School closures are an incendiary issue in nearly every corner of California, as enrollment declines and expenses climb. The topic has sparked parent revolts, teacher strikes and school boards’ desperate attempts to keep districts financially afloat.

And then there’s Orick.

The picturesque town in northern Humboldt County has a historic school with five classrooms, a gym, a vegetable garden and an expansive play field. Its current enrollment: nine. Its expenses: $118,000 per student per year, more than five times the state average. 

California has dozens of school districts with enrollments under 100 and higher-than-average expenses. Most of these districts are in remote areas miles from the next nearest school. But as urban districts grapple with the threat of school closures and the inevitable backlash from families and staff, rural schools face an even more heart-wrenching scenario: close the school and decimate the town.

“Close the school? It comes up all the time,” said Orick Elementary School District Superintendent Justin Wallace. “But I’d say it’s an equity issue. We have families who can’t afford a lot, and this school provides the most consistent setting for our kids. They’re safe, they’re well fed, they’re learning.”

A new Ohio bill that would make changes to how and to whom school districts can use or sell school facilities received some criticism in a Senate committee this week, and major education unions asked for changes to the overall bill.

Ohio Senate Bill 311 changes several things related to school districts in Ohio, from cracking down on so-called “cheating resources” – services or organizations who advertise services “with the intention of assisting a learner to cheat” on exams or assignments – to truancy enforcement and educator licensure regulations.

One particular provision of the bill received attention in the Senate Education Committee this week, as the the superintendent of Canton City Schools asked the committee to leave control of the disposal of school district property in the hands of local districts, rather than creating further state mandates around it.

The bill revises current state law on the disposition of school district property, specifying that a school district must sell an “unused school facility” at “the appraised fair market value as an educational facility,” and adds chartered private schools to the list of schools a district must offer its unused facilities before moving outside the district for sale.

The School District of Philadelphia has again revised its plan for closing, merging and investing in school facilities over the next 10 years. An updated plan released Monday reduces the number of proposed school closures to 17, sparing James R. Ludlow Elementary School.

The latest version of the plan, which Superintendent Tony Watlington referred to as the “final, final” plan on a call with reporters Monday, would retain the Paul Robeson High School and Lankenau Environmental Science Magnet High School properties, but both schools are still slated for closure. The district would seek community feedback on future uses for the Robeson property, which could include demolishing the building and reimagining another school on the property, Watlington said, and would convert the Lankenau property into an environmental education center for students across the district.

The changes boost the plan’s price tag from $2.8 billion to $3 billion, with the school district planning to borrow $1 billion through capital bonds. The school district plans to seek additional support from the state government and philanthropic organizations to cover the remaining costs.

NEW HAVEN — The New Haven Public Schools may soon employ its own staff to help with managing the district's facilities.
Since 2022, the district has outsourced the work of taking care of its facilities to a contractor. However, Paul Whyte, the district’s chief of school operations, told the Board of Education that this has brought some challenges, which prompted the idea of the district hiring its own staff to do the work. 
“We’re looking at this as an opportunity to create more flexible services and particularly increase internal oversight, where we have people working very hard and working within our system,” he said at the board's meeting on Monday. 
 

The reconstruction of Longfellow Middle School will be further delayed to summer 2028, with maximum costs ballooning to about $80 million after engineers discovered “unforeseen” structural failures at the campus, school officials say. 

The Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) board on Wednesday approved an updated contract with Alten Construction for the Longfellow Middle School Modernization Project, now with a completion date of June 22, 2028, about two years later than originally planned. The new cost is estimated at $72.9 million, plus a 10% contingency fund. 

Students and staff were relocated to the district’s adult school campus at 1701 San Pablo Ave. after Longfellow’s main building was red‑tagged in June 2024 due to extensive dry rot, water damage and seismic deficiencies that were discovered during remodeling. 

BUSD Assistant Superintendent of Facilities John Calise said the district initially believed the damage was limited to one side of Longfellow’s main building, but further inspection revealed the entire structure and others were also compromised.

BALTIMORE (WBFF) — Baltimore City Public Schools is spending millions of dollars to renovate a school building that will be used for only three years before it is torn down, a decision some describe as a waste of taxpayer dollars.

The renovations at the University of Baltimore are intended to accommodate Baltimore City College high schoolers while their own campus undergoes major upgrades. But the UB Academic Center renovations won’t be useful after City Schools’ three-year lease ends in 2028, because the building is set to be demolished soon afterward.

Baltimore City Council Member James Torrence suggests that City Schools could have tried to extend its lease, allowing other high schools to cycle through UB during their facility upgrades.

A specially designed playground in the West Pullman neighborhood is making a difference, addressing flooding and the impact of climate change across Chicago.

The playground behind Ronald Brown Elementary Academy, at 12607 S. Union Ave., includes a basketball court, football field, and running track, and children's playground equipment. It's also designed to capture more than 300,000 gallons of water to prevent storms from flooding nearby homes or streets.

Since the space opened last spring, it's made a major difference in the area.

"With these places, once the water rains, it gets absorbed almost immediately," said Kenneth Varner, community engagement manager for the nonprofit Healthy Schools Campaign, which teamed up with the nonprofit Openlands conservation group to develop the Space to Grow program to use green infrastructure and transform schoolyards to help manage stormwater runoff and reduce flooding.

A budget proposal that would provide $100 million to shore up schools and state facilities in dire need of repairs across Alaska is on its way to a full Senate vote. The Senate Finance Committee rolled out its capital budget on Monday and passed the bill out of committee Tuesday afternoon.

The Senate’s draft would require roughly $248 million in unrestricted funds, much of which would go towards shoring up schools and state facilities around the state. That’s $88 million more than the governor proposed in December. The head capital budgeter in the state Senate, Republican Sen. Bert Stedman of Sitka, said it represents “roughly half” of the final amount he hopes to see pass the Legislature this year.

Stedman said the Senate’s draft seeks to spread dollars fairly around the state by leaning heavily on prioritized lists of projects developed by the governor’s administration, rather than allowing legislators to pick and choose their favorites.

“We're trying to deal with some of the massive deferred maintenance that's being compiled up for the state to deal with,” Stedman said. “Unfortunately, there isn't enough funds to have individual allocations to all our communities.”

HARTFORD— Six Connecticut towns are in line to receive more than $150 million in state funding for school projects under House Bill 5150. The bill authorizes school construction state grant commitments totaling $150.6 million toward total estimated project costs of $305.6 million. 

House Bill 5150 would allow Connecticut to provide financial support for new school construction and renovation projects, advancing a list of priority improvements for local districts. The bill cleared the Education Committee by a 44-1 vote and the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee added it to the consent agenda at its Monday meeting.

Supporters of the bill at a public hearing argued it was necessary for municipalities and school districts.

The scene at Lewis & Clark Elementary School is a familiar one for Caroline County Public Schools officials.
With 1,024 students attending the school, occupational and physical therapy sessions for students were moved to a stage. The division was forced to double the amount of physical education and library instructors, and those staff members teach classes in the same space at the same time.
“Despite these adjustments, the building remains over capacity,” CCPS Chief Operations Officer Marcia Stevens told the two dozen or so people who gathered to discuss capacity concerns Thursday evening at a town hall held at Bowling Green Elementary School.
The sights are familiar to Stevens because just last year at BGE, counselors were working with small groups in the hallways where behavioral interventions, English Language Learner sessions and other activities were also taking place because of overcrowding.
The school board, however, was able to convince the county’s board of supervisors to reappropriate nearly $1 million in unspent funds from Fiscal Year 2024, so that the division could construct trailers to install at BGE.
There is growing concern in the school division that the board of supervisors has not shown any signs of releasing $1 million in FY25 reversion funds for the construction of trailers at Lewis & Clark.
The process to install the trailers at BGE took just 92 days, but Stevens said that’s not an accomplishment the division aims to repeat; 10 months for site preparation, building and construction is more appropriate.
 

On a crisp spring morning, three boys sat on a cinderblock wall in front of the School of Creative and Performing Arts in Paradise Hills. Staff and students at the magnet school, often referred to as SCPA, have been grappling with recurring plumbing failures. Those failures required porta-potties and bottled water to be shipped to the campus. 

“It’s been temporarily fixed, but the problems always come back,” one boy said in between bites of Jack in the Box french fries. “They should just fix it already. People here need water.”  

“It’s nasty,” another boy said, referring to the porta-potties. “There’s pee all over them,” he said with a laugh.  

For some, though, the plumbing situation is no laughing matter. From February to March, the district fully or partially shut off water at the campus about a half dozen times due to infrastructure failures.  

Emails obtained by Voice of San Diego underscore the frustration felt by staff members. One teacher named Will Carter described a “pattern of repeated infrastructure failure that the district has failed to permanently resolve.” 

When Kayla Frank got an alert from her daughter’s school district that their school would temporarily be closed, she took a victory lap, literally.
Frank, the assistant coach of her daughter’s softball team, ran around the diamond during their first practice on Thursday evening.
“I know that most people don’t scream and cheer that a school is closed down, but in this case, I’m over the moon excited. And I’m going to ride on this for the rest of today,” Frank said.
Superintendent Dr. Steve Ritter informed the community that they will be closing Martin Warren Elementary for the safety of students and staff inside.
This closure at Martin Warren comes just a couple of weeks after parents turned to FOX4 Problem Solvers, worried that the school wasn’t doing enough to protect children and teachers over indoor air quality.
FOX4’s investigation focused on elevated radon gas— a colorless, odorless, cancer-causing gas.
 

Even as North Carolina’s state lottery sets sales records, the share of proceeds flowing to public education has fallen, and school districts competing for construction grants are feeling the effects, according to a recent presentation to the State Board of Education.
The board reviewed the Needs-Based Public School Capital Fund, a lottery-funded grant program for school construction in economically distressed counties, during its April 1 work session. Vice chair Alan Duncan pointed to what a recent state audit had already flagged: The portion of lottery revenues allocated to the program has declined over recent years.
“Going back over the course of the last several years, [it has] become a lesser percentage,” Duncan said.
That aligns with findings from State Auditor Dave Boliek. According to a financial audit released in December, Boliek’s office found that the lottery’s contribution to the Education Lottery Fund dipped from $1.07 billion to $1.05 billion in the 2024-2025 fiscal year. Meanwhile, total lottery revenue jumped from $5.4 billion to $6.6 billion the same fiscal year.
 

Four in ten Oakland Unified School District schools are less than 50% occupied. More than 80% have no cooling system. And the vast majority of buildings are more than 50 years old. Oakland’s public schools need billions of dollars of upgrades and renovations, according to a new district report. 

On the list are everything from structural deficiencies and accessibility needs to heating and ventilation upgrades. As the school board plans future investments and charts a path to a more sustainable district footprint, the 2026 Facilities Master Plan lays out recommendations. 

The primary problems the report addresses are building age, the lack of cooling systems, too-old classroom portables, and declining enrollment, resulting in a high number of small, underenrolled schools. 

CHEYENNE — Community members urged the Laramie County School District 1 Board of Trustees to scrap a draft facilities use policy during a public hearing Wednesday evening.
The policy, which was written before the Wyoming Legislature’s recent budget session and released for public comment Feb. 10, now has to be adjusted to comply with Senate Enrolled Act 36, former Senate File 90, “School facilities-use fees,” which was signed into law by Gov. Mark Gordon on March 6.
The act dictates that school districts in Wyoming can no longer charge rental fees to non-school sports and organizations in excess of the hourly rate of personnel, equipment, utility and supply costs actually incurred by the district for use of the property. The act also requires districts to provide itemized statements explaining costs upon request.
According to information presented at Wednesday’s hearing, LCSD1 was the main reason the bill passed.
“As bad as this year was with all the divisions we were dealing with, this bill essentially passed unanimously through the committee process (and) through the floor process,” youth basketball coach Joe Milczewski told trustees. “The governor was eager to sign it. Superintendent Degenfelder came and testified that this had broad support.
 

A proposal to overhaul how Hawaii builds public schools is advancing at the state Capitol, as lawmakers seek faster, more cost-effective solutions to overcrowding and rapid growth in areas like Kapolei and Ewa on Oahu, with a key decision scheduled for this morning.
Senate Bill 2024 would authorize the Hawaii School Facilities Authority to partner with private developers to design, finance and build public school facilities — including on privately owned land — and launch a pilot program to develop three new schools across the state.
The measure comes as stakeholders acknowledge that Hawaii has some of the highest public school construction costs in the nation, making it difficult to keep pace with demand for classrooms.
“The thought is, we cannot build schools the old way,” said Riki Fujitani, executive director of the School Facilities Authority. “They’re too expensive, and it’s too slow.”
 

Framing education as a cornerstone of her administration, Gov. Abigail Spanberger on Tuesday signed a sweeping package of legislation aimed at strengthening K-12 schools, expanding career pathways and reducing classroom distractions across Virginia.

The measures, many of which passed the legislature with bipartisan or unanimous support, span much of the public education system — from school construction and academic standards to student safety, mental health and family engagement.

Two priorities stand out in the package, both of which lawmakers from both parties have deemed urgent: long-term planning for school infrastructure and limits on cellphone use during the school day.

Lawmakers approved legislation to make the Commission on School Construction and Modernization permanent and require a 10-year capital improvement roadmap through House Bill 544 and Senate Bill 498. The move is intended to bring more consistency and predictability to how Virginia maintains and upgrades its aging school facilities.

The effort builds on bipartisan work that gained traction under former Gov. Glenn Youngkin to address infrastructure gaps across school divisions and better coordinate state and local investments. A 2022 state report found nearly 1,000 school buildings statewide are at least 50 years old and estimated it would cost over $25 billion to replace. 

Northside Independent School District is not making building improvements at nine of its more than 80 elementary schools.
When voters in NISD passed a $992 million school bond in 2022, the district accessed funds for major facelifts, including HVAC replacements, classroom replacements and updated offices, gyms and cafeteria spaces.
The district is halfway done with its long list of projects, including the completion of a brand new $24.5 million sports complex near Sotomayor High School on the far Northwest Side.
Several other projects are still underway, and the school board weighs in on the bond process at several points throughout the year, including green lighting new contracts, naming new facilities or giving stamps of approval once a project is done.
But bond projects at nine elementary schools, located mostly on the West Side, have been paused because of low enrollment, NISD officials said.
 

VIENNA, Va., April 1, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Attune today announced the launch of a new national initiative, the Future-Ready Facilities Grant, a cohort program selecting 25 school districts to implement indoor air quality (IAQ), energy, and water monitoring technologies and reporting practices that help districts measure building performance, prioritize maintenance and capital planning, and transparently communicate progress.
The program provides $500,000 total in support across the cohort. Applications open April 1, 2026 and close May 15, 2026. Evaluations will be completed by May 31, winners selected June 1, and announced June 15.
The initiative is designed to address a growing challenge across the U.S.: aging school facilities that lack visibility into critical building performance metrics.
 

PORTLAND — Portland Public Schools and town officials are advancing a major plan that would renovate and expand multiple schools across the district, aiming to address aging facilities through significant upgrades.
First Selectman Michael Pelton said the town held a referendum two years ago to close two elementary schools and consolidate into one, but voters rejected the proposal.
He said residents were concerned about the future of Brownstone Intermediate School, a historic building, and pushed back against the idea of a single large elementary school.