HARRISBURG − February 7, 2022 – Senator Tim Kearney (D – Delaware/Chester), a member of the Senate Education Committee and newly-appointed Vice Chair of Appropriations, recently announced plans to restart the Planning and Construction Workbook Program, —A.K.A. PlanCon— the state’s program for funding public school building construction and renovation, by finally appropriating funding to allow the Department of Education to accept new applications from school districts.

“After nearly 10 years without any state funding for our public school buildings, it is time for the legislature to do its job and address the Commonwealth’s school facilities crisis,” said Kearney. “Suburban, rural, and urban districts are all suffering from different challenges of aging infrastructure, from overcrowded classrooms to holes in the roofs, from broken heated systems to exposed and crumbling asbestos, every school district has unattended facilities issues while they work to address the other crises imposed on our education system.”

PlanCon allows school districts to apply for partial reimbursement for planning and construction costs approved by the PA Department of Education. Recently, the General Assembly passed Act 70 of 2019 to greatly simplify the application process and to create the Maintenance Program to cover critical system repairs and maintenance to existing school facilities, formerly ineligible costs. However, the legislature has not funded PlanCon since 2016 and placed a moratorium on new applications.

A school district in Washington state has offered an extraordinary $34 million settlement to students and parents exposed to toxic chemicals that lingered for at least eight years on a public school campus.
The Monroe School District, northeast of Seattle, proposed the striking settlement in November under court seal, preventing the public from seeing the offer. However, the $34 million figure appears in a separate court document obtained last week by The Seattle Times.
In publicly available court documents, the school district did not accept responsibility for hazardous conditions on the Sky Valley Education Center campus, detailed in a recent Times investigation. Instead, the district defended its cleanup efforts on campus, saying it acted appropriately to remove toxic chemicals and inform parents.
Records show the school district was slow to clear out toxic material from the Monroe campus, even as pressure from parents and staff escalated and dozens reported illnesses. As early as 2014, Monroe School District officials found a mixture of harmful conditions at the school, including poor air ventilation and the presence of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, a banned, synthetic chemical that the Environmental Protection Agency has linked to some cancers and other illnesses.
 

SEATTLE — Seattle voters will decide Tuesday whether they want to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for upgrades to buildings and technology at schools.

Seattle Public Schools said the Prop 2 school district levy on the special election ballot would cover about $144 million of the district's top priority building repair projects, a fraction of the approximately $750 million needed to cover every building in SPS that needs work.

“It's really about reducing the distractions for students and staff,” said Brian Vance, West Seattle High School Principal.

A list of projects Seattle Public Schools provided to KOMO shows $12 million worth of building repair work needed at West Seattle High School, including fixes to the aging windows and doors.

“Single pane and wind blowing through them and those types of things," Vance said. "Be able to have better climate control in our school."

SPS Director of Capital Projects and Planning Richard Best said Seattle’s 105 schools are assessed every six years.

In addition to the building work, a big chunk of the $783 million levy would go toward technology. But some taxpayers have a big problem with the price tag.

The Rockland area school district may be able to tackle a number of building improvements.

The Maine Department of Education determined $5.1 million in projects submitted by Regional School Unit 13 were eligible for the state’s school revolving renovation fund. The district submitted applications for 14 projects.

RSU 13 Business Manager Peter Orne said the beauty of the program is there is no interest charged on the borrowing, and one-third is written off immediately. He said the district would need to repay $3.5 million over 10 years.

The district has $250,000 in annual debt being paid off this year.

The spending will need to go before district voters for their approval. Orne said it would make sense to hold that vote on June 14 when the annual district budget is approved.

Projects would be undertaken at Oceanside High School in Rockland, Oceanside Middle School in Thomaston, Thomaston Grammar School, and South School in Rockland.

OAKLAND (KPIX) — Opposition is growing over the Oakland Unified School District’s plan to close up to 16 schools for budget reasons. On Saturday, a rally at one of the threatened schools expressed outrage and called for the district to shut down.
First established in 1869, Prescott Elementary in West Oakland is the oldest school in the district. On Saturday, parents and staff members held a rally on its playground to try to keep the school from closing after this academic year.
“You can hear in my voice what we’re going through!” said an emotional principal Enomwoyi Booker.
One by one, parents and staff members of the affected schools stepped to the microphone to address the crowd.
“Let’s keep these kids motivated!” said Prescott parent Timothy Conover. “Let’s keep these kids here! We can’t push them out.”
“They just recently came back from a pandemic. They’ve been out for a year,” said Tiffany Casillas, a mother of two young students. “If they merge schools and close schools, it’s just going to make it worse for them to get back on track.”
 

EVERY BOSTON CHILD deserves access to a high-quality education. Despite years of discussion about the need to close achievement and opportunity gaps, this has been an unfulfilled promise to Boston children and their families caught in a system of “haves and have-nots” when it comes to high-quality school options. As a result, our city’s education outcomes have lagged further and further behind, enrollment is historically low, and families are frequently pitted against each other for access to a high-quality education for their child. And while the ongoing pandemic did not create these problems, it has exacerbated them, with profound impacts on student learning and student mental health. 
The way forward to delivering high-quality education does not have to tread in the path of previous mayoral administrations. Past efforts have largely worked around the margins, yet such efforts don’t change the reality that most of Boston’s students — the majority of whom are Black and Latino — do not reliably have access to high-quality schools from pre-K through 12th grade. It’s time for the city to forge a path forward with a more comprehensive approach that centers access to high-quality schools for every child, in every Boston neighborhood.
Our new mayor, herself a mother of BPS students, has stated her willingness to confront Boston’s “culture of no” in pursuit of transformative changes, both big and small. With education as a top-three priority among Boston’s voters in this last election cycle, the impetus for such changes within the city’s education landscape is both urgent and overdue. To that end, this new administration can seize upon three interconnected policy pathways that would signal to all Bostonians that our city values the potential of all of its children; further, Boston doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel to make progress, as several cities have engaged in similar efforts with success.
School buildings must be safe and inspiring places to learn. The foundation of school quality – and the most visible signal of our investment in children– is the condition of the physical spaces in which students learn. In Boston, our outdated facilities can neither provide the most basic assurances of health and safety nor meet the demands of present-day instructional practice. Despite the city’s $1 billion, 10-year investment in BuildBPS announced in 2015, there is more disruption than progress to show.
 

LEBANON — Supporters of school modernization plans for Lebanon High School and Hanover Street School hope this will finally be the year the projects get over the hump with voters.

The high school renovation would add a new student center, a large music suite — including a band room and individual practice spaces — and a new fire alarm system, as well as a secure, Americans with Disabilities Act-accessible main entryway and reception area. These upgrades would cost roughly $5.1 million.

The Hanover Street School renovation would add a new cafeteria with a stage that can seat 150 students, four new classrooms and an ADA-accessible nurse’s suite, and will improve existing special services and student support spaces as well as expand the library and media center. A stairwell located near the media center would also be enclosed for student safety. These renovations would cost roughly $9.2 million.

Junior Angelina Truong, a Lebanon High band librarian, said it is important for the community to invest in music programs the same way it does other extracurricular activities.

“The football and basketball team and other sports teams get a lot of new equipment and new gear, but in the past few years, the music and art program have not had as many funds given,” said Truong. “It’s nice to be taken seriously … and to have this space for students where they can practice and be together in a comfortable, open space.”

GREENWICH — Central Middle School was closed effective immediately due to concerns about the building’s structural integrity, the Greenwich school district announced Friday.
Superintendent of Schools Toni Jones and Central Principal Tom Healy sent an email to parents saying the decision was made Friday morning by town building inspectors to close the building “until it is deemed safe for occupancy by the engineering firm who specializes in this type of structural work.”
“We understand it could be unsettling,” the email said. “GPS is in discussions with the reputable engineering firm, and as of noon today, we are optimistic that they will provide a safety clearance in conjunction with making some temporary immediate implementations.”
The entire school district was closed Friday due to bad weather, so there were no students in the building.
 

Parents of students in Batavia Public School District 101 got their first look at the district’s sweeping “Building Our Future Together” master facilities plan at the Feb. 1 community engagement session at Batavia High School.
The session, titled “Where We’ve Been, Where We Are and Where We Are Headed,” centered on a general overview of the district’s facilities and planned improvements.
“The challenges that we face can be categorized into two types; functional and operational,” said Chief Financial Officer Anton Inglese. “Functional in terms of facilities, support, learning and educational programs, and operational in terms of logistics in the way students and teachers and families use those spaces apart from academics, and how we maintain them and how we improve them overtime.”
Part of the plan would involve the replacement of the district’s four oldest elementary school buildings, including H.C. Storm Elementary, according to the district’s master facilities plan website.
“H.C. Storm School was built in 1978,” Inglese said. “Car and bus and pedestrian traffic all intersect in one spot. If you live in that neighborhood or you’re a parent who picks up their child, it’s chaos.”
 

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic Atlanta Public Schools (APS) has lost about 2,000 students, according to data presented to the community during the Facilities Master Plan meeting.

The district began the process of creating the district’s 18-month Facilities Master Plan with a community meeting on January 25. The plan is made to act as a guide for the district to follow when making decisions about APS owned buildings and sites.

The district works with multiple government and private organizations to put the plan together. During the meeting representatives from the Sizemore group presented the data that the district will be using to put together the final Facilities Master Plan.

The majority of the losses are occurring at the elementary school level while high schools and charter schools have seen growth in the last two years.

Projected kindergarten enrollment numbers play a significant role in the district’s longer term planning. In order to get accurate predictions the district’s consultants look at national and local birth rates and trends to look five years ahead.

While the birth rate has been steadily declining, the large drop in enrollment the district experienced last year is not expected to be a long term trend.

When it comes to capacity and enrollment numbers the district also has to consider the steady growth of charter schools is expected to plateau.

In the coming years the majority of growth is expected to come from new housing developments, the majority of growth will be in the Midtown cluster and some in the Jackson cluster. 

Kevin Richert 02/03/2022
We really don’t know what shape our school buildings are in. Or if we’re spending enough on upkeep.

A new and damning state report is a tale of neglect. Because state officials have long treated school construction and maintenance as a local responsibility, they haven’t bothered with basic oversight and process. They’ve gotten careless with 46 million square feet of school buildings, carrying a replacement cost well into the billions of dollars.

And if lawmakers didn’t know the problem they’ve created, they do now. The state’s Office of Performance Evaluations made it all painfully obvious.

Ten senators — the entire Senate Education Committee, and Senate Pro Tem Chuck Winder — came at the issue with a good question. Is Idaho’s tried-and-true method of bankrolling schools with local money becoming obsolete?

“The ability to fund school facilities through bonds may be breaking down,” the senators wrote in a March 5, 2011 letter, requesting an OPE report. “Some communities are growing so fast that they are faced with the challenge of repeatedly going back to the taxpayers for more bonding authority. Other, often rural communities with no or slow growth have very aged school facilities.”

Fair enough. And no neglect of a serious matter here.

Oklahoma recently injected millions of dollars in new funding for hundreds of school districts with under-resourced facilities.
The state distributed $38.5 million in Redbud School Grants for the first time on Friday. Lawmakers created the program last year to put medical marijuana tax dollars toward districts and charter schools that earn below the state average in local taxes that support school buildings. 
“It’s going to be huge for a lot of school districts and finally bring some parity," Rep. Kyle Hilbert said. 
Hilbert, R-Bristow, was an author of Senate Bill 229, the legislation that established the grant program. 
Oklahoma school districts earn an average of $330 per student from local tax sources for their building fund, which supports school facilities. Of the 540 districts and charter schools in the state, 337 fell below the state average in building fund revenue. 
Redbud grants raise those districts' funds to the state average. 
Although some received only a few thousand dollars, the majority of benefiting districts gained tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands in new funding. 
Lawton Public Schools had its building fund nearly double with a $2 million Redbud grant, the largest sum of any district in the state. 
 

Kentucky school districts impacted by the death and devastation of December’s tornadoes can now apply for aid through an application that went live on the Kentucky Department of Education’s website Tuesday.

Through House Bill 5, $30 million has been set aside for impacted school districts, and on Tuesday, state education officials met virtually with school district superintendents to go over the process for requesting and receiving the money.

“From our perspective, things are going really well,” Bowling Green Independent School District Superintendent Gary Fields said during the meeting. “We feel like we’re meeting the needs of families as best as we can.”

As his school district works to return to a new normal, staff are also juggling other efforts, including distributing toys collected through a campaign headed by Kentucky first lady Britainy Beshear.

The Green River Regional Educational Cooperative agreed to distribute the donations for the state, and Fields said there are about 15 pallets worth going to his school district.

BGISD is also working to resettle many Afghan refugees that recently arrived.

“We’ve enrolled about 30 Afghan students in the last week. So that influx is now coming in,” Fields told Education Commissioner Jason Glass.

Two of the three school buildings in Evergreen School District #50 in Kalispell, Montana, have aging air systems that provide poor ventilation and lack air conditioning. The district is setting aside about 75% of its Emergency and Secondary School Emergency Relief III funds for HVAC replacements later this year. 
But even after a year of planning and designing for the upgrades and more than two years to go until the Sept. 30, 2024, ESSER deadline for obligating those funds, the timeline is making Superintendent Laurie Barron nervous. 
In the best-case scenario, the project, which went out to bid this week, would finish before the start of next school year, with construction occurring over the summer to be less disruptive to student learning. 
In the worst-case scenario, the district could fail to receive any acceptable bids, equipment could face shipping delays, and the project experiences a shortage of construction employees. The district would have to return any money not spent by the deadline.
"The money that has been put into schools to support us has been nothing short of what feels miraculous, right?," said Barron, whose 700-student, K-8 district sits about 40 minutes from Glacier National Park. "But with all the stipulations on it, there's that stress and anxiety of will we be able to expend it in the most appropriate and effective ways to benefit staff and students. And so, that's my concern."
 

Warren County Schools officials are optimistic that the expanded North Carolina Needs-Based Public School Capital Fund will help the school system address needs related to aging school buildings.

Superintendent Keith Sutton discussed the expanded program during the Warren County Board of Education’s Jan. 25 work session.

School facility needs have been ongoing topics of discussion for Warren County Schools officials. When an outside company evaluated school system buildings several years ago, the condition of the elementary schools was identified as a major concern because the buildings were constructed between 1957 and 1969. 

The study gave several options in terms of renovations, additions and new construction to address the needs of the district’s elementary, middle and high school buildings. However, the cost of such work has been a barrier in moving any project from plan to reality.

According to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, the North Carolina Needs-Based Public School Capital Fund was established by the North Carolina General Assembly in 2017 for construction of new public school buildings, with funding to come from the North Carolina Education Lottery.

During last week’s school board work session, Sutton reported that the expanded grant fund program now covers additions, repairs and renovations in addition to new buildings. The NC Education Lottery remains the funding source.

Sutton added that $395 million in funding is available for grants in the fiscal year 2021-22 awards system.

The maximum grant that any school district could receive is $30 million for elementary schools, $40 million for middle schools and $50 million for high schools. However, Sutton noted that one district is not likely to receive the maximum amount for all three.

Columbus City Schools could potentially build 19 new schools by 2042.
The district’s Facilities Master Planning Committee recommends that the district build six new high schools, six new middle schools and seven elementary schools, Jim Negron, chair of the Facilities Master Plan Committee, said during Tuesday’s Columbus City Schools Board of Education Meeting.
Each new high school would have over 1,200 students, each new middle school would have over 800 students and each new elementary school would have over 600 students, according to a presentation during the board meeting. 
The location and size of these potential schools were not discussed and no board action was taken. Instead, the Facilities Master Plan Committee presented its recommendations to the board after conducting a six-step master plan from March 2021 to January. 
“This has been an extensive process,” said Dennis Paben, a senior architect with Legat Architects. 
The committee also determined that the district has too many schools for the current student population. Schools that would potentially close or be consolidated were also not discussed at Tuesday’s board meeting. 
 

Few would argue there are higher priorities than protecting children from harm. We agree with the need to provide protection for children, and want to see that protection extended to those who work with children in the places where they spend vast amounts of time: schools.

Our work to identify and eliminate toxic chemicals in schools has been ongoing for decades, but a big push in recent years has been targeting polychlorinated biphenyls, also known as PCBs. While the government banned the manufacture of PCBs in the U.S. in 1979, the chemicals remain in buildings that were constructed or renovated before or around that date.

PCBs are a group of human-made compounds that contaminate air, water, land, and sediments. They last for decades in the environment, building up in the food chain, causing toxic effects to the immune, reproductive, nervous, and endocrine systems in people and animals. PCBs also cause cancer in animals and are believed to cause cancer in people.

The Plan
In 2014, the Washington Legislature passed a law requiring state agencies to purchase PCB-free products whenever possible. In 2015, we culminated years of research and data with the release of a chemical action plan addressing PCBs. The report made a number of strong recommendations to reduce PCBs in the state, including:

Across Virginia, more than 50% of schools—1,040 out of 2,005 that districts reported—are at least 50 years old. That’s according to the Virginia Department of Education’s (VDOE) 2021 School Building Inventory. If every school older than 50 on the list required a replacement, the estimate would exceed $24 billion. 
Sen. Jeremy McPike, a Democrat who serves Manassas, Manassas Park, and part of Prince William County, sponsored a bill aimed toward regulating and monitoring school building maintenance. The legislation was recommended by the Commission on School Construction and Modernization, which in part determines school construction and modernization funding needs.
Senate Bill (SB) 238 would require local school boards to report the age of each school building in their district—and the estimated cost to renovate them—to the VDOE. The bill notes that districts would need to complete the task “in a timely fashion,” but gives no deadline indications at the present time. 
 

A new report estimates Idaho’s public K-12 school maintenance backlog to be at least $874 million while the state isn’t enforcing a law requiring districts to report their buildings’ needs.

A 2005 Idaho Supreme Court decision found the state legislature failed to meet its constitutional duty to sufficiently fund school buildings.

Lawmakers at the time boosted some funding and required districts to regularly submit 10-year maintenance plans, which most schools don’t follow.

The report from the Idaho Office of Performance Evaluations released Monday estimates the backlog for school repairs to be at least $874 million to bring them up to a “good” condition.

Casey Petti, the analyst who wrote the report, said that figure is likely lower than the real deficit because of the lack of data available.

Rep. Steve Berch (D-Boise) said that number is eye-popping, considering lawmakers are on the cusp of passing a historic $600 million tax cut. State economists are forecasting a $1.9 billion surplus this year.

The state is launching a 17-member panel to study how to fortify public school buildings against hurricanes and devise best practices for schools when storms strike, officials said Tuesday.
"Over the last two years Louisiana has been catastrophically impacted by six hurricanes – two of which were among the strongest in our state's history," state Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley said in a statement.
"Many coastal public schools have been devastated from the repeated barrage of high winds, torrential rain and flash floods, resulting in billions of dollars in damages, roofs torn off, hallways flooded, walls collapsed," Brumley said.
The study, the first of its kind, will be done by The Protect Louisiana Schools: Hurricane Preparedness Commission.
Brumley said in an interview state officials have tried to support school systems when storms strike.
But he said he was struck by the lack of any playbook to offer assistance.
"How can we be prepared for storms and how can systems respond quickly and appropriately in the aftermath of a storm," Brumley said. "There really was not a source of information."
The state has about 1,700 public schools.