to go through a bidding process,” Madere said. “That’s why we actually have temporary portables on campus right now to house our administrative team. The library has a new location to keep the library going. We’ve made adjustments. We are happy to be back.”

Returning to campus was something teachers, faculty and students like senior class president Kailie Carrige were anticipating since the storm passed.

“We’re just thrilled to be back on our own campus, on our own stomping grounds after the storm,” Carrige said. “Coming back (after Hurricane Ida) and seeing the community in shambles, it was really heartbreaking. But St. Charles Parish is strong. We’re unlike any other parish in Louisiana. I knew we would be ok rebuilding.”

Shady Grove Elementary in East Memphis and Alton Elementary in South Memphis are poised to close at the end of this school year. Maxine Smith STEAM Academy and Northwest Prep Academy are poised to get new addresses, sharing buildings space with existing district schools in the fall. 

Shelby County Schools will bring the recommendations to the board at the end of the month, along with the recommendations for the two school building mergers, plus recommendations for a school expansion and a new school program. The changes are up to a board vote.

Each of the suggestions was first announced in April as part of the district's new "Reimagine 901" plan proposing school building changes and academic initiatives. Delayed by the pandemic, the plan for the district's facilities and academic strategy makes use of federal stimulus dollars. Proposed new schools in the plan will also rely on capital funds from the county.

The marketing classroom at Erie High School once felt like a furnace.
"We used to die in here it was so hot," 18-year-old Lawton Ortiz said.
On Thursday, the new heating and cooling system in the classroom allowed Ortiz to work comfortably.
The temperature was at 67 degrees Fahrenheit, rather than 85 or 90 F. And new flooring and other changes made the space brighter and more welcoming.
The upgrades are part of the ongoing multimillion-dollar construction projects at Erie High and other Erie School District buildings — projects whose progress might be overlooked as the school district is focused on getting through the pandemic.
At Erie High, the first phase of the renovations, with a latest estimated cost at $26 million, is on schedule to be done by the end of the coming summer, said Neal Brokman, who is overseeing the construction projects as the Erie School District's executive director of operations.
Massive project:Erie School District to renovate Erie High as part of 'warm, safe and dry' building plan
 

PARKERSBURG — Three Wood County schools have earned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star certification for superior energy performance, officials announced this week.
Parkersburg and Parkersburg South high schools and Jackson Middle School have received the Energy Star designation for 2021, outperforming similar U.S. buildings on measures of energy efficiency, Energy Star representatives said.
“Wood County Schools is proud of the improvements made in our facilities and thrilled to have three of our schools nationally recognized for energy efficiency,” Wood County Schools Superintendent Will Hosaflook said. “Wood County Schools teamed with CMTA Energy Solutions beginning in 2020 to evaluate and improve energy performance in all of our schools. By March 2021, the energy plan had already resulted in more than half a million dollars in savings for Wood County Schools. The Energy Star designations announced this week show those improvements are continuing and have a direct impact on our energy usage and cost.”
 

There were so many fans blowing in Riverbend Elementary School on Thursday morning that it sounded like a jet was taking off inside.

Two pipes — one in the commons area where kids eat meals, another in the nurse’s office — burst during a cold snap and flooded most of the school.  

The weekend weather was bad, and no one was in the school when the pipes burst, so they don’t know for how long it was filling with water. On the day Riverbend was supposed to open to students, the school custodian showed up early to shovel snow and found the mess. 

He said custodial staff and maintenance crew shut off the water and the electricity first. About a dozen of them have been rushing to clean and dry the school out ever since.  

“Its been crazy. It’s been crazy, crazy,” said Lead Maintenance Technician Mark Ibias. Asked if he’s slept, he jokes, “What’s that word?”

The inspection team looked at the floors, the furniture — they talked about the wet concrete under the carpet in the library. 

“Mainly the mold,” Ibias said. “I mean, anytime that you have moisture, you’re going to get some kind of bacteria,” he said. 

Idaho has an historic $1.6 billion revenue surplus, much of which can and should be used to finally satisfy the Legislature’s constitutional duty to provide adequate funding for Idaho’s public school system. Article IX, Section 1 of the Idaho Constitution commands that “it shall be the duty of the legislature of Idaho, to establish and maintain a general, uniform, and thorough system of public, free common schools.” This is one of the most important responsibilities of the State.
The Idaho Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that these are not idle words. Rather, the Legislature must provide sufficient funding to properly operate our public school system. There can be no argument that the Legislature has failed to carry out this solemn obligation for many years. The issue was considered by the Supreme Court in a long-running case, titled Idaho Schools for Equal Educational Opportunity v. State, often referred to as the ISEEO case. The case was filed in 1990 and came before the Court on five occasions, producing five decisions.
In its second decision in 1996, the Court suspected that the State was not adequately funding the instructional side of the education system and sent the case back to the trial court for further consideration of that issue. The Legislature did increase school funding for a while but that did not last long.
In the third round of the litigation, the focus became the proper meaning of a “thorough system” of public schools. The Supreme Court ruled in 1998 that “a safe environment conducive to learning is inherently part of a thorough system of public, free common schools.” The Court said that further litigation was necessary to decide whether school facilities—buildings and fixtures—were being adequately financed by the State. The case was sent back to the trial court to find whether dilapidated school facilities were harming the work of educating our kids.
 

Underserved school districts in Rhode Island will be seeing an influx of funding under the Facility Equity Initiative, Gov. Dan McKee said.
The governor announced in a news release that in working with the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) and with the Office of Energy Resources (OER) and the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Opportunity (ODEO), the organizations will work to ensure communities receive an equitable share of $20 million from the 2018 school construction bond in underserved areas.
“This new funding is an important step forward in providing every child in Rhode Island with a modern school facility where they can get an excellent education,” McKee said in the release. “For too long, our funding structures have left our most at-need cities and towns behind, but my administration is working tirelessly to change that. We can give every student in Rhode Island the world-class schools they deserve.”
The Facility Equity initiative, according to the release, is designed to provide funding to five districts that have the highest reimbursement rates. The initiative, which was first announced in October 2021, is a pilot program designed to direct funding to districts that need it most.
Central Falls, Woonsocket, Pawtucket, Providence, and West Warwick school districts will receive a little more than $13 million in funding that will benefit 11,000 students. Funding will be used to construct new science labs, media centers, and community rooms, the release says.
 

Schools in the Mat-Su suffered significant damage from the New Year’s windstorm and associated power outages.

All schools in the Matanuska-Susitna District are back in session this week following the multi-day windstorm that ripped through the area last week. But according to Superintendent Dr. Randy Trani, multiple schools in the lower valley incurred major damage — mostly in the form of broken windows, frozen pipes and damaged roofs.

Trani says fire suppression systems were also hit hard, and some schools experienced significant flooding. To help with the extensive repairs, the borough even went outside the school system for help.

“Our facilities folks have been, and still are, working around the clock. Over the weekend we employed twelve plumbers to try to get things up and running. We have one plumber on staff, so a twelve-fold increase,” he said. “There is a lot of damage in a lot of different places.”

Senators Katie Fry Hester and Guy Guzzone and Delegate Courtney Watson have pre-filed Senate Bill 40 and House Bill 68 to expand eligibility for State funds established by the Built to Learn Act.

Currently, systemic school construction projects — like repairing, replacement, or upgrading facility systems, such as HVAC unites, are only eligible for funding under the Built to Learn Act if the projects total at least $4 million in cost. This minimum requirement was largely an arbitrary decision made during the the legislative process, but has proved to be one that a lot of smaller systemic projects will not meet, therefore disqualifying them from the funding.

DULUTH — During the past three years, a group of Ordean East Middle School students have been researching, learning and lobbying the Minnesota Legislature. Their passion is solar power.

The club started when some of the founding members entered into an international video competition through Climate Smart Municipalities . They worked with students from Germany to make videos about solar power and how it would apply to their schools. This led to the group of girls starting the Duluth Climate Club in hopes of reducing the carbon footprint of Duluth Public Schools.

“Once we decided we wanted to work on solar panels, we made this whole presentation,” said Leila Hoeschen Ehrbright, a freshman at East High School. “We did a bunch of research and talked to people and really dug deep about what it would look like to get solar for our school.”

SARCOXIE, Mo. — Installation will begin this spring on the largest solar project at a school district in Missouri.

A Springfield company, Solera Energy, is preparing to install an 911-kilowatt array on the roofs of school buildings in Sarcoxie. It will include 2,025 solar panels on the Wildwood Elementary and the high school and junior high buildings.

Work is expected to begin in March on a project that officials say could save the district more than $130,000 a year on its electric bill.

Sarcoxie Superintendent Phil Lewis said the project won’t cost the district any money upfront, and he estimates it could save $4 million over the 30-year lifetime of the contract with Solera.

“They have investors that back this whole project up,” Lewis said. “Basically we will … pay a fixed amount every month to Solera for the energy we produce from the solar panels.

“We’ll have a fixed 1.75% increase each year, and that’s almost unheard of when it comes to rate increases.”

Lewis said Solera approached the school district at the suggestion of a couple of the company’s employees who live in Sarcoxie and have students in Wildwood Elementary. Those installers approached Wildwood Principal Dusty Feather, who then came to Lewis and suggested the administration and the school board look into solar power.

PATERSON — School district officials say they are unsure exactly when they will reopen 16 classrooms at School 5 that have been closed and undergoing repairs after being flooded during a nor'easter late last October.

The damaged classrooms were on the building’s second and third floors, and the flooding stemmed from leaks in the school's roof and facade that have been a problem for more than a decade, officials said.

About 290 students at School 5, or 40% of its enrollment, have been getting remote learning since Nov. 1, according to officials.

The nor’easter hit Paterson last fall at a time when contractors hired by the New Jersey Schools Development Authority were working on an $8 million renovation project at School 5, including the installation of new roofing.