Thirty-three school buildings sustained water damage as remnants of hurricane Ida slammed Paterson with heavy rain last week prompting the Board of Education to convene an emergency meeting on Friday to start the academic year remotely.
“We had severe damage to some of our buildings, more so than others,” said superintendent Eileen Shafer on Friday.
Facilities director Neil Mapp said most buildings sustained flooded basements and roof leaks. He said in some cases water came in through drains and bathrooms as the antiquated combined sewer system filled up with stormwater.
Mapp showed images of the damage, including a badly flooded basement.
School officials spent millions of dollars in preparation for in-person school opening in September. Schools in Paterson have been closed since March 2020. It’s not clear how long the district will remain remote.
“We need to leave that date open because we have some severe damage,” said Shafer.
Shafer said the district will remain remote until repairs are made and the schools are ready for students.
“We want the entire district to go remote until we can get some of this damage remediated,” said school board president Kenneth Simmons.
Simmons said more water came into the buildings as the Passaic River crested following the downpour.
 

The bond would pay for upgrades to HVAC units, roofing, lighting, parking lots and sidewalks. It would also provide students with what the district calls "devices at the ready."

"Devices at the ready is an interesting term. It is to make sure that students have the devices they need when they need them," Spickard said. "If students need them at home, we have devices for them at home. If they need them here for certain projects, whether they're publication projects or collaboration projects, that we have the types of devices when students need them and how they need them."

One Saturday afternoon in late May, a few days before the end of his junior year, Harvey Ellington plopped onto his queen-size bed, held up his phone and searched for a signal. The 17-year-old lived in a three-bedroom trailer on an acre lot surrounded by oak trees, too far into the country for broadband, but eventually his cell found the hot spot his high school had lent him for the year. He opened his email and began to type.

“Good evening! Hope all is well! Congratulations on being the new superintendent for the Holmes County Consolidated School District.”

A week and a half earlier, the school board chose Debra Powell, a former high school principal and mayor of East St. Louis, Ill., to lead the rural school district that Ellington attended in the Mississippi Delta. Powell worked as an administrator at Ellington’s school before the pandemic, and she ran track with Jackie Joyner-Kersee when she was a teenager. Maybe, Ellington thought, Powell had what it took to turn the district around.

Ellington’s fingers hovered over his cellphone screen. Soon he would be a high-school senior, and he wanted to sound perfect. He looked around his bedroom, first at the sign that said, “You are worth more than gold,” then at his dresser, where he’d propped a copy of Carter Woodson’s “The Mis-Education of the Negro” underneath a picture of the superintendent’s round-table meeting. Ellington served on the student advisory group his freshman year, and he was president his sophomore year, but the round table no longer existed.

North Carolina has a nearly $13 billion backlog in new school construction and renovations, according to the 2020-21 Facility Needs Survey. 

The backlog represents an increase of more than $4 billion over the $8 billion reported in the Facility Needs Survey five years ago. 

Construction costs for new schools, as well as and additions and renovations to existing ones account for more than half — approximately $6.54 billion — of the costs identified in the 2020-21 survey. 

Critics of state tax cuts have long blamed the state’s growing backlog on North Carolina lawmakers’ decision to redirect the 7.25% of income tax revenues from the Public School Building Capital Fund to fill budget holes during the 2008 Great Recession. In 2013, lawmakers eliminated the corporate tax transfer to the Building Capital Fund to pay for some of the cuts they made to the corporate and personal income tax rates.     

It’s worth noting that North Carolina hasn’t held a state bond referendum for public schools since 1996. The $1.8 billion from that referendum was spent before 2005. 

In small part, enrollment growth has spurred the need for more funding to build schools. State education officials project a modest 2% enrollment increase in public schools over the next 10 years. Growth is projected to be greatest in grades K-8, while enrollment in grade 9-12 is projected to decrease. 

The Rome City School District Board of Education unanimously approved a resolution to affirm the damage to Staley Elementary School, 620 E. Bloomfield St., would cost more than $4.3 million to repair during a special meeting of the board on Thursday. The meeting came just days after the board in an executive session decided to close the Staley Elementary School building permanently rather than spend money to repair the school which has experienced other bouts of flooding during its nearly 60-year history.

The special meeting Thursday was to consider a single resolution regarding Staley: A resolution to consider contingent expense. The resolution referred to a report submitted by the Rome City School District Architect, LaBella Associates, detailing damage to Staley by flood waters resulting from heavy rains on Thursday, Aug. 19, and relatively detailing costs to repair that damage to restore Staley to what Superintendent Peter C. Blake referred to as “pre-flood condition.”

Students in the St. Charles Parish Public School System had been back in the classroom for less than a month while navigating a resurgence in the COVID-19 pandemic when Hurricane Ida blew through the parish, ravaging district facilities. 
Every one of the district's 18 school sites and nine auxiliary buildings saw some sort of damage after the Category 4 storm spent more than six punishing hours stalled over the parish, according to Superintendent Ken Oertling.
The damage ranges from the cosmetic — downed limbs on school grounds — to the catastrophic — roofs, walls and other structures blown away. And even those buildings that seem fine from the outside suffered roof failures that allowed water to soak classrooms, supplies, equipment and other property. 
"This is the most damage our school system has ever faced," Oertling said. 
The wide-spread destruction, coupled with the delay in power restoration in St. Charles Parish, makes it difficult for officials to estimate when students will return to school, according to Oertling.
 

MONTCLAIR, NJ - Multiple schools in Montclair sustained damage after Wednesday night's flooding caused by Hurricane Ida, school officials confirm. 
Flood waters had risen in Montclair above car door handles, in many areas throughout Montclair, causing significant damage to vehicles, property and schools.
Several Montclair school facilities, that were preparing to reopen next week, sustained significant damage. Yet, Superintendent Jonathan Ponds assured families that schools may be prepared to reopen for in-person instruction on September 9.
He added that he has been working "...in close collaboration with Montclair’s emergency team, Mayor Sean Spiller, Town Manager Timothy Stafford, Fire Chief John Herrmann and Deputy Fire Chief Brian Wilde, Police Chief Todd Conforti and Deputy Police Chief Wil Young, and the Township Community Services Department to assess and address all damage in and around our schools."
According to officials, Montclair High School, Hillside Elementary School, Edgemont, DLC and Bradford Elementary School all experienced some damage. 
 

The Hempstead Union Free School District is celebrating the opening of the Rhodes Academy – the district’s first new school building in a decade.
School officials say the new addition should ease overcrowding and eliminate half of the district’s old portable classrooms.
Superintendent Regina Armstrong says 28 out of 56 portables districtwide will be removed because of the grand opening.
Rhodes Academy students will no longer have to walk outside in nasty weather to get to the library, cafeteria or gym since everything is housed under one roof.
“Most of the time you had to walk from the main building out in the elements to get to your classrooms so whether it was raining, it was really cold to get your lunch, it was too much back and forth for our students,” says Hempstead Superintendent Regina Armstrong.
Village Mayor Waylyn Hobbs believes the building is the right environment for students to learn, saying in part, “I think it's just a great way to start off the school year and promote Hempstead school district moving in the right direction.”
Village voters approved a nearly $47 million bond to rebuild the school in 2018.
The state-of-the-art building has three floors, colorful classrooms and plenty of space for students to learn and grow.
Bria Motley, 9, is excited to start the fifth grade in the new building.
“Big cafeteria, big gym, there's an art classroom, it's pretty big,” says Bria.

The Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District is asking for federal court help in acquiring state funds for the court-ordered replacement of its Murrell Taylor and Bayou Meto elementary schools.
The effect could be the return of the state representatives as an active party in what is now the 38-year-old federal Pulaski County school desegregation lawsuit.
The Jacksonville district is alleging that the state's stand against funding to the levels desired by the district "has exacerbated one of the remaining vestiges of segregation in this case by refusing to partner with JNPSD to remedy the unequal facilities in the District."
The district is seeking court permission to file what is called "a third-party complaint" against the Arkansas education secretary, who is Johnny Key, and the director of the state Division of Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation, who is Tim Cain.
The purpose of the complaint -- if allowed -- would be to have a judge determine whether state officials must "heed this Court's orders and whether these orders should weigh in the balance of whether desegregation is a prudent and resourceful use of state funds."
Scott P. Richardson, an attorney for the Jacksonville district, sent the request for permission and a copy of the proposed complaint against the state to Chief U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr.
 

BELPRE — Belpre City Schools had its first of many community meetings discussing the current state of both school buildings in the district, as well as future plans.
The public meeting was held Wednesday evening at Belpre Elementary School.
Community members sat through a presentation from Fanning Howey’s Executive Director Steve Wilezynski and Educational Consultant Tim Hamilton on one of the potential funding options for renovations or a new school building, such as through the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission (OFCC).
“The school is the community. Our intent tonight and in our subsequent meetings is to just engage with our community and find out what their wants are, what they don’t want,” said Belpre City Schools Superintendent Jeff Greenley. “What their cautions may be so that at the end of the day, we can have a consensus on a facilities plan and we can move forward.”
Established in 1997, the OFCC is a state agency that provides school funding opportunities for Ohio school districts, and participation with OFCC is a district choice.
By using the funds, OFCC is co-owner of the school and the state will co-fund projects based upon a district’s relative wealth in comparison to every other district in Ohio. The least wealthy districts are eligible for the highest amount of state funding.
 

Henry L. Marsh III grew up across the street from the handsome new elementary school in Church Hill that is named in his honor.

Saturday, the man who rose to become Richmond’s first Black mayor, fight for civil rights in courtrooms across Virginia and serve in the state Senate for two decades was on hand to cut the ribbon to formally open the $42 million building that will educate potential future leaders beginning next Wednesday, Sept. 8.

Now 87, Mr. Marsh did not speak at Saturday’s ceremony, but his daughter, former School Board member Nadine Marsh-Carter, noted in her remarks that her father came from humble beginnings as the son of a waiter and that this new school building can teach students that “humble beginnings” are no barrier to future success.

Speaking to the gathering of about 45 people and those watching via a Facebook broadcast of the ceremony, Principal Kimberly Cook said she hoped Mr. Marsh’s story will serve to inspire those who attend to prepare to do great things.

“Naming the school after (Mr. Marsh) gives our students something to strive for,” she said.

FARMINGTON -- Farmington's plan to build onto the junior high school and expand Folsom and Williams elementary schools has jumped in price by more than $3 million, from $9.5 million to $12.96 million, according to Tyson Reimer, senior project manager with Kinco Constructors.
Reimer gave the news to Farmington School Board at its Aug. 23 meeting.
With 30% of the design plans finished, the firm estimates the junior high addition will cost $9.5 million; the Williams' expansion, $1.7 million; and Folsom's expansion, $1.74 million.
The district plans to add to the junior high school in two locations: a two-story building at the location of the former old high school gym and a second addition at the site of the old "H" Hall.
The district also plans to add six classrooms and bathrooms to Folsom and Williams.
Reimer said Kinco and Hight Jackson Associates, architects for the projects, are looking for ways to reduce the cost by $800,000 to $1 million, at the request of Superintendent Jon Laffoon.
Reimer told board members the construction industry has seen costs increase by 25-30% over the past six months to one year.
"That's what we're seeing today," Reimer said, based on the estimated budget for the Farmington projects a year ago.
 

It's week one of in-person learning for most DCPS students, including Peter Krupa's son.
"He loves it, he's really having a great time, he's really happy to get back," Krupa said.
While students try to get back into the swing of things, some DCPS parents say some schools don't have everything they need to address concerns over COVID-19, including an adequate supply of PPE and HEPA filters.
"The teachers are saying they're missing some basic PPE stuff, or they don't have enough of it," Krupa said.
HEPA filters are used to remove dust, bacteria, and other airborne particles from the air.
The Department of General Services, which oversees buildings recently admitted to 7News that temporary spot coolers and or window units were installed, as a "contingency plan for some schools with air conditioning component issues."
"The problem that I'm finding people raise over and over is that the classrooms have HEPA filters, but the spaces that aren't technically classrooms don't, so like it's the counselor's office...the ESL spaces, the speech therapist spaces," Krupa said.
 

HAYS, Kan. (KWCH) - The Hays school district recently completed a facilities inspection in which nine out of 11 buildings received failing marks. Now the district needs to decide what it will do to fix the problems.
At Hays’ Wilson Elementary School, a water leak is just one of the problems the school is dealing with. Wilson Elementary Principal Anita Scheve said the problems can interfere with the school being able to provide all that students need each day.
Scheve said the roof leak started Wednesday morning.
“We have so many repairs that they are impacting us on a more daily basis,” she said.
DLR K-12 Architect Kirby Pennington discussed the facilities inspection and what it revealed.
“The buildings look fine when you drive by, and you see them from the street and you see kids going to school. But when you flip them inside out and show them how they are really performing, it kind of changes your perspective,” Pennington said.
USD 489 Superintendent Ron Wilson hopes for renovations to the district’s buildings.
“Our newest building is over 40 years old. Our oldest building is almost 100 years old,” he said.
 

On Tuesday, 31 schools in Baltimore Schools dismissed students early due to a lack of proper air conditioning.

The governor made the announcement at today’s meeting of the Board of Public Works:

“I know we are all pleased to see students returning to in-person instruction in every school system across the state. Unfortunately, this week, schools all over Baltimore City, including 31 just yesterday, had to dismiss students early due to the lack of proper air conditioning.

“It’s unbelievable to me that this is still happening after the Comptroller and I have worked together for the last six years to push to get every school air conditioned, and to provide record funding for every school to be air conditioned, and our nonstop efforts to hold schools accountable.

“We were successful in requiring Baltimore City to reluctantly create a plan to finally bring air conditioning to all their schools, even against fierce opposition from legislative leaders. But in spite of them putting plans together, the work was not actually completed.

“We established a Healthy Schools Facilities Fund to provide additional state-funded grants to public schools specifically to make urgently needed emergency air conditioning and heating upgrades. Baltimore City returned the money to the state after failing to spend it on the improvements.

After seven years of research, discussion, design and community meetings, Swampscott’s proposed district-wide elementary school will be put to a Special Town Meeting vote on Monday, Sept. 13. If approved there by a two-thirds majority, town voters will get the final say on the project in a special election in October.
The K-4 school, which will consolidate the town’s three elementary schools, is estimated to cost $98 million. The Massachusetts School Building Authority approved $34.3 million in grant funding, bringing the town’s share down to $64 million. Town Meeting will vote on whether to raise property taxes via a debt exclusion override to cover that expense.
“This is the best financial choice for the town to ensure a modern, safe, and educationally appropriate school for all our elementary students,” said Sierra Munoz, who lives on Fuller Avenue and co-chairs the Swampscott Says Yes committee.  “A ‘no’ vote would cost the town $34 million in state funding and leave us with no plan to address our aging schools.”
The new school would be built at the site of the current Stanley School.
Meanwhile, not everyone in town supports the project.
 

Students at Northampton and South Hadley Public Schools will be postponing their school year, but not because of COVID-19.

At Northampton Public Schools, an air quality issue was discovered when the District was trying to implement COVID-19 safety measures. Just before the 2021 school year begins, a new obstacle has arisen… mold. Northampton Public Schools discovered the hazard in a theater and classrooms in the high school and middle school.

“Essentially a result of our efforts to increase air flow for COVID purposes, so we’re running the ventilators in the building at the damper a hundred percent open and when the weather is like this, it means we’re bringing in very humid air.” Dr. John A. Provost, Superintendent, Northampton Public Schools

CHATHAM, Va. — From ramshackle classrooms to outside safety concerns, Pittsylvania County Schools (PCS) administrators are pleading with the public to approve a 1 percent sales tax referendum for capital improvement needs in the division, which will be a question on November's ballot.

"It's a fine line we have to walk between it being a bad situation and parents feeling like they're able to send their kids to us," said Kentuck Elementary School Principal Christie Dawson. Dawson showed the Star-Tribune around the elementary school's campus, which consists of more than a half-dozen disconnected buildings. The gym, a pair of basement classrooms and numerous mobile classrooms are all inaccessible from the main school, which was constructed in 1963.

"It's very disjointed, which bothers me greatly," Dawson said. "Children in 2021 should not still be learning in trailers."

Kentuck Elementary is an exemplar of problems plaguing PCS, said Division Superintendent Dr. Mark Jones. The only way to solve the problem is to approve the tax referendum this fall.

"The first thing I see is that the referendum is written for 30 years," Jones told the newspaper. "It would be effective through 2051, and for a division as large as we are in a county as large as we are – we have 18 regular schools and three special schools – over that 30-year span, we are going to have many different capital needs."

PCS is in need of $65 million for capital improvements, $47 million of which it asks to derive from sales tax, if the referendum passes.

North Carolina’s public school districts say they need $12.8 billion over the next five years to build, improve or repair their facilities — nearly $5 billion more than districts reported needing just five years ago.
It’s also far more than the state provides for school construction and far more than the amount schools raise locally for school construction. In the last five years, the state has provided $838 million in capital funds, generated primarily through the Education Lottery. Also in the last five years, 17 counties have passed local bond referenda for school capital needs, totaling nearly $3.4 billion in debt locally.
What those funds will pay for isn’t included in the survey’s reported $12.8 billion in needs.
“Had that money not been there, it would have been $17 billion in needs,” State Board of Education Vice Chairman Alan Duncan noted, during a presentation of the report Tuesday.
By state law, North Carolina’s counties are responsible for paying for physical school infrastructure.
EDUCATION
NC school districts report billions more in facility needs than ever before
Tags: education, North Carolina Board of Education, school construction
Posted August 31, 2021 6:27 p.m. EDT
Updated September 1, 2021 7:12 p.m. EDT
pandemic classroom, classroom generic
By Emily Walkenhorst, WRAL education reporter
RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina’s public school districts say they need $12.8 billion over the next five years to build, improve or repair their facilities — nearly $5 billion more than districts reported needing just five years ago.
It’s also far more than the state provides for school construction and far more than the amount schools raise locally for school construction. In the last five years, the state has provided $838 million in capital funds, generated primarily through the Education Lottery. Also in the last five years, 17 counties have passed local bond referenda for school capital needs, totaling nearly $3.4 billion in debt locally.
What those funds will pay for isn’t included in the survey’s reported $12.8 billion in needs.
“Had that money not been there, it would have been $17 billion in needs,” State Board of Education Vice Chairman Alan Duncan noted, during a presentation of the report Tuesday.
By state law, North Carolina’s counties are responsible for paying for physical school infrastructure.
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The 2020 Facility Needs Survey was presented to the North Carolina State Board of Education on Wednesday.
Educators say facility needs can take time and attention away from teaching and learning, creating further problems.
Compiled this year based on estimations from 2020, the report doesn’t break down whether needs from the last survey were carried over into the new survey, if not addressed during the last five years. Districts were asked not to include cost estimate for any projects already underway.
The jump in reported needs this time far exceeds the amounts reported this century, when total school facility needs ranged in five-year surveys between $6 billion and $10 billion.

Although it’s not an election year, local voters may be asked to go to the polls this November to consider what would be the largest bond issue for school construction in the history of the Harwood Union School District.
At last week’s meeting of the Harwood Unified Union School District School Board, architects presented a breakdown of proposed construction for Harwood Union High School totaling $53 million. An expansion to Crossett Brook Middle School to accommodate merging all seventh- and eighth-graders into that facility would add another $6 million.
The construction total for the proposal would come to $59.5 million.
For the past six years, district leaders have been discussing a major bond to address overdue repairs, renovations and upgrades to the high school which was built in 1965. The school’s last expansion with some repairs was in 1998.
Work on the drawing board presented by the Burlington architectural firm Truex Cullins would address needed repairs such as replacing the roof and antiquated HVAC and plumbing systems. It would expand science labs that do not meet modern standards. Windows with meager insulation — some still originals from the 1960s — would be replaced and a key goal would be to reconstruct some interior areas of the building to add windows and light to current classrooms and workspaces that receive no natural light.