Elected officials, environmentalists, union leaders and other advocates gathered on the steps of City Hall Thursday to demand Mayor Eric Adams and the NYC city council retrofit public schools with climate friendly infrastructure.
The March 24 rally saw the coalition of advocates call on the mayor to plan to support carbon-free, healthy schools especially in lower income neighborhoods by funding the Carbon Free and Healthy Schools (CFHS) initiative in this fiscal year’s budget plan.
The speakers highlighted how the initiative could simultaneously combat multiple priorities of city leaders, while also addressing the long term concerns of student health and wellbeing in public school buildings.
“The majority of the emissions from our city come from large buildings,” said Maritza Silva-Farrell, executive director of ALIGN, a leader of the Climate Works for All coalition to amNew York. “Public schools are some of the biggest polluters in the city. So we are talking about reducing emissions and ensuring that we actually meet our climate goals, and it is critical that these buildings have the funding necessary to be upgraded and have the retrofits needed.”
NYC public schools are an average of 70 years old, and with aging infrastructure and a pandemic, students are being put in unnecessary risk of illness or injury. Many of these schools lack adequate heating, cooling and ventilation systems (HVAC), and also may still contain hazardous building materials like lead and asbestos. 
 

QUINCY – The city will apply for money from the state School Building Authority's accelerated repair program to fix windows, roofs and boilers at five Quincy schools in the coming year. 
Councilors this week approved submitting applications for repairs at Broad Meadows and Point Webster middle schools, as well as Wollaston, Montclair and Parker elementary schools. 
Quincy Public Buildings Commissioner Paul Hines called the projects "relatively simple" and said they  are needed mainly for energy conservation. If the state approves any of the projects, Hines will go  back to the city council and ask for money for the city's share of the costs. 
Roof repairs are needed at Broad Meadows Middle School, as well as the 110-year-old Wollaston and Montclair elementary schools.
Point Webster's windows need an upgrade. The middle school was built in 1917 and, though renovated and refurbished in 1998, the windows have never been replaced.
 

The Philadelphia school district is restarting a Facilities Planning Process that will determine its future building needs — including if schools should close or new ones will be built — and funnel repair and modernization funds to where they are needed most. This new initiative replaces the Comprehensive School Planning Review that began in 2019 but was halted in March 2020 because of the pandemic.

Philadelphia’s school buildings have an average age of 70 years and a few date back to the 19th century. For the past several years, the district’s buildings have been plagued with health hazards including loose asbestos and lead in the drinking water. Since 2019, several schools have closed temporarily and students have been relocated due to emergency repair work. Also in 2019, a veteran teacher was diagnosed with mesothelioma, an asbestos-related disease. At the beginning of this school year, teachers protested and refused to enter the Masterman building due to concerns that it wasn’t safe.

In a letter sent to parents and posted on the district website, Superintendent William Hite said the district must “thoughtfully and proactively plan not only for new school learning environments but for what must be done with our existing school buildings so students have access to educational spaces that spark creativity, support academic programs, and meet their 21st-century learning needs.”

The district will look at its building inventory, projected population patterns, and grade-by-grade enrollment estimates so it can “prioritize investments,” Hite’s letter said.

The Flagler County Commission is considering ending a long-standing smart-growth rule: There would no longer have to be sufficient school capacity for new development to go forward.
Under a proposed revision of the county’s Comprehensive Plan, the blueprint that frames the county’s long-range development policies, the “school concurrency” requirement would be eliminated. The state no longer requires it, making it optional for counties to keep or discard. The plan unveiled only hours before a commission workshop today would discard it.
The proposal is still just that. Today’s workshop was designed to brief the County Commission on the work of the Northeast Florida Regional Council, which drafted the plan. The council is one of 10 such regional councils around the state, created by the Legislature to promote regional cooperation and problem solving. It gathers 26 municipalities and seven counties, including Flagler, and operates under the aegis of a 35-member board, including, from Flagler, county commissioners Dave Sullivan and Joe Mullins, and Bunnell Mayor Catherine Robinson.
 

RICHMOND, Va. -- Some Richmond school leaders maintain they want control over the construction of a new George Wythe High School citing an audit that showed the city overspent taxpayer dollars building the last round of new schools.
If there is one thing members of the Richmond School Board and Richmond City Council can agree on, it's that students and staff in Richmond deserve an upgraded and modernized educational experience.
“We have thousands of kids in our school buildings across the city that need new infrastructure," Richmond School Board Member Jonathan Young said.
It's a sentiment echoed by Richmond City Councilwoman Stephanie Lynch.
“I bet you 95% of the residents in Richmond agree that our school buildings are not in good shape," she said.
However, they disagree on how to build new schools as the ongoing debate over the stalled construction of George Wythe High took center stage again this week.
A majority of the Richmond School Board wanted complete control of the construction process without involvement from the city.
It's part of a "Schools Build Schools" policy the board adopted in 2021 after Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney announced plans for a new Wythe in October 2020.
Young, who represents the city's 4th school district, is one of five members who supported the policy.
He points to a 2020 report from the city's auditor which showed the city overspent taxpayer dollars building the last round of new schools including Henry Marsh Elementary, Cardinal Elementary, and River City Middle.
“Money was wasted. It was not spent in a prudent way on the last round," Young said. "It's unacceptable."
When evaluating citywide capital improvements projects, the auditor listed middle and elementary school construction costs under "needs improvement."
 

No one was expecting more than a few flooded cars in the parking lot.
It was Sept. 1, 2021, the second-to-last day of summer band camp at Cresskill Middle/High School in Bergen County, N.J.
After a year and a half of remote and hybrid learning, the school's 1,000-odd students were about to head triumphantly back to school in person.
To celebrate, band director Joe Verderese created a set list for the fall marching band with the theme of "overcoming," with songs like "Don't Stop (Thinking About Tomorrow)," "Lean On Me" and "I'm Still Standing."
As practice was ending, Verderese heard a huge crack of thunder. "The custodian yelled to me down the hall, 'Joe, did you hear that?' And I was like, 'We gotta get out of here.' "
Seven inches of rain from the remains of Hurricane Ida hammered down in just a couple of hours. The water poured through the school's vents – vents set just a few inches above the ground. It turned the auditorium into "an aquarium," says math teacher Michael Mirkovic. It flooded classrooms, the office, the boiler room.
Giuseppe Martino, the custodian who had called out to Verderese, ended up trapped in the gym overnight by rising water.
Now, about seven months later, this school – a modest one-story rectangle built in 1962 – is still sitting unusable by students. Repairs have barely begun.
"What the inspectors have told me is, 'Mike, you don't have a school. This is now a building,' " says Superintendent Michael Burke.
Many schools weren't built for our new climate reality
Almost 1 in 5 U.S. students attended schools in districts that were affected by federally-declared natural disasters from 2017 through 2019. That's according to the latest available analysis from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
Hurricanes in Florida and Texas, wildfires in California and Colorado, floods in North Carolina and Arizona. Across the country, climate change has been driving more severe weather.
 

SOUTH BEND — In a Saturday meeting centered on the South Bend school district's master facilities plan, school officials and consultants addressed community feedback on a wide range of topics about the “right-sizing” process, including concerns about school closures. 

The meeting, held at Brown Community Learning Center, marks the first of two scheduled sessions where school leaders will gather input from the community on what residents want to see done with the district’s facilities following a 2020 referendum that allocated $54 million to pay for capital projects. 

Discussions surrounding facilities come after the district closed two elementary schools last year and raised the possibility of closing a high school. The school district also recently sold its downtown headquarters to the city of South Bend.

A presentation by the assistant superintendent of business and finance, Kareemah Fowler, to open the meeting quickly turned toward the topic of school closures after a question from the audience.  

“This is part of ongoing efforts for rightsizing,” Fowler told the crowd of around 40 people. “So if something comes out of this where there needs to be some adjustments or something needs to be closed or combined, this is where that discussion is going to take place. But today is not specific to any high school closing.” 

A measure which seeks to establish the Bureau of School Construction and Maintenance within the Department of Education with the responsibility to construct and maintain public schools and other educational facilities, failed to win approval from members of the Senate Committee on Education and Workforce Development on Thursday.
An amendment to the bill narrowly received approval but when it came to actual voting on the measure, sponsored by Senate President Donna Frett-Gregory, the result was three yes votes from Ms.Frett-Gregory and Sens. Genevieve Whitaker Kenneth Gittens. However, it received three no votes from Sens. Milton Potter, Kurt Vialet and Janelle Sarauw. Senator Carla Joseph did not vote.
“The bill has failed,” said Ms. Whitaker, who chairs the committee.
Bill No. 34-0079 is an Act amending Virgin Islands Code to establish the Bureau of School Construction and Maintenance within the V.I. Department of Education. It also seeks to change the Education Maintenance Fund to the School Construction and Maintenance Fund while making an appropriation of $2.5 million from the V.I. Education Initiative Fund to the School Construction and Maintenance Fund.
Presenting the bill to the committee, Ms. Frett-Gregory said the physical state of public schools in the territory has been deteriorating for more than two decades due to inconsistent maintenance and limited resources, while some schools have experienced preventable structural failures resulting in injuries and the closure of entire school buildings. 
 

GREENSBORO, N.C. (WGHP) — Guilford County Commissioners walked through yet another school in Guilford County, one they said is in the worst conditions for students and teachers.
On Wednesday, county commissioners continued their school tour through Grimsley High in Greensboro. The visit lasted nearly an hour and left commissioners heartbroken at the sight of the conditions the classrooms and bathrooms are.
“When you pass by this road, and you see this magnificent campus, you think everything is great, but until you go inside, then you will be amazingly disappointed,” said County Chairman Skip Alston.
The tour of Grimsley High showed holes in the walls in classrooms, plaster falling from the ceilings and walls, outdated bathrooms, and repairs that need fixing.
“Even when I tried to touch it, they said don’t touch it because you don’t know what it is, it could be asbestos, but you have children sitting in these classrooms,” said Commissioner Carlvena Foster.
 

HOPE, Ark. – The Hope Public Schools Board of Education, Entegrity Partners and community members recently gathered for a Flip the Switch ceremony to celebrate a first for Southwest Arkansas public schools: an on-site solar array.

Located across from Clinton Primary School, the 1.13 MW-DC array will offset approximately 80% of the District's annual electrical energy consumption.

"The Board and Administration saw an opportunity to reduce utility costs and use that savings to invest in their facilities; ultimately leading to a greater learning environment for students," said John Coleman, Regional Director of Entegrity, in a news release.

Solar production is part of the comprehensive energy savings project with Entegrity. The full scope of work, including LED lighting, water conservation, HVAC system upgrades and the array is expected to save HPS over $200k annually.

Entegrity's sustainability experts are incorporating education components at HPS to give students exposure to solar at the fifth and sixth grade levels.

Prior Lake-Savage Area Schools is getting high marks for low energy consumption throughout the district.

At a February 28 study session, members of the district’s school board heard from mechanical engineer Margaret Bishop, who presented an analysis of the district’s energy use.

According to Bishop, the district’s energy consumption has been on a downward trend, dropping by nearly 19% since the 2012-13 school year.

“Clearly there is a significant reduction in energy consumption, which means you are saving energy and, in turn, dollars,” said Bishop. “I work with a lot of school districts and these are truly amazing numbers. Staff have done a wonderful job.”

In addition, all of the district’s schools have earned an Energy Star score of 75 or higher on the Environmental Protection Agency’s 1-100 scale, which indicates that they perform better than at least 75% of similar buildings nationwide.

A publicly governed, managed and funded system for public education is a critical part of our democratic system of government. Here in Washington, DC, this is the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS). This citywide system must guarantee education rights for every school-age child — in every corner of the city. The DCPS citywide system of neighborhood schools is a powerful tool for advancing access to high-quality educational opportunities without the bias and stress of a lottery. 

With explicit policies and practices for equity in our DCPS neighborhood schools, DCPS is the system that can most effectively and efficiently deliver on shared priorities for families and communities. These include:

High-quality academic programs, after-school and co-curricular opportunities.
A safe and nurturing environment in modern, well-maintained school buildings and grounds. 
Community and parent engagement that builds social capital, and political empowerment that strengthens our democratic institutions.
Public space and community use that you can count on, for all residents in a neighborhood.
Walkable schools, resulting in fewer cars on neighborhood streets — and more time for families to participate in school-related activities or supporting their families at home, at work or with other community organizations.
Economies of scale that provide better value to the District at lower cost to taxpayers. 
The District of Columbia should prioritize its publicly governed and managed system of DCPS neighborhood, by-right public schools because of the benefits they provide families, communities and our democracy. 

A New York Times Magazine article, “The Tragedy of America’s Rural Schools,” tells a story about the educational system in Holmes County, Mississippi, suggesting that the community has failed to provide adequate school facilities, that administrators and teachers have failed to provide sound educational programs, and that the schools have failed to serve their students. The article shines a spotlight on a single student in a single rural school district. There is benefit in turning on a spotlight. It’s important to use the national media to tell stories about Mississippi and the rural schools that serve one-fifth of students across the United States. However, a spotlight illuminates only part of the whole scene. Overhead lighting can reveal a bigger picture–in this case, revealing the impact of state and federal policies that fail to meet the needs of rural schools and the students they serve–including Holmes County, Mississippi.

School funding policies are one of the biggest barriers to rural school success. The bulk of funding for public schools comes from local property taxes. Rural populations, economies, and the presence of public lands (such as national forests) often yield lower property values, which in turn leads to funding inequities for rural schools. In Mississippi, as in most states, millage rates are capped. Even if the local community wanted to, districts cannot raise the property tax rate beyond a certain level to increase school funding, placing rural districts at an even greater disadvantage.  Inequitable funding can lead to lower teacher salaries and teacher shortages, limited school offerings, and under-resourced classrooms.

In Holmes County, the limited tax base means that school buildings are out of date and in need of repair. In 2019, the district sought voter approval for a bond issue that would have funded a new high school and freed up money currently going to facility maintenance to allow for a raise in teacher salaries.  Nearly half the county turned out to vote, and the majority, 58%, voted to approve the bond issue–but a state law in Mississippi requires at least 60% approval of a bond issue. Other states, including Washington and Oklahoma, have similar requirements. Rules like these make it difficult for a local community to raise funds to provide adequate school facilities for their children–even when the majority of voters approve.

HONOLULU (KITV4) -- Should the state build preschools? Some Hawaii legislators think the state should.

On Monday, the Hawaii Senate Committee on Education heard House Bill 2000, HD1.

The bill proposes to allocate an unspecified amount of money from the state's general fund to the school facilities authority for the construction of preschool facilities.

The bill does not have a lot of specifics yet including how many preschools the state would build, or where they would be built, or how much the project would cost.

State Representative Sylvia Luke and members of the House Majority leadership introduced the bill.

During Monday's hearing, there was only testimony in support of it.

"Culturally our Asian and Pacific Islander children are taught very young to be seen and not heard. This is a time when their brains are being developed, their speech patterns are being developed, and their motor coordination, so allowing us to have preschool for them develops a critical skill needed to be successful in school," Laverne Moore testified on behalf of the Hawaii State Teachers Association.

An effort to jump-start the pace of earthquake retrofits to vulnerable, older school buildings in Washington has passed the Legislature unanimously. The Evergreen State has lagged behind other West Coast states and provinces in reinforcing schools to withstand strong shaking.

A report from the Washington State Department of Natural Resources last year said tens of thousands of Washington students attend class in buildings at high risk of collapse in an earthquake. Thousands more youngsters go to low-lying schools in the coastal tsunami zone.

Stanwood, Washington parent and PTA volunteer DaleAnn Baker was among a corps of citizen activists who successfully lobbied the Legislature to more than double state spending for earthquake retrofits, or in some cases, to pay most of the cost to relocate a public school out of the tsunami zone.

"The amount of funding is significant and this is great,” Baker said in an interview Wednesday. “It is really showing that the Legislature wants to make a commitment to this effort."

Baker said her journey into activism began a few years ago when she realized the elementary school where she sends her two children was built in 1956, long before modern seismic safety codes. “How is it acceptable to require kids to attend school in a building that may collapse during an earthquake?” the aerospace engineer asked herself and others.

On Wednesday, the Washington Senate voted 49-0 to pass a supplemental state construction budget that includes $100 million for earthquake and tsunami safety upgrades to the most vulnerable schools statewide. The action to send the budget bill to the governor's desk followed a similarly lopsided 98-0 state House vote on Tuesday. The new funding for school seismic safety retrofits represents a 150% increase over last year's level and a nearly eight-fold increase from just three years ago.

Not many people can say the pandemic has made their jobs easier. But in some ways, Tracy Enger can.

"You know, it is such a hallelujah moment, absolutely," says Enger, who works at the Environmental Protection Agency's Indoor Environments Division. For more than 25 years, she's been fighting to improve the air quality inside of America's schools.

But there are lots of competing demands for limited school budgets. And in the past, getting school districts to prioritize indoor air quality hasn't been easy. Often, she says, it took some kind of crisis to get schools to focus on the issue – "when they found the mold problem, when their asthma rates were kind of going through the roof."

Then came the COVID-19 pandemic — spread by virus particles that can build up in indoor air and linger, sometimes for hours. Key to clearing out those infectious particles: good ventilation and filtration. For example, one study of Georgia schools linked improved ventilation strategies, combined with HEPA filtration, to a 48% lower rate of COVID.

Suddenly — finally — lots of people have started to pay attention to indoor air quality in schools, says Anisa Heming, director of the Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council.

Aging K-12 schools in Colorado, including many in Pueblo, are in need of billions of dollars in funding for construction and repairs. 

The Colorado Department of Education estimates that over $18 billion is needed for school construction statewide. Included in that total is $84.8 million for construction in Pueblo School District 60 and $22.4 million in Pueblo School District 70, according to the CDE.

The average estimate of funding required to meet Colorado school districts' construction needs is about $39.5 million. 

“Generally, we know that there is not enough money going into school facilities to keep up with what’s being deferred,” said Dustin Guerin, CDE Statewide Facility Assessment Supervisor. “Without a big influx, the expectation is that the systems continue to age.”

“Buildings don’t get any younger,” he said. “They just keep aging and things keep breaking and needing to be replaced.”

Parents and education advocates renewed yearslong calls for a new middle school to serve students in Shaw and surrounding neighborhoods during a D.C. Council public roundtable yesterday.
They said families were pulling their kids out of D.C. Public Schools and enrolling them in charter or private schools because of the perceived lack of quality middle school options in their neighborhood. Their hope is for the city to build the school at the historic Banneker Junior High School site on Euclid Street NW.
It’s been a few years since the D.C. Council held a hearing on the issue, and Council Chairman Phil Mendelson hoped the “long overdue” dialogue would help inform upcoming budget discussions.
In 2019, the Council narrowly approved legislation to move the top-performing, majority Black and Latinx-serving Banneker High School to the site of the former Shaw Middle School. Mayor Muriel Bowser and others framed the debate in terms of gentrification. Banneker High School families had been promised a renovated building for years, and critics condemned prioritizing a new Shaw middle school as valuing the needs of recently arrived, mostly White residents in the gentrified neighborhood over those of people of color.
Still, others question why the nearby Cardozo Education Campus, whose student body is more than 49 percent Black and more than 47 percent Latinx, doesn’t meet the needs of families clamoring for a stand-alone middle school.
[The skepticism] is really centered around this, ‘Okay, well, y’all say you want the school. Are you really going to put your kids in it?’” Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau explained, echoing conversations she has had with parents. She also pointed out that the vast majority of witnesses who testified at yesterday’s roundtable are White, wondering what people of color think about the issue. 
 

Atlanta Public Schools will host community meetings this month on proposals to change school attendance zones and open a Midtown elementary school.
The district in 2019 began work on a 10-year facilities master plan that will guide decisions about use of school buildings based on enrollment trends. As part of that work, officials presented several suggestions earlier this month about how to ease overcrowding concerns and address other issues.
Now, APS is hosting several meetings to talk to parents and community members about about how those proposals would impact specific schools.
A 6 p.m. Tuesday meeting at Centennial Academy will provide details of a proposal to redistrict the kindergarten through eighth grade school, among other potential changes. The school currently feeds into Midtown High School, but that could change to Booker T. Washington High School.
 

Gov. David Ige has appointed Chad Keone Farias to serve as executive director of the School Facilities Authority, which is charged with the development, planning and construction of public school capital improvement projects.

Farias, currently the Ka‘u-Keaau-Pahoa complex area superintendent, joined the Authority last year. He has worked for the state Department of Education since 1993 as a teacher, counselor, vice principal, principal, and superintendent.

The Hawaii Island-born Farias earned his bachelor’s degree in history and education from Loyola Marymount University, and a master’s degree in education administration from the University of Hawaii.

“As a proud Hawaii public school graduate, I’m excited to guide the School Facilities Authority in creating the facilities our students deserve,” Farias said. “This kuleana is great and I look forward to the opportunity to improve education access for all of Hawaii.”

Farias’ appointment is subject to Senate confirmation. If confirmed, he would serve a six-year term.