WASHINGTON (SBG) — As students head back to school for in-person learning this fall, a new national report reveals that schools across the country are in need of serious updates to their infrastructure. It's not just cosmetics: aging school buildings could pose a risk to student health and safety, and some say there's not enough funding to fix it all.
Hundreds of elementary school students will head back to school at one building in southern Virginia. But a class of fifth graders has been relocated to the library for their first day, unable to even enter the classroom they were supposed to call their homeroom.
In that classroom, Inside Your World Investigates discovered damage being repaired by crews in the waning days of summer. The floor had caved in. An aging HVAC unit was pulled from the wall. The ceiling tiles were stained with a leak from the roof. It's not surprising that the room was in need of updates; the school was built in the 1930s.
Less than 20 miles away sits the nation's oldest public school building in use today. Bedford County's iconic New London Academy was built in 1795. Stepping inside is like entering a time capsule.
Classrooms still have slate chalkboards and decades-old heating systems. School leaders told us they're proud of maintaining the school after 225 years, and say it's clean and spacious enough for the student body, but improvements can always be made.

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Thousands of students will return to Austin Independent School District classrooms on Tuesday, but many will enter classrooms without fully functioning air conditioning.

District maintenance officials say they are sorting through as many service requests as possible, however, approximately 60 classrooms will be deployed with temporary cooling units. These devices work similarly to residential window fans, pumping hot air outdoors and replacing it with artificial cool air.

“It doesn’t feel overwhelming until this last week before school,” said Zack Pearce, the Austin ISD Director of Project Management. “We want to make sure that all the kids come back to class and they have a nice cool building to come back to.”

Schools all over Aiken County are getting multi-million-dollar makeovers thanks to the penny sales tax and bond referendum that were approved by voters in the past.

The funding for the construction updates comes from the Education Capital Improvements Sales and Use Tax that Aiken County residents voted to approve in November 2014, expected to raise $188 million, and a $90 million bond referendum that was approved in May 2018. 

While many projects have been completed, current projects under construction include Millbrook Elementary School, Belvedere Elementary School, Hammond Hill Elementary School, Aiken Scholars Academy, North Augusta High School and Aiken High School.

“This is an extremely aggressive construction list. Typically, you’re not going to have a school district, especially one of this size, undergoing this many projects at one time,” said Dr. Corey Murphy, the school district’s chief officer of operations and student services.

“Because projects are interrelated, if you have so many on a bond referendum, everything has to come in on budget in order for the next project to go properly. If not you’re going to go over budget, so one thing can throw two or three other projects off.”

GIBSON CITY, Ill. (WCIA) — “We’re just doing the best we can to make a bad situation a little more tolerable,” Jeremy Darnell, Superintendent of Gibson City Schools, said.
That’s exactly what he’s doing, by providing shelter at the Middle School. The middle school opened its doors to people who have lost their home, can’t return to their home, and many other scenarios.
One Champaign woman says she was driving through Route 47, and saw the flooded roads, so she decided to pull over. Now, she’s stuck at the shelter. Her car still submerged in water. The Red Cross brought 75-100 cots. The superintendent says he’s seen about 200 people in and out of the school all day.
“I hope everybody is safe. I hope everybody has a warm bed to sleep in. We got some folks here that don’t have anywhere to go so we’re going to find a solution for them,” Darnell said.
They also provided food and bottled water.
“We are under a boil order currently and the water treatment plant is flooded. Ameren has turned off the water due to safety concerns,” Michelle Celeschi, GIbson City Alderman, said.
 

When Abraham Lincoln School in Garfield reopens in September, students will cram into a building constructed 50 years after the 16th president was assassinated and is showing its age: A sagging roof, water damage from leaks in the mortar, no air- conditioning.

It gets no better in some schools in Paterson, where the local teachers union has reported mold, leaky ceilings and rodents.

But they do have running drinking water, which is more than can be said of at least half the schools in Jersey City.

Those schools are examples among dozens throughout New Jersey’s 31 so-called Schools Development Authority (SDA) districts that will fully reopen this school year in “deplorable conditions,” as the Education Law Center put it in legal filings.

Hot, overcrowded, poorly ventilated classrooms have become a way of life for students and teachers in these districts that have been so down-at-the-heels that the Supreme Court ruled decades ago that the state is responsible for school repairs and replacement so students can get a “thorough and efficient” education.

But the law center contends the Murphy administration and legislative leaders have failed to keep their end of the bargain financially during the COVID-19 pandemic, even after being notified for years of the “urgent need” for repairs at schools to meet health and safety standards. 

PITTSYLVANIA COUNTY, VA – Millions of dollars in COVID-19 relief money are going to local schools.
Replacing heating, ventilation and air conditioning units takes a lot of work.
“It was time for this project to occur and it was on our radar for some time,” said Rockbridge County Schools Director of Operations Randy Walters.
At Central Elementary near Lexington, crews had to shut down a road and bring in construction equipment to replace seven massive rooftop units — the entire system.
“We were spending maintenance money keeping the units going, making sure the air quality was appropriate for schools,” said Walters, who added this project alone cost $1.4 million and could be paid for with federal money. “Without the CARES Act money, it would be up to the School Board and the Board of Supervisors to come up with funding for these projects.”
A U.S. Government Accountability Office report says about 41% of districts need to update or replace heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems in at least half of their schools, representing about 36,000 schools across the country that need HVAC updates. Problems can lead to issues with indoor air quality problems, mold and in some cases, cause schools to temporarily adjust schedules.
n nearly all districts the office visited, security became a top priority. Some districts prioritized security updates over replacing building systems, such as HVAC systems.
But with COVID-19 relief money, schools can spend some of it on those upgrades. American Rescue Plan funds, as well as previous rounds of relief funding, can be used to take immediate action to improve indoor air quality, such as the inspection, testing, maintenance, repair, replacement, and upgrading of projects in school facilities. This can include system upgrades, filtering, purification and other air cleaning fans as well as window and door repair.
“I think these are the original windows when the school was built,” said Kentuck Elementary School Principal Christie Dawson, showing us the outside of the school. “The window units certainly help with the cooling, but the noise level when you’re inside of a classroom. Elementary kids are easily distractible and so that distractibility is there with the noise.”

As Congress moves forward with negotiations on a budget reconciliation bill, NAESP and other national K-12 organizations are strongly urging the inclusion of at least $100 billion in direct grants and $30 billion in bonds for K-12 public school facilities—consistent with the Reopen and Rebuild America’s Schools Act, passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in July 2020. K-12 infrastructure funding was not included in the Senate bipartisan infrastructure legislation, however the reconciliation bill provides Congress with another opportunity to provide robust federal investments in America’s K-12 facilities.

The organizations’ letter draws attention to the decades of underinvestment in K-12 facilities and the resulting alarming health and safety risks posed to students and staff. A 2016 State of Our Schools Report found state and local governments underfund K-12 facilities by $46 billion annually. A GAO study further illuminates the scope of the problem: In about a quarter of all school districts, at least half of their schools needed upgrades or replacements to major building systems, such as heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, plumbing, or windows. The study also found 41 percent of districts need to update or replace HVAC systems in at least half of their schools. A leaking HVAC system or roof can cause water damage, exposing students and staff to mold or asbestos. Robust funding for K-12 facilities would strengthen state and local governments’ capacity to address these pressing health risks, as well as others such as airborne polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

The debate over which Baltimore County schools get replaced or renovated is a $2.5 billion dollar question. That’s how much the county is being told it needs to spend to bring all 175 of the county’s schools up to snuff.

The ongoing political fight over the future of two of the county’s high schools will be front and center.

When Johnny Olszewski was running for county executive, he made a promise. He would build new Towson and Dulaney High Schools.

“We have to stop coming up with excuses as to why we can’t do these big things and do them right now,” Olszewski said during the 2018 campaign.

Both buildings are decades old. Towson is the most overcrowded high school in the county. Dulaney is infamous for its bursting steam pipes and rusty drinking water.

Fast forward to last week. When asked about his Towson and Dulaney promise, Olszewski said, “I remain committed to making sure that every child and every educator has that modern, safe supportive environment.”

Olszewski’s hesitancy to commit now to two new high schools comes down to dollars. A consultant’s report is recommending both Towson and Dulaney be renovated rather than replaced. It lays out its recommendations on how the $2.5 billion in local and state money available over the next 15 years should be spent countywide.

Goodbye, portable classrooms. Goodbye, aging plumbing, air conditioning and roofing systems. 
Myrtle Tate Elementary School will celebrate its 50th birthday this year by welcoming students to a new building. The northeast Las Vegas school — home of the Tigers — has traded its drab, largely windowless building for a sleek, modern upgrade that features plenty of natural light, colorful murals, improved technology and more wiggle room.
The $32 million project left some teachers in tears when they toured the new building last month. After a disrupted year and a half of learning, during which time COVID-19 tore through the school’s surrounding lower-income community, the new building offers a fresh start despite the pandemic still lingering in the background.
“When you look around town, you see the new schools being built in the new subdivisions … and charter schools being built in some of the more affluent areas,” said Sarah Popek, principal of Myrtle Tate Elementary School. “And our students deserve the same opportunities.”
Myrtle Tate is one of five replacement schools opening for the 2021-2022 academic year, all financed as part of the Clark County School District’s 2015 Capital Improvement Program. Two new schools — Hannah Marie Brown Elementary School and Barry and June Gunderson Middle School — are opening this year in southwest Las Vegas and Henderson as well.
The Las Vegas Valley is no stranger to school openings. Decades of growth have meant a steady drumbeat of bonding campaigns, architectural renderings, construction sites, school-naming committees and ribbon-cutting ceremonies before the yellow buses arrive and backpack-toting students pour into the hallways. 
 

Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) recently introduced legislation calling for $1.43 trillion in federal funding to support upgrades to school buildings and green infrastructure while making major investments in teaching and learning. As a former public school principal, counselor and teacher, Bowman understands firsthand the hardships that educators, families and youths have endured this year — and especially the underappreciated but powerful link between sustainable infrastructure and education.
Indeed, educational inequality has long been fueled by the inefficient physical structures of the school building, something the response to covid-19 exposed. While affluent parents donated resources and funding to guarantee that their schools could implement covid-19 mitigation practices — notably mandatory masking and physical distancing — public schools that serve less-affluent, non-White children faced antiquated HVAC systems and windowless classrooms, making it difficult, if not impossible, to implement the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s covid-19 mitigation policies and practices.
Yet, while covid-19 certainly shed new light on health risks associated with substandard school conditions, the roots of the problem are much deeper. The racially biased policies and practices that elected leaders and public school officials that were implemented more than 100 years ago set the stage for underinvestment in public education and the wide variance in school facilities that serve White and non-White youths today.
Beginning in the late 19th century, the reliance on local funding, coupled with desires to maintain racially separate and unequal schools, drove inequitable school funding patterns.
In 1875, for example, Black families demanded that St. Louis officials provide a high school for Black youths. School leaders reluctantly complied and opened the first Black high school in a building previously condemned and closed because officials felt it was unsuitable for White youths. Black families raised concerns about the substandard conditions inside the building as well as the school’s proximity to a local lead factory that generated smoky, polluted air near the school.
School officials refused to listen. Half of the city’s Black children attended this school, exposing them to these toxins. In 1880, school officials allocated $39,330 per White school and $14,600 per Black school. These funding differentials exacerbated educational inequality and generated substandard facilities for non-White schools.
 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Congressman Donald Norcross (D-NJ) and U.S. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) led over 90 members of Congress in urging Congressional leaders to prioritize the inclusion of federal dollars to boost school infrastructure nationwide as part of this once-in-a generation investment in the nation’s critical infrastructure. School districts are facing increased costs, aging school infrastructure and an urgent need for schools to alleviate crowded classrooms and ensure adequate fresh air ventilation to help reduce COVID-19 transmission.

Noting that the crisis with crumbling school infrastructure predates the pandemic and is a threat to the health and well-being of students and teachers and undermines academic achievement, 91 members of Congress penned a joint letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (CA-12) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) urging the inclusion of at least $100 billion in federal funds to boost school construction.

“An investment of at least $100 billion in school facilities will be critical to achieving the full promise of the American Families Plan for our middle and working class communities. Without an upgrade to school facilities, these communities will struggle to implement universal preschool, expand school nutrition programs, achieve climate resiliency, close the digital divide, and recruit and retain educators. Furthermore, failure to adequately invest in school facilities will undermine our march towards racial and economic justice, as these are the communities with the lowest tax bases and fewest resources for capital improvements,” the 91 members of Congress wrote.

Dear Majority Leader Schumer:

As you craft legislation that scales up the federal investment in our nation’s infrastructure, we urge you to include strong and robust funding that will help states and school districts maintain, upgrade, and build new school facilities.

As Senators for the State of California, we represent more than 6.1 million children across approximately 10,378 public schools – both in urban and rural areas. We have visited classrooms and have seen firsthand how reduced investments in our public education system has led to overcrowded classrooms, teacher layoffs, and unacceptable learning environments for our children.

Many of our students are learning in old, outdated, and unhealthy classrooms. The ongoing coronavirus pandemic, in particular, has shown us how important schools are for the health and wellbeing of our students, and their success. It has been reported that many schools are in dire need of improving their ventilation systems in order to mitigate the spread of viruses like COVID-19. However, these are not the only significant repairs that need to be made, as other environmental hazards – such as asbestos and lead—need to be addressed as well, in addition to technological improvements that create classrooms more conducive to learning in the 21st Century.

In 2018, the State of California conducted a needs assessment that found urgent and shovel-ready projects required an estimated $3 billion to move forward. We also continue to hear from local school districts how imperative it is to upgrade schools. For example, the Los Angeles Unified School District – which is the nation’s second-largest district—has identified that it needs $50 billion to address school facilities and technology needs.

Access to an equal and adequate education must include physical conditions that are conducive to learning and do not threaten basic health. This is a critical, longstanding racial justice problem. Congress’s infrastructure deal provides funds for many issues facing our nation, but it fails to address a glaringly urgent matter: national funding for school infrastructure. 

The lack of dedicated federal funding for school capital needs has perilously impacted the education and welfare of our nation’s children, particularly students of color and low-income students, some of whom attend school in unsafe facilities with diminished learning opportunities. When our legislators return from recess and move toward budget reconciliation, they must take serious measures to correct this dire problem before our children endure even more negative consequences.

Over the years, school infrastructure problems have multiplied, especially in school districts that primarily serve Black students. In Baltimore, where about 76 percent of public school enrollment is Black, schools have closed because of unsafe building temperatures, both extreme heat and freezing conditions. In 2016, more than 85 of Detroit’s approximately 100 schools were closed because a teacher-led protest raised concerns about schools with rodents, roaches, mold, holes in walls and ceilings, and an unstable heating system. Two years later, the district was forced to shut off drinking water at its schools — where more than 80 percent of students are Black — when elevated levels of lead or copper were discovered in two-thirds of tested school buildings. And a 2020 report on the nearly all-Black schools in the Mississippi Delta describes buildings with inadequate plumbing, flooded hallways and crumbling walls, floors and ceilings.

The School Board will request that the Leesburg Town Council review potential projects for school facilities that would be paid for from developer proffers collected by the town.

In a meeting of the Finance and Operations Committee on Tuesday, board members discussed a list of projects that will be sent to council for approval. The proposed projects were recommended by school principals throughout the town.

The town’s funding for school improvement was established in 2005, drawing from money paid by developers in proffers as part of a rezoning, to offset the impact of re-zoning on public facilities. The funds can only be used for existing school facilities, but the committee is also looking to see if the funds can be used for new projects, as opposed to only renovating existing facilities.The town’s proffer fund currently stands at $1.7 million.

One project on the list of proposals, a renovation of the Cool Spring Elementary School playground, has already gotten a green light from the town council to use town proffered funds.

It was a startling headline: Nearly half of Maine’s 715 schools lack fire sprinklers, but the state doesn’t know which ones.
This story, from St. John Valley Times and Fiddlehead Focus reporter Hannah Catlin, raised two big questions for us (and hopefully for others, especially state officials). First, how can so many schools — the buildings where Maine children and teachers spend so much time, and where taxpayers already dedicate significant resources — not have these systems in place? Second, and perhaps more puzzling, how does the state not know exactly which schools have them and which schools don’t?
As Catlin outlined in the story, the first question has a fairly straightforward explanation. Maine Department of Education spokesperson Kelli Deveaux said that more than half of Maine’s K-12 schools were built in or before the 1950s. Many of these buildings have not had major upgrades since Maine adopted the National Fire Prevention Association life safety code in the 1990s. New schools have for a few decades been required to have automatic sprinklers, but older schools are grandfathered in and haven’t had to comply with newer standards.
All of that makes sense in terms of explaining how we got here. And we understand that there are always competing education needs and finite resources to address them. But we would think that student, teacher and building safety would be a priority in budget conversations. Plus, we’re talking about an investment that can help prevent all those other education infrastructure investments from going up in smoke — literally.
 

Members of the Hoover school board in Hoover, Ala., met this week to discuss a series of upcoming capital projects totaling $98 million. Expenses over the next seven years are projected to include two new elementary schools, a 10-classroom addition to an existing elementary school, athletic and theater upgrades, 24 new school buses, and other maintenance projects.

These expenses, however, would cost the school system’s reserves more than $50 million by 2028. The board’s chief financial officer, Michele McCay, said this would leave the school system with enough cash to cover three months’ worth of emergency expenses—the bare minimum recommended by the state. However, the school system is already projected to have less than five months’ worth of reserve funds by 2024.

“We’re coming to the point where we have to make some pretty tough decisions,” McCay said. “We need to come up with additional sources of revenue in order to maintain the infrastructure that we have and provide the services that our citizens and our students deserve.”

SOUTH JORDAN, Utah — A material shortage is causing a delay in the completion of construction at Bingham High School in South Jordan. Students will begin the school year with two weeks of online learning until the construction is complete. 
Material shortage impacts Bingham construction 
The Jordan School District said construction at Bingham was supposed to be done by August 16 but has hit a supply chain disruption. The construction project is short of things like sheet metal in addition to pandemic-related labor shortages. 
AUGUST 3, 2021 AT 8:32 PM
Tom Smart, Deseret News
SOUTH JORDAN, Utah — A material shortage is causing a delay in the completion of construction at Bingham High School in South Jordan. Students will begin the school year with two weeks of online learning until the construction is complete. 
Material shortage impacts Bingham construction 
The Jordan School District said construction at Bingham was supposed to be done by August 16 but has hit a supply chain disruption. The construction project is short of things like sheet metal in addition to pandemic-related labor shortages. 

“The renovation project impacts 70% of classrooms upstairs and construction crews are working around the clock to complete the project,” the school said in a statement.
 

PANAMA CITY — The Bay County school board is considering a new annual budget that is $33 million less than this year's because of a drop in hurricane recovery spending.
The tentative budget carries a price tag of $535,029,676, while this year's budget is $568,075,319. Both still are much larger than the 2019-20 fiscal year budget of $449,790,734.
The final approval of the budget for FY 2021-22 will be Sept. 9.
The general fund budget is projected to be $302,215,341, which is down from $332,312,409. Both the total budget and general fund budget have a decrease of a little more than $30 million.
According to Jim Loyed, BDS chief financial officer, there is a similar reason for the decrease of both.
"Big numbers, pretty big difference ... the difference in those two numbers are really just related to hurricane (Michael)," Loyed said. "We had a tremendous amount of influx of funds after the hurricane and now we're spending it back."
 

For more than a decade, Virginia has been wrestling with the issue of outdated and ineffective school facilities without finding a solution.
All the while, we have seen facility conditions worsen, more schools added to the list of disrepair, and the total price tag soar. In 2013, the cost to repair Virginia’s crumbling school infrastructure was estimated at $18 billion.
In the most recent estimate provided by the Virginia Department of Education, that price tag now stands at $25 billion. The cost of inaction to Virginia’s taxpayers on this issue is currently almost $1 billion per year. Unfortunately, high poverty school divisions are disproportionally represented in these numbers.
Operating crumbling schools during normal times is unacceptable. Sending Virginia’s children to crumbling schools during a global pandemic is unconscionable.
As you can imagine, providing appropriate and safe educational experiences for students in the midst of a pandemic has proven to be extremely challenging. Providing those experiences in buildings that were built in the early 1900s has been even more difficult.
Unfortunately, school divisions with a disproportionate share of outdated and crumbling buildings also have a greater share of students who live in poverty and are in communities without the capacity to improve those facilities on their own. Additionally, many of these buildings can be found in rural school divisions.
 

PALMDALE — Four Palmdale School District campuses will get playfield upgrades, shade structures and other work done as part of Phase 4 of the District’s facilities master plan.
Palmdale trustees on July 13 approved an approximately $4.3 million contract with Medallion Contracting Inc. of Palmdale for upgrades to Manzanita, Palm Tree, Tumbleweed and Yucca elementary schools.
Work crews already removed the old bungalows at Palm Tree Elementary. They also rerouted the electrical work underground.
“This is the last group of schools that are getting their fields upgraded,” Palmdale School District Superintendent Raul Maldonado said.
Maldonado added they are excited to not only have fields that are safe but also look good for the students and the community.
The work includes the removal of unnecessary portable classrooms, new asphalt, tracks, play equipment and benches.