When disasters like Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton strike, everyone in a community is impacted one way or another, and it take support from well beyond the affected communities recover and rebuild. The U.S. Department of Education and state organizations like the Florida Association of School Administrators have action plans in place to assist schools during these difficult times. And on a local level, communities look to school leaders for guidance, compassion, and support—and a path to move forward.   We talked to two school leaders whose schools and communities were impacted by these devastating storms and asked them to share how they supported their students and staff and navigated challenges in the immediate aftermath of the storms. Addressing the Most Pressing Needs First
For Carlos Grant, principal of Wade Hampton High School in Greenville, South Carolina, whose school was closed for eight school days in late September and early October following Hurricane Helene, his priority was on the well-being of staff and students. Starting with staff, Grant reorganized the school’s leadership team to ensure they could speak with each staff member individually and receive regular updates on their situations. For the students, they focused on reassuring parents that the school closure was designed to prioritize safety. “We wanted families to feel supported, especially as some were without power or internet or faced dangerous road conditions, which made it impossible for eLearning,” said Grant.

-- Krysia Gabenski

Researchers have examined the impact of school closures due to natural disasters and found that these closures have similar impacts on student performance across economic groups. The researchers find white students and high-performing students are least affected, but nearly every group of students sees test scores decline. The topic is of particular interest following Hurricane Helene, which caused students in parts of western North Carolina to miss weeks of school. Schools in Asheville, N.C., re-opened on Oct. 28. “Schools can be closed due to a variety of natural disasters, from wildfires to hurricanes, and research suggests that the frequency of these disasters is only going to increase due to global climate change,” says Melinda Morrill, corresponding author of the study and Jenkins Family Distinguished Professor of Economics in North Carolina State University’s Poole College of Management. “As a result, it’s important for us to not only understand the extent to which these closures affect student learning, but whether certain groups of students are more affected than others. That latter question is what we focused on with this work.”

-- Matt Shipman

In July 2023, 18 years after Hurricane Katrina left most of New Orleans underwater, NOLA Public Schools hosted a ribbon-cutting at the last school building reconstructed in the wake of the storm. On hand was a Who’s Who of people involved in the largest school recovery effort in U.S. history.  The 2005 hurricane and subsequent flood destroyed or severely damaged 110 of the 126 public school buildings operating at the time. Bringing them back was a linchpin of efforts to rebuild the city. Displaced families could not return until there were classrooms to welcome their kids.  The logistical challenges of the $2 billion effort were unprecedented. No one had ever tried to rebuild an entire school system. The Federal Emergency Management Agency was mostly in the business of repairing or replacing houses and residential buildings, and was notorious for doing so excruciatingly slowly.  Federal law specifically prohibited taking advantage of a disaster to build something better than what had been destroyed. Decades of official neglect, however, had left most New Orleans schools moldering long before the storm. Students sat in classrooms that didn’t meet fire and electrical codes, lacked window panes and were inaccessible to people with disabilities. 

-- Beth Hawkins

Many U.S. public school buildings are in dire need of renovations, as the average age of U.S. school buildings is approximately 49 years, and an estimated 53% have never undergone any major renovations. By renovating, upgrading, and improving the resilience of school buildings, schools can maintain a safe and modern learning environment for students and faculty and be better prepared for extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change like wildfires and heat. Improving school infrastructure also saves money; one study shows that each dollar spent on renovating structures to use modern building codes can save $11, by averting post-disaster costs.   To aid schools and districts in making these improvements, the Biden-Harris administration and Congressional Democrats have made several new sources of federal funding available through the American Rescue Plan (ARP), Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Investments in school infrastructure improve students’ health and academic outcomes  Schools can make several upgrades and repairs that will benefit students’ physical health and academic success. Modern school ventilation that improves air quality and retrofitted electric school buses, for example, are proven to have benefits for students’ school attendance, test scores, and health. Natural light, functioning school heating and cooling systems, and quality classroom acoustics can help improve students’ ability to focus and better absorb information. Taking an exam on a 90-degree day, for instance, results in a 12.3% higher chance of failing than if taken on a 72-degree day, according to a study of high school students—an effect which would likely be significantly reduced by proper air conditioning. Schools must be equipped to keep students cool on hot days, as well as warm on cold days. 

-- Staff Writer

Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan convened during a two-day ministerial meeting this week in Almaty Kazakhstan to reaffirm their commitment to ensuring safe and resilient schools for children. The ministerial meeting - co-organized by UNICEF, UNESCO, the UN Office for disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), the Government of Japan, and the World Bank - brought together high-level government officials, development partners, and education experts to recognise progress made in implementing the Comprehensive Safe Schools Framework (CSSF) 2022-2030 in Central Asia. Participants shared best practices and explored coordinated efforts to protect children and educational institutions from disasters and climate risks. “Schools should provide safe learning environments where children protected from risks and disasters,” said Dr. Rashed Mustafa Sarwar, UNICEF Representative in Kazakhstan. “This meeting is an opportunity for countries to reaffirm their commitment to safeguarding children’s education and to promote a culture of safety and resilience in the education sector.”

-- Elvira Yausheva

Protecting school children from climate change was the main focus of a two day a consultation in Fiji this week.
Facilitated by Save the Children and UNESCO, stakeholders from around the region came together to discuss the way forward for addressing climate resilience in education systems.
Regional 'Safe Schools' lead John Lilo said Pacific school children are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of natural disasters.
Over the past decade, he has noticed an increased number of these disruptions to the education sector and says it has emphasized the crucial need for climate adaptation in schools.
"The Pacific is one of the vulnerable regions in the in the world, tropical cyclones [are] one of the most common hazards"
"In 2020, tropical cyclone Harold wreaked havoc across the Pacific, causing significant damages to schools, affecting 1000s of students, disrupting their learning."
 

-- Tiana Haxton

This spring, as a heat wave hovered over the region, Pittsburgh Public students were forced out of the classroom. Temperatures in the unairconditioned buildings were expected to reach unsafe levels, causing administrators to enact the district’s extreme heat policy. That policy has been used several times in recent years as temperatures reach near record highs and sweltering heat waves last for days, caused in part by increased greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere that effectively trap heat, leading to rising temperatures across the globe. The toll of climate change continues to grow through increased natural disasters such as fires, hurricanes and floods, not only impacting communities but also school children. Districts across the country are now working to change that.

-- MEGAN TOMASIC

The World Bank's Board of Executive Directors today approved funding support for two government projects designed to help ensure safe and resilient schools as well strengthen economic recovery in the Philippines. The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors has approved EUR 466.07 million (US$500 million) in funding for the Infrastructure for Safer and Resilient Schools Project, designed to support the resilient recovery of disaster-affected schools in selected regions of the country. Resilient recovery means improving schools’ abilities to continue its functions after being hit by natural disasters.

-- Staff Writer

Synopsis Natural hazards, some fueled by a changing climate, have a devastating effect on children’s education and lives in every corner of the globe. Through its Global Program for Safer Schools (GPSS), the World Bank works hand-in-hand with client countries to ensure the resilience of school infrastructure. Managed by the Bank’s global unit for disaster and climate risk management and primarily funded by the Global Facility for disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), GPSS uses a comprehensive approach to inform school infrastructure investments and government capacity building encompassing technical assistance, knowledge, and analytical support. A prime example of how knowledge, financing, and grants from the World Bank can combine to create impact at scale, over the last 10 years, GPSS has made schools safer for 121 million students across 35 countries.

-- Staff Writer

HONOLULU (KHON2) — With a growing population in Central Maui, the Legislature already approved designing a new Maui middle and a new elementary school in the area before the Maui wildfires. Following the disaster, the School Facilities Authority, a state agency tasked with building new schools, said this is needed more than ever.
“A significant portion of the population has moved to both central and south Maui because there’s just no housing and more will come right as people get placed in long-term housing,” said Ricki Fujitani, School Facilities Authority Interim Executive Director.
The School Facilities Authority said the projects need to be completed within the next four years. Its statistics already show Paia Elementary School is at 164 percent capacity, Iao Intermediate is at 120 percent, and Maui High School is at 116 percent.
 

-- Kristy Tamashiro

School buildings that experience natural disasters are now eligible for federal funding to install solar panels and other energy-efficient systems when they rebuild, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced Tuesday. Through the FEMA Public Assistance program, the federal government commits to covering 75 percent of the cost of rebuilding schools and other public institutions like hospitals following floods, tornadoes, and other storms. With the new policy, schools can now include in their reimbursement requests the cost of solar panels, geothermal heat pumps, and other modern systems designed to improve sustainability. Schools can take advantage of this funding opportunity for any disaster declared after Aug. 16, 2022, the agency said in a press release. The goals of the policy, according to the agency, include offering incentives for schools to help with the nationwide effort to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Schools and other facilities that install energy-producing systems can stay open and even provide power to surrounding communities in the event of an electrical outage, said Tish Tablan, senior program director at Generation180, an advocacy nonprofit that promotes clean energy adoption.

-- Mark Lieberman

After the Maui wildfires displaced over 1,000 students and 100 Department of Education employees, state and school leaders are searching for solutions to help Lahaina schools recover and protect other Hawaii schools from future disasters. But budget restraints and unfunded legislative priorities may make it more difficult for DOE to complete the repairs and updates needed to keep students safe while on campus. After DOE faced more than $40 million in a budget shortfall last year, the department requested roughly $198 million in supplemental funds for the upcoming 2025 fiscal year. The governor’s proposed budget, released last month, fell short of the department’s request by over $86 million.

-- Megan Tagami

With UNICEF's help, 1,000 classrooms at 192 schools can now stand up to a cyclone. Margarida, 15, witnessed her old school get destroyed by Cyclone Idai in 2019. Attending a climate-proof school, she says, has been life-changing.
A big part of UNICEF’s response to climate change is to blunt its impacts on children — especially those who are most vulnerable to them — through mitigation or adaptation measures.
This includes making systems children rely on — health, water, education — more climate-resilient. It means enabling these systems to stand up to extreme weather and other climate-driven disasters.
Mozambique is highly prone to cyclones and recurring floods. The weather system in that part of the world, the country's long coastline and the nine river basins flowing through it are contributing factors. Increasingly, so is climate change.
 

-- Maryanne Murray

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has awarded the V.I. Education Department two grants totalling $464 million to demolish and replace Claude O. Markoe Elementary School on St. Croix and Addelita Cancryn Junior High School on St. Thomas, according to a recent news release from the office of V.I. Delegate to Congress Stacey Plaskett. The release said $140 million will be set aside for the Markoe project, and $324 million for the Cancryn rebuild. Both schools were damaged extensively during the 2017 hurricanes. “These awards are for the prudent replacement standard which will be integral for improving our preparedness and resiliency against natural disasters. As with much of the funding released to our territory for the territory’s rebuild, I and my team worked diligently to change the provisions of the Stafford Act which is used for rebuilding after U.S. disasters,” Plaskett said in the release. “My office made the convincing argument that the level of disaster in the Virgin Islands was exacerbated by the lack of federal funding investment in our critical infrastructure prior to the storms, which made the effect of the hurricanes more profound.”

-- Staff Writer

 Orleans Parish voters are being asked to renew a millage dedicated to the maintenance and repairs for school facilities. In advance of the vote, NOLA Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Avis Williams and Orleans Parish School Board President Olin Parker stopped by WGNO’s Good Morning New Orleans show to discuss the millage. “In 2014, New Orleans voters overwhelmingly approved a millage to keep our school facilities in good condition. After the storm, the federal government invested $2 billion in our schools. The voters of New Orleans stepped up and said, ‘Yes, we want to continue taking care of these schools this Saturday.’ We’re just asking voters to do the same thing, renew a tax that they’ve already been paying. It’s not a new tax and it’s something that benefits every single student and every single teacher in our parish,” said Parker. This time, voters would be asked to renew the tax for a 20-year term. “It’s important for long-range planning. When we think about capital planning, we know that even with our newest facilities, they’re going to need new HVAC systems and new roofs, and heaven forbid we have any natural disasters. We have to be ready to make those repairs and renovations as necessary. We just want to make sure that we have an opportunity for long-range planning and commitment for our new strategic plan of action is operational excellence. This is part of it. Our scholars deserve to learn in safe and healthy buildings that allow them to do innovative things to prepare them for their future,” said Williams.

-- Staff Writer

When Hurricane Michael hit the Florida Panhandle in 2018, Calhoun County schools were ravaged. Winds of 160 miles per hour destroyed an elementary school and ripped high-school bleachers from the ground. “It was complete devastation,” said Darryl Taylor Jr., superintendent of the district. “It was like a nuclear bomb had gone off.” The Calhoun schools are still trying to rebuild what they lost five years ago. A new elementary school is not yet finished, and some students are still in temporary classrooms. The process of assessing the damage for insurance, along with the pandemic, has been arduous. “It was long and slow,” Mr. Taylor said. As climate disasters become more commonplace, school districts are learning that a strong storm can put learning in a state of disarray. In New York, a driving rain recently flooded the city, with water seeping into more than 300 schools. Cafeterias and kitchens were unusable; students’ 45-minute commutes turned into two hours; one school was temporarily evacuated.

-- Colbi Edmonds

MEMPHIS, Tenn — The first-of-its-kind "tornado safe room" in West Tennessee is now located at Belle Forest Community School. Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) held a ribbon-cutting celebration for the new room on Friday morning.  The facility is a two-in-one addition for Belle Forest. The school says it will provide students with a "world-class" gymnasium for physical education as well as sports activities.  Reportedly, it is also a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)-approved safe house facility, built for the surrounding community in the event of a tornado or natural disaster.

-- Gus Carrington

After one of the deadliest wildfires in U.S. history, Philip Raya, his wife and two young children drove through the wreckage of Lahaina – looking at bodies and the ashes of the town they once called home – enroute to a new start on the other side of Maui.
There were many devastating sights. Their longtime neighborhood school, King Kamehameha III Elementary, had burned down. The green-painted oceanfront campus lived next to the community's treasured Banyan Tree.
For the family kids, Isabella, 8, and Niko, 6, the destruction is incomprehensible.
"We get questions from our kids: When are we going go back to our old school? And when are we going to go back to our own house? We don’t really have the answers," Raya said. "These are uncharted waters for us."
An increase of natural disasters from wildfires to floods to hurricanes to tornadoes – exacerbated by climate change – have ravaged America’s schools since students returned to in-person learning after the COVID-19 pandemic. And manmade disasters from lead in drinking water to asbestos in school buildings are playing a role.
This school year alone, devastating wildfires exacerbated by winds from Hurricane Dora ravaged one school and damaged three others in Maui. And winds from category three Hurricane Idalia destroyed the roof of an elementary school in Hoboken, Georgia. Kids attending schools without air conditioning were sent home at the beginning of the school year in Puerto Rico, Philadelphia and in other areas of the mid-Atlantic and Northeast because of extreme heat.
 

-- Kayla Jimenez

The legislative Committee on Education grilled the Guam Department of Education for four hours on Friday in an attempt to ascertain what progress has been reached in school readiness. Projects under the disaster Local Area Network, or DLAN, system were of particular focus. Chris Anderson, who serves as GDOE administrator of student support services and point of contact for the Office of Civil Defense and Department of Administration gave status updates on projects being addressed through the DLAN system. “There are total of 17 tickets that were submitted starting from June 13, all the way through as late as Aug. 25. About 24% of the tickets are complete, 76% are still pending and of those that are still pending, 60% of the tickets require most likely contracts,” Anderson said. The first ticket deals with a health concern many parents have voiced since Typhoon Mawar — mold mitigation for all 41 schools and the central office. But, according to Anderson, that is still pending. “Right now, the work is with General Service Agency, working through their contracts they needed some assistance with DOE to put together a scope of work which we’ve done and that’s been submitted to them, so we’re just waiting for the procurement process to finalize,” Anderson said. Addressing safety at schools, namely perimeter fencing for 29 schools, is also tied up in procurement.

-- Jolene Toves

SALINAS, Puerto Rico — There was little her family could salvage. Just a few plastic chairs, some photos, her school uniform. The flooding last fall that devastated the home of Deishangelxa Galarza, a fifth-grader in this coastal area of southern Puerto Rico, also closed her elementary school for three days while the staff cleaned out a foot of muddy water from every first-floor room. Because of the damage to her home, Deishangelxa, pronounced Day-shan-yell-ah, missed two weeks of classes, which upset her. "School is very important to me because I want to keep studying," she said through a translator last fall. "I want to become a nurse." For Deishangelxa, it was just the latest interruption in schooling that's been characterized by near-constant disruption. She started kindergarten in 2017, the year Hurricane Maria struck the island. Students missed classes for an average of four months.

-- Kavitha Cardoza

In October 2022, the Hazelwood School District announced that Jana Elementary in Florissant, Mo., would close indefinitely, after an independent contractor reported elevated levels of radioactive lead dust on school grounds. Educating about 400 students—80 percent of whom are Black—Jana Elementary served North St. Louis County’s economically disadvantaged students, who suffered disproportionately during the pandemic.
The sudden closure of the school left the families of Jana scrambling. At a packed school board meeting, parents learned that most of Jana would transition to “all-virtual instruction” for the next month.
The school board explained that it planned to redistrict most students, fragmenting the once tight-knit elementary school community. On December 1, former Jana students began attending five different schools in the Florissant area. Months later, in a letter to Hazelwood school district parents, the school board explained that it had “no expectation that Jana Elementary will reopen.”
The purported discovery of radioactive contamination at Jana Elementary School is only the latest blow to an area long-saddled with a slow-moving and notoriously complex environmental disaster.
 

-- WALTER THOMAS-PATTERSON

Since 2017, 57 schools have been built by the Turkish Ministry of National Education to be safer and more resilient to disaster, with support from the World Bank, GFDRR and the EU.
24 of these schools are located in areas affected by the February 2023 earthquakes and aftershocks and all withstood the disaster.
Over 40,000 people now have access to safer and resilient schools as a result of the Turkish Ministry of National Education’s partnership on safer schools with the World Bank, GFDRR and the EU.

-- World Bank

Federal funding in the amount of $74,155,208.06 will go to the Virgin Islands Department of Education on St. Croix for the replacement of the Alexander Henderson Elementary School, Congresswoman Stacey E. Plaskett announced Wednesday. “I am very pleased that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) continues to award grants to our local agencies to help with the resources needed to rebuild. This award to the V.I. Department of Education on St. Croix is to replace the Alexander Henderson Elementary School which was destroyed during Hurricane Irma and Maria. This award is for replacement to a standard that will be integral for improving our preparedness and resiliency against natural disasters moving forward.

-- Staff Writer

At least 19 children have died in a fire in the central Guyanese mining town of Mahdia, officials say. The fire broke out just after midnight on Monday, engulfing a secondary school dormitory and trapping students. Emergency services are struggling to contain the fire because of bad weather conditions, the government says. Initial investigations suggest the blaze may have been started maliciously, police say - although no suspects have yet been identified. Earlier reports had recorded the death toll as being slightly higher, with at least 20 lives lost. Several other people have been injured and some are being prepared for evacuation to the capital, Georgetown, where a special centre has been set up. "This is a major disaster. It is horrible, it is painful," said Guyanese President Irfaan Ali.

-- Staff Writer

For years, Puerto Rico has been hit with natural disaster after disaster, making it hard for every sector to recover fully. Education has especially been hit hard, with interruptions in schooling becoming very prevalent in students’ lives. Just last fall, flooding caused many schools in coastal Puerto Rico to close while cleaning out the water, meaning students were missing out on many classes. These constant interruptions have caused students to fall behind in curriculum, worrying both parents and students who have high aspirations that rely on their education. Back in 2017, Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico, leaving the entire territory in devastation. On average, schools were closed for up to four months or more. This meant students were far behind in their academic progress, “especially in reading and math.” The gap in education especially affected low-income students who were not able to access external educational resources, widening the wealth disparities in education. After recovery efforts, schools started opening up in order to help students catch up on education. However, this relief, if any, was felt briefly. On January 7, 2020, Puerto Rico experienced a magnitude 6.4 earthquake. There were reports of strong shaking from people inside buildings and damage to homes and property. As a result, schools were declared closed again until the completion of a full inspection of each school to assess structural damage and security for future incidents. 

-- Aditi Vikram

There was little her family could salvage. Just a few plastic chairs, some photos, her school uniform.
The flooding last fall that devastated the home of Deishangelxa Nuez Galarza, a fifth-grader in this coastal area of southern Puerto Rico, also closed her elementary school, El Coquí, for three days while staff cleaned out a foot of muddy water from every first-floor room. Deishangelxa missed two weeks of classes, which upset her.
“School is very important to me because I want to keep studying,” she said. “I want to become a nurse.”
It was just the latest interruption in schooling that’s been characterized by near-constant disruption. Deishangelxa started kindergarten at the Ana Hernández Usera elementary school in 2017, the year Hurricane Maria struck the island. Schools across Puerto Rico were closed for an average of four months.
Ana Hernández Usera never reopened. Like more than 260 other schools across Puerto Rico with low enrollment, it was closed permanently as part of wider cost-cutting measures. Deishangelxa transferred to El Coquí, but the island would not get a break from natural disasters. She was eight in January 2020, when earthquakes rocked the island, closing her school for three months.
A few weeks after her school reopened, it closed again because of Covid-19. Deishangelxa struggled with virtual learning and fell far behind. In August 2021, in-person schooling finally resumed for students on the island, but not for long. Just a year later, Hurricane Fiona unleashed a furious attack on the island, causing widespread flooding and infrastructure damage. Deishangelxa was 10 when schools shut again in September 2022 – this time for two weeks.
 

-- Kavitha Cardoza for the Hechinger Report

Measuring the effects of extreme weather requires extreme numbers. Climate change racked up an eye-popping $165 billion damages tab in the U.S. last year, as tallied by a recent federal report. And back in September, around 82 percent of Florida school districts closed for at least one day — keeping roughly 2.5 million students out of school. With experts predicting more extreme weather in 2023, that undoubtedly means schools will suffer more disruptions in a K-12 education era already defined by pandemic-related learning setbacks. This puts physical classrooms in harm’s way, and also threatens students’ academics and mental health, too. Climate Change’s Education Cost
Climate change impacts on K-12 education are a problem worldwide. Damage from disasters like flooding, cyclones and wildfires can shutter schools for long periods, a Brookings Institute report says, or cause students to miss school due to illness or damage to their homes. The report authors were particularly concerned about repercussions for girls. “These risks are particularly acute for adolescent girls, who have a short window of opportunity to get back to school before they are forced to take a different path — including marriage or migration for work,” researchers write. In the U.S., physical threats to schools from weather vary from region to region. They include hurricanes, wildfires and winter storms.

-- Nadia Tamez-Robledo

Schools in southwest Florida preemptively shut down ahead of Hurricane Ian in preparation for the destruction they knew would ensue. More than two weeks after the category 4 storm slammed into the coast, those schools are still closed as families and school districts recover from one of the state’s worst natural disasters.
It’s the most recent example of a growing trend over which education experts are increasingly sounding an alarm: More frequent and intense extreme weather events are disrupting school systems nationwide for weeks, months and, in some cases, years.
Ft. Myers Beach Elementary in Lee County is one of those schools. Just one block from the ocean, the school was ravaged by Hurricane Ian’s powerful winds, which tore down walls. The storm surge rose to the top of the school doors, destroying nearly everything inside.
When Melissa Wright saw her fourth-grade son’s school for the first time after the storm, she could only manage three words: “My goodness gracious.”
Her concern soon shifted from the physical damage to her 10-year-old son’s educational future as she waits for schools in the county to reopen next week. And she worries he will fall behind amid back-to-back disasters.
“I just feel bad for him and all the students who had to go through Covid a couple of years ago – and that completely disrupted everything,” Wright said. “And now in fourth grade, which is another pretty impactful year, everything is up in the air again.”
 

-- René Marsh

The devastation from Hurricane Ian has left schools shuttered indefinitely in parts of Florida, leaving storm-weary families anxious for word on when and how children can get back to classrooms. As rescue and recovery operations continue in the storm’s aftermath, several school systems in hard-hit counties in southwestern Florida can’t say for sure when they’ll reopen. Some schools are without power and still assessing the damage, as well as the impact on staff members who may have lost homes or can’t return to work. Shuttered schools can worsen the hurricane’s disruption for children. Recovery from natural disasters elsewhere suggests the effects on kids can be lasting, particularly in low-income communities that have a harder time bouncing back. “In a week or two, we’ll have forgotten about Hurricane Ian. But these districts and schools and students will be struggling months and years later,” said Cassandra R. Davis, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina.

-- CHEYANNE MUMPHREY and BIANCA VÁZQUEZ TONESS

President Joe Biden issued a major disaster declaration on Wednesday for Puerto Rico, unlocking additional federal assistance as island residents navigate the aftermath of Hurricane Fiona. Gov. Pedro Pierluisi had asked the Biden administration on Tuesday for an expedited declaration, two days after Fiona pelted the island with heavy rainfall and knocked out its fragile power grid.
A feud over whether and how to shift Puerto Rico toward wind, solar and other renewable power is one factor in the years of wrangling over the direction of the territory’s energy policies.
The American Red Cross said Wednesday during a news conference with FEMA officials that some residents were benefiting from an initiative that installed solar panels and battery systems at about 150 schools at a cost of $40 million after 2017’s Hurricane Maria. Now, after Fiona, more than 50 of these schools are being used as shelters.

-- GLORIA GONZALEZ

Nine North Carolina school districts stretching from Hyde County in the east to Cherokee County in the west will share more than $300 million in new state lottery-funded grant awards for school construction, renovation projects, and other capital improvements. Among the projects to be funded by the grants, aimed at districts in economically distressed counties, are seven new or replacement school buildings, including three high schools, two schools combining middle and high school grades, an intermediate school for upper elementary and middle school grades and a Career and Technical Education Center. Some of these districts receiving the grants were hardest hit by natural disasters like flooding and an earthquake. Several of the new schools will replace at least two existing schools with combined facilities. In all, the Department of Public Instruction received 164 grant applications from 72 districts across the state totaling more than $2.4 billon.

-- Staff Writer

Seventeen years ago, Hurricane Katrina left the city of New Orleans and its surrounding parishes completely underwater, destroying 110 out of the 126 public schools in the city. Eight districts were severely impacted by the storm and 187,000 public school students were displaced. At the time, the disaster was unprecedented. In the years since, the frequency of climate disasters has continued to increase. Here, principals and superintendents who have faced the loss of school buildings from wildfires and floods discuss what school leaders can do to prepare for, and recover from, these crises.

-- Lilia Geho

Details relating to the start date of the Evelyn M. Williams school demolition were announced at a press briefing on Wednesday. The event was held jointly with the V.I. Department of Education and the Office of disaster Recovery.
During the briefing, it was revealed that the $3 million school demolition project will begin on August 22, making way for construction of what will be the new Arthur A. Richards PreK-8 School.
Speakers at Wednesday’s event held at the abandoned Evelyn M. Williams Elementary School site in Estate Paradise included Education Commissioner Nominee Dionne Wells-Hedrington, ODR Director Adrienne Williams-Octalien, and licensed contractors. 
Wells-Hedrington said it was a great day for the Dept. of Education as she relayed her elation to be present to kickoff the demolition of the first school rebuild in the territory following the storms of 2017. She said it had taken “a long time to get here,” but went on to assure the community that this was just the first of many more to come.
“It's been a long time in negotiations with FEMA,” she said. “It’s been been a long time with us having community meetings to bring the community up to speed with our facility master plan document and all the things we want to see in terms of our facilities moving forward.” 
According to Wells-Hedrington, it's no secret that public education facilities in the territory were aged and extensive repairs and replacements were needed in some cases. 
 

-- Kayra Williams

As eastern Kentucky grapples with the aftermath of historic flash flooding, key infrastructure like schools, transportation, power and water systems will take a long time to rebuild. Some schools are acting as emergency shelters in the wake of the disaster and many districts have already announced delayed starts to the school year. In a news conference, Gov. Andy Beshear said the cost of rebuilding and repairing school systems in the region will be massive. “When looking at schools, there’s two things: there’s damage assessments and when school is going to start. But school damages are in the tens of millions, probably over  $100 million.” Beshear said just the school cleanup costs in Knott County, one of the areas hardest hit by flooding, was estimated at over $1 million.  “We’ve been talking to legislative leaders and we’re all committed to providing funding for our school system and working on a package like the SAFE Act in western Kentucky,” Beshear said.

-- Divya Karthikeyan

Nicholas County Schools has just two years to complete federally backed construction projects or risk owing millions to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). During the flooding disaster of 2016, Richwood Middle School, Richwood High School, and Summersville Middle School in Nicholas County were severely damaged. Four years later, in 2020, FEMA awarded the West Virginia School Building Authority with a grant of $131 million to replace the schools in Nicholas County. More than $17 million of that has been spent as of June 13, 2022. The county is negotiating a construction contract that fits within the current budget. Construction was delayed because of increased costs due to COVID-19. “We, by our estimations, are around 25 to 35 percent over our budgeted amount,” David L. Roach, Executive Director of the West Virginia School Building Authority, said.

-- David Adkins

When last summer’s devastating flood put the town of Waverly, Tenn., underwater, Richard Rye was standing on the roof of the junior high school. The junior high school where, if it had not been a Saturday morning, entire classrooms of kids would have been submerged in five feet of water as a rising swell pushed through the building, ripping heavy doors off their hinges and turning hallways into rivers, desks bobbing in the current like paper cups.
Rye, the director of schools for Humphreys County, stood on that roof for hours and watched first neighboring Waverly Elementary and then Waverly Junior High School, buildings that housed 1,100 total students on any given weekday, fill with water. All he could think was: What am I going to do?
The forecast had showed only a few inches of rain. And Waverly, a rural town with a smaller-than-average Walmart, a few fast-food chains, an AutoZone and not much else, wasn’t seen as a cosmic center of extreme weather. On the night before the flood, many people, including Rye, had sat under the Friday night lights cheering on the high school football team, the Tigers. When the Tigers won, the rain had not yet started to fall.
Then, early on the morning of Aug. 21, Rye woke to a text message from the elementary school principal alerting him that Trace Creek, which winds its way through Waverly, had started rising.
Picture where you are right now and imagine taking 30 or so long steps. That’s the distance from one corner of the school to the water’s edge. That had always worried Rye, especially since the elementary and junior high schools sat in a low-lying area. When he took over as director in July 2020, they had already flooded twice, in 2010 and 2019. Rye had started to build a raised-dirt berm around the buildings in hopes of keeping flooding at bay — the best he could do with limited resources.
By 7:45 a.m. that Saturday, Rye was in his gray Ford Explorer headed to the schools. Within an hour, Rye and a bus mechanic had loaded a truck bed full of sandbags and were beginning to place them around the perimeter of the elementary and junior high buildings. Water lapped around their ankles. A few minutes later, the water was at their knees, then at their waists. The strength of the water threatened Rye’s balance and felt, he remembers, “like a tsunami.” That’s when Rye, along with a few others who were at the campus, opened a supply closet, got a ladder and climbed to the roof.
 

-- Andrea Stanley

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.
 

-- Anya Kamenetz

School districts that have relied on emergency aid to recover from floods, fires, and storms are more likely to serve large shares of students of color, economically disadvantaged children, and other vulnerable groups, new federal research says.
While that disaster aid proved very beneficial to many communities, K-12 officials also reported a variety of significant disruptions to students’ mental health, school infrastructure, and other problems stemming from destabilized housing environments and parental job loss, a Government Accountability Office report found. These leaders also told the GAO that federal assistance sometimes fell short of meeting schools’ long-term needs, leading to delays and other problems for recovery efforts.
In recent years, more than half the districts receiving certain disaster relief served disproportionately large shares of at least two groups of vulnerable students, like English-language learners and children from low-income backgrounds.
“School districts serving high proportions of children in these groups may need more recovery assistance compared to districts with less-vulnerable student populations,” said the GAO report, which was published Tuesday.
During interviews with officials overseeing districts affected by disasters, the GAO also found that bureaucratic, financial, and other hardships made it more difficult for less-affluent districts to repair buildings. And in contrast to their wealthier counterparts that were also affected by natural disasters, such districts reported prolonged academic declines among disadvantaged students.
The GAO study looked at districts getting assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Public Assistance program and the U.S. Department of Education’s Immediate Aid to Restart School Operations (Restart) programs from 2017 to 2019.
In all, 840 districts received the Education Department grant assistance, FEMA assistance, or both during the period studied. These districts educate roughly 18 percent of public school students in the U.S., and constitute 4.5 percent of all districts.
 

-- Andrew Ujifusa

School districts that have relied on emergency aid to recover from floods, fires, and storms are more likely to serve large shares of students of color, economically disadvantaged children, and other vulnerable groups, new federal research says.
While that disaster aid proved very beneficial to many communities, K-12 officials also reported a variety of significant disruptions to students’ mental health, school infrastructure, and other problems stemming from destabilized housing environments and parental job loss, a Government Accountability Office report found. These leaders also told the GAO that federal assistance sometimes fell short of meeting schools’ long-term needs, leading to delays and other problems for recovery efforts.
In recent years, more than half the districts receiving certain disaster relief served disproportionately large shares of at least two groups of vulnerable students, like English-language learners and children from low-income backgrounds.
“School districts serving high proportions of children in these groups may need more recovery assistance compared to districts with less-vulnerable student populations,” said the GAO report, which was published Tuesday.
During interviews with officials overseeing districts affected by disasters, the GAO also found that bureaucratic, financial, and other hardships made it more difficult for less-affluent districts to repair buildings. And in contrast to their wealthier counterparts that were also affected by natural disasters, such districts reported prolonged academic declines among disadvantaged students.
The GAO study looked at districts getting assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Public Assistance program and the U.S. Department of Education’s Immediate Aid to Restart School Operations (Restart) programs from 2017 to 2019.
In all, 840 districts received the Education Department grant assistance, FEMA assistance, or both during the period studied. These districts educate roughly 18 percent of public school students in the U.S., and constitute 4.5 percent of all districts.
 

-- Andrew Ujifusa

GUAYNABO, Puerto Rico – The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) allocated over $24.4 million during October and November to repair and reinforce various schools in the South and West regions of Puerto Rico that experienced structural damage caused by the 2020 earthquakes. To date, over $142 million has been obligated to the Puerto Rico Department of Education for 115 permanent work projects that address damage related to the tremors. Due to the amount of structural damage caused by the earthquakes, most of the allocated funds will be used for mitigation works such as installing supports and steel structural reinforcements to protect the buildings in case of a future seismic event. "Investing in construction works related to education has a ripple effect in Puerto Rico's recovery. Although it's true that the construction industry plays a vital role in any country's economy, when the works relate to education, the impact is even greater because the education of children and youths is one of our most important assets, it is the future of Puerto Rico," said FEMA Federal disaster Recovery Coordinator for Puerto Rico, José G. Baquero. The funds include nearly $1.2 million to repair the Segundo Ruiz Belvis elementary school -- built during the 1940's -- over $2.7 million for the Eugenio María de Hostos High School and nearly $3.9 million for the Dr. Pedro Perea Fajardo Vocational Superior Public School, all three located in Mayagüez. Between the three campuses there is an enrollment of approximately 1,870 students who will benefit from the reconstructed spaces. "School infrastructure improvement work is at the top of our work agenda through our Reconstruction Office. We have moved forward with several auctions of these projects which will allow permanent improvements to begin at the schools. Our vision is to make school environments safe and comfortable in a way that facilitates better outcomes for our students," said the Acting Secretary of the Puerto Rico Department of Education, Eliezer Ramos Parés.

-- FEMA Author

Restoration to schools in South Louisiana damaged after Hurricanes Laura, Delta and Ida struck has been halted due to slow disaster relief payouts from FEMA and the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. 
Louisiana Senate Education Committee Chair Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, told state emergency officials that it’s “unacceptable, unreasonable and unconscionable” that it’s taken more than eight months to approve Laura recovery projects for schools in Southwest Louisiana. The hurricane wrecked Southwest Louisiana over a year ago. 
Superintendents from school systems affected by the recent hurricanes spoke to the Louisiana Senate Education Committee Tuesday morning to provide updates on recovery and restoration.
State Superintendent Cade Brumley told the committee that 70,000 students remain out of school, though more than 300,000 students were out of school immediately following Ida. Brumley said he’s “impressed” with the speed in which Southeast Louisiana has gotten students back into schools.
“On a boots-on-the-ground trip [to Southeast Louisiana], you’d think ‘Oh, there’s no way that this could happen,” he said. “These system leaders have done an excellent job acting with urgency getting their students back into school.”
In Calcasieu Parish, schools have all reopened over a year after Hurricane Laura struck, but “one million square feet of temporary roof continues to leak every time it rains in our school system,”, Superintendent Karl Bruchhaus said.
“Every time it rains, we’re happy that we bought all the 55-gallon trash cans in Sam’s, because we have [leaks] all over our school district,” Bruchhaus said.
Calcasieu Parish schools are still waiting on about $126 million from FEMA for and about another $6 million to be released by state officials to fix damages. Bruchhaus said the school system has had to halt all of their current restoration projects because “we’re basically out of cash.”
 

-- JC CANICOSA

With the new academic year already hindered by COVID infections and closures, a new hurdle has emerged. A month of extreme weather has disrupted back-to-school across the country, with closures affecting more than 1.1 million students.
More than 45,000 students in Louisiana alone are expected to be out of school until October because of lingering problems caused by Hurricane Ida, which made landfall Aug. 29.
Remnants of the storm also battered districts in Maryland, Pennsylvania and New Jersey with flooding and tornadoes. Additionally, rising temperatures coupled with inadequate air conditioning have closed hundreds of districts around the country.
Meanwhile, wildfires have scorched school grounds in California.
“Unfortunately, these horrific wildfires and other natural disasters have become our new normal as a result of the effects of climate change,” California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said in a news release Sept. 3.
The frequency and intensity of the natural disasters shuttering schools are in part due to climate change.
“Ida is an unnatural disaster, at least in part,” Jason West, a professor of environmental engineering at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health tweeted on Aug. 29. “Climate change makes it stronger, sea level rise makes it more damaging.”
Here’s how America’s schools and students are faring as climate change fans the flames of extreme weather.
 

-- Meghan Gallagher

When school facilities closed for in-person learning in early March 2020, the assumption was that the shutdown and pandemic would be temporary blips in the memory of our students. Some 16 months later, school facilities are finally preparing to re-open for in-person learning. We could go about business as usual, but after the devastation of the pandemic, and the increasingly widespread climate-change-linked weather disasters, it’s obvious we should not. Emerging from the crisis of COVID-19 gives us an opportunity to rethink our public schools, to simultaneously the structural inequalities that pervade the system, and prepare it for the climate emergency ahead.
Lawmakers have had difficulty grappling with the layering of immediate and longer-lasting crises. That’s where we think the Green New Deal for Public Schools, introduced to Congress by Representative Jamaal Bowman (NY) on July 16, comes in. Building on the research of our climate + community project, its basic premise is that we have to tackle our society’s gravest problems not one by one, but in their entirety, through ambitious physical and social investments that lift up the workers and communities that have suffered the most disinvestment throughout American history. We want to fight systemic racism, poverty, and environmental breakdown with comprehensive, holistic policies.
The legislation authorizes $1.4 trillion in spending over the next decade to upgrade and decarbonize every public school in the U.S. with new solar panels, batteries, and green retrofits, while also investing in adequate staffing levels for every vulnerable school in the country. By greening schools, we can create centers of climate resilience infrastructure in every community and help to address the legacy of educational inequity that creates an uneven landscape of public schools.
 

-- AKIRA DRAKE RODRIGUEZ , ERIKA KITZMILLER AND DANIE

As Congress weighs whether to include schools in an infrastructure package, the choice is not whether the federal government should spend money on school construction and renovation. It already does. The choice is whether the federal government should spend less now or more later through a broken, wasteful and disruptive cycle of damage and repair. School construction is currently funded by local and state governments with one notable exception — rebuilding schools after disasters. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has invested billions in fixing schools that have been damaged by extreme weather events such as flooding, wildfires, hurricanes and cold snaps. In 2005, FEMA spent almost $4 billion to help schools recover from Hurricane Katrina.  Older school facilities present a heightened risk. They do not reflect the latest advancements in building science and disaster preparedness that can minimize damage and keep occupants safe. According to a 2017 report by FEMA, “older school buildings are particularly vulnerable to natural disasters and in most cases, school administrators do not have the financial resources to address these vulnerabilities.” If schools did have resources, investing in resilience would be an excellent use of funds. The National Institute of Building Sciences reports that for every $1 of preventative spending, we save $6 in post-disaster recovery. 

-- JONATHAN KLEIN, OPINION

WASHINGTON — Workers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency have been scouting shelters for the migrant children surging across the Southern border. They’ve been running coronavirus vaccination sites in Colorado, Massachusetts and Washington. And they are still managing the recovery from a string of record disasters starting with Hurricane Harvey in 2017.
On the cusp of what experts say will be an unusually destructive season of hurricanes and wildfires, just 3,800 of the agency’s 13,700 emergency workers are available right now to respond to a new disaster. That’s 29 percent fewer than were ready to deploy at the start of last year’s hurricane period, which began, as it does every year, on June 1.
FEMA has seldom been in greater demand — becoming a kind of 911 hotline for some of President Biden’s most pressing policy challenges. And the men and women who have become the nation’s first responders are tired.
Deanne Criswell, President Biden’s pick to run the agency, identified employee burnout as a major issue during her first all-hands FEMA meeting, according to Steve Reaves, president of the union local that represents employees.
“FEMA is like the car engine that’s been redlining since 2017 when Harvey hit,” said Brock Long, who ran the agency under former President Donald J. Trump and is now executive chairman of Hagerty Consulting. “It is taking a toll.” For some categories of workers, the shortage is severe. Among the agency’s senior leadership staff, those qualified to coordinate missions in the field, just three out of 53 are currently available to deploy, the data show. Other specialized types of personnel, including operations and planning staff, have less than 15 percent of their workers available. “As we prepare for hurricane and wildfire seasons, or whatever nature brings us, I am committed that FEMA employees will have the tools needed to continue our support of ongoing missions while ensuring that our deployed work force has time to rest and train to be ready for what comes next,” Ms. Criswell said in a statement.

-- Christopher Flavelle and Zolan Kanno-Youngs

Across the country, more and more students are returning to their classrooms after what has been, for some, nearly a year of online learning. The school closures brought on by COVID-19 have underscored how critical the physical environment is to student well-being and educational success. And yet, for large populations of students—particularly those in communities with fewer resources and in Black, Latino, and other communities of color1—going back to school means going back to broken-down facilities with poor insulation and outdated ventilation systems.2
The deficiencies of school infrastructure have been exposed by the compounding crises of the COVID-19 pandemic and the record-breaking extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change. Last year, schools in Oregon burned in the worst wildfire season to date,3 and schools in Florida flooded after Tropical Storm Eta.4 In February, an extreme cold snap caused schools in Texas to freeze.5 According to a 2020 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), 54 percent of U.S. school districts—a bulk of which primarily serve students of color—need to update or completely replace multiple building systems in their schools.6 Without the funds to do so, these districts are increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and the exorbitant costs of rebuilding after it is too late. In 2016, for example, floods in West Virginia caused an estimated $130 million in damages to regional schools.7 In 2020, Hurricane Laura caused $300 million in damages to the Lake Charles public school system in Louisiana, with 74 of 76 schools in disrepair and more than half of the district’s 350 school buses inoperable.8
The urgency of investing in school infrastructure has never been greater, but, arguably, neither has the opportunity. The recent enactment of the American Rescue Plan by Congress—both through education funds and state and local fiscal recovery funds—will provide schools with an important down payment on the capital upgrades needed to address COVID-19.9 With this relief funding en route, Congress should shift to providing long-term funding to adequately and equitably update school infrastructure, equipping schools to withstand the disasters ahead and to participate in the clean energy transition.
In his American Jobs Plan, President Joe Biden called for the investment of $100 billion to upgrade and build new public schools.10 The prioritization of climate change throughout the plan underscores that this transformation of the public school system can and should work in tandem with the country’s transformation to a 100 percent clean future. By increasing spending on local school infrastructure needs, Congress would not only stimulate the economy but also advance climate change solutions and reduce the number of instructional days missed by students due to public health and environmental factors. Finally, federal school funds could begin to redress the deep infrastructure inequities that plague public school districts.
 

-- Elise Gout, Jamil Modaffari, and Kevin DeGood

Senators on the disaster Recovery and Infrastructure Committee commended Education Commissioner Racquel Berry-Benjamin on a detailed presentation Wednesday, although some raised concerns about plans to consolidate USVI schools, contractors leaving jobs unfinished and the pace of rebuilding since the hurricanes of 2017.
Sen. Kurt Vialet said students are still being bused to St. Croix Educational Complex because an unidentified odor permeates the modular classrooms at the site of the Arthur Richards school. He said he has been there and just opening a door one can smell something emanating from the walls. Those classrooms were closed on the last day of February, affecting about 400 students.
“We have paid $100 million for buildings we can’t use,” Vialet said. He said the contractor is refusing to take responsibility for the conditions of the modular classrooms and should be “carried to court.”
The other school where education officials are at loggerheads with contractors is the Julius E. Sprauve Elementary School on St. John.
Sen. Donna Frett-Gregory, a former commissioner of Education, said she was having a hard time “keeping her cool” hearing about problems at the schools. She said it has become a legal issue, and the department should not have to deal with it; it should be turned over to the Attorney General’s Office.
Frett-Gregory also said she is concerned about plans which would take the number of St. Croix schools – which once numbered 13 – down to nine, and the St. Thomas-St. John District – which now has 11 schools – down to nine. She said, “I remain concerned and troubled; basically, we are saying that we are moving away from neighborhood schools.”
 

-- Don Buchanan

RUSK COUNTY, Texas — Despite the Great Depression of the 1930s, money was flowing from the oil fields of East Texas. Little towns like New London in Rusk County were prosperous for many, so much so that the community built a new school to educate grades five through 12.
It was heralded as one of the most modern in Texas. To provide heat in winter, school officials saved taxpayers $300 a month to pipe in natural gas from the oil fields. It was a tragic mistake.
At 3:17 p.m. the afternoon of March 18, 1937, the school building exploded.
A young Associated Press reporter who went on to fame as a television news anchor, Walter Cronkite, covered the story. He would later write in his book, "A Reporter's Life," that “two minutes before classes were to be dismissed for the weekend, a student in the basement woodworking shop switched off a band saw. The spark did its work.”
 

-- Bob Garcia-Buckalew

A bill granting local school boards in Tennessee the authority to open and close schools during a state of emergency passed the state Senate on Monday.
If the bill becomes law, local school board members, as well as the governing body of charter schools, could consult health officials but would have the authority to determine whether to open or close schools during an emergency, such as the COVID-19 pandemic or a natural disaster. The governor would also hold veto power to mandate school openings under the bill. 

 

-- Yue Stella Yu

OHIO — Nearly a year and a half after multiple tornadoes ripped through the Miami Valley, local school districts are still hurting.
The property damage left districts with the loss of tax money because valuations dropped. So now two state lawmakers are trying to fix the problem with special financial help from the Statehouse.
Rep. J. Todd Smith, R-Farmersville and Rep. Phil Plummer, R-Dayton introduced HB 480 to provide districts with some much needed relief. The bill provides a total of $1 million of state tax money to be shared among districts that qualify to make up for the loss of property valuation. The funding is limited to districts that suffered losses from natural disasters on May 27 and 28, 2019.
Hearings on the bill opened Tuesday in the Ohio House Finance Committee. “Memorial Day 2019 was a dark day for Ohioans when 20 tornadoes hit our state in a 24 hour period,” said Rep. J. Todd Smith. There were more than 4,500 properties damaged  that night and the dollar value estimated at $1 billion, according to Smith.
The money would come from a fund that had been created earlier by the legislature to help pay for natural disasters. The new legislation would permit an allocation to school districts for loss of tax valuation. Rep. Plummer said the money is badly needed by districts and would be put to a good use. "It could pay for those counselors we need for mental health in schools. The wrap around services we have been pushing for. When you lose taxes you lose services. 
 

-- Jim Otte

From the Gulf of Mexico to the western end of the Pacific Ocean, schools have recently experienced unprecedented and excruciating setbacks beyond their control. And that was before the coronavirus pandemic.  A new report from the Government Accountability Office says that for schools that have suffered from major natural disasters in recent years, the pandemic has made difficult situations even more daunting as local leaders try to dig out and keep multiple catastrophes from overwhelming students and school communities.  "Local education officials in disaster-affected areas told us the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated mental health issues and trauma, and contributed to lost instructional time, staff burnout, delays in recovery projects, and financial strain in their communities," the GAO stated in a report released Wednesday. "Such varied challenges reflect the multi-faceted nature of both recovery and services that schools provide to students." Some of those general findings, of course, are not surprising, given the wave of school closures in March, the uneven return to classrooms around the country this academic year, and ongoing concerns about the safety and welfare of school communities. But the GAO's study zooms in on the compounding affects of natural disasters and the pandemic. For example, it highlights Sonoma County, Calif., students who lost 40 days of instructional time due to "wildfires, floods, and power shutoffs" in recent years, only to lose another 60 days of instructional time to the pandemic in 2020. Elsewhere, Hurricane Michael severely disrupted a Florida disrict's work to reduce the number of low-performing schools, and the shift to online learning during the pandemic represented another setback.

-- Andrew Ujifusa

Puerto Rico is being promised nearly $13 billion in federal disaster funding to repair its electrical and education infrastructure three years after Hurricane Maria’s devastation and six weeks before the presidential election. The Federal Emergency Management Agency plans to award two separate grants to help rebuild Puerto Rico’s electrical grid system and educational facilities, the White House announced Friday. “Today’s grant announcements represent some of the largest awards in FEMA’s history for any single disaster recovery event and demonstrate the Federal Government’s continuing commitment to help rebuild the territory and support the citizens of Puerto Rico and their recovery goals,” the White House statement said. Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico as a Category 4 storm in September 2017, killing at least 3,000 residents and essentially destroying an electrical system that was already unreliable. Parts of the island remained without power for almost a year. When asked why he had announced the plans 46 days before an election, and not in the aftermath of the devastating storm three years ago, President Trump blamed Democrats and said, “We’ve been working on it for a long time.” The White House said $9.6 billion in federal funding will help the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority “repair and replace thousands of miles of transmission and distribution lines, electrical substations, power generation systems [and] office buildings,” and make other improvements to the grid.

-- Rachel Treisman

The Santa Cruz County school community stands in solidarity with all students, families
and community members who have been impacted by the CZU lightning complex fire. Our
hearts go out to all of those who have lost their homes, who have been displaced, and
who have a long road ahead of them to rebuild what was lost. Navigating the CZU Lightning Complex fire in the midst of a pandemic has united Santa Cruz County schools like never before. After the evacuations of the Santa Cruz mountain communities, dedicated school personnel immediately took action to mobilize all the resources schools have in our possession to assist with emergency operations and provide support and essential services to our community — many of whom are displaced themselves. In times of crisis, public schools serve as places of resources and refuge. When disaster struck, Santa Cruz County schools joined in the collaborative effort with Cal Fire, the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office, and our County’s Emergency Operations Center to aid in recovery efforts by making school facilities available as sites for emergency evacuation shelters. We worked together to transform the Harbor High School multipurpose room into a COVID-19 compliant emergency shelter for displaced residents in a matter of two hours. Lakeview Middle School was also quickly assembled as an outdoor evacuation shelter, while Shoreline Middle and Watsonville High were prepared and ready in the event more shelters would be needed. Countless school personnel sprung into action to assist with recovery efforts. Dozens of
school staff stepped up to volunteer at a moment’s notice to serve as disaster Service
Workers to provide direct countywide support to families staying in shelters. Districts not directly impacted by the fires took initiative to ensure continuity of essential services for students and staff including free and reduced meal programs, internet connectivity, and facilities for displaced teachers to work.

-- FARIS SABBAH - Guest Commentary

The few photographers who dared venture into New Orleans’s devastated schools after Hurricane Katrina emerged with images that were harrowing and haunting. Portraits of sheer obliteration, wreckage towering frame after frame.
When the storm came ashore on Aug. 29, 2005, some neighborhoods in the city were submerged beneath 12 feet of water. More than 1,800 were killed by the surge and its aftermath; an estimated million Gulf Coast residents were displaced by the storm.
The city’s school system was left in ruins. More than 100 buildings were damaged or destroyed beyond repair, and the images that emerged from those derelict structures point to the magnitude of the challenge that awaited the city.
Fifteen years after one of the worst natural disasters in American history, here’s a look back at how Hurricane Katrina forever reshaped New Orleans schools.
 

-- Mark Keierleber

CEDAR RAPIDS — The Cedar Rapids Community School District and 13 others struck by last week’s derecho expect a new proclamation from Gov. Kim Reynolds allowing them to start the school year online instead of in damaged facilities. Reynolds announced Thursday she is updating a public health emergency proclamation addressing school districts affected by storm damage. “The proclamation will permit those districts whose school buildings have been damaged by the derecho to move to primarily remote learning while they repair their buildings and for students and teachers to return safely,” Reynolds said during a news briefing. “And if districts conclude that the damage to their district prevents starting even remote learning that they may apply to the Department of Education for a limited time instructional waiver.” Cedar Rapids Superintendent Noreen Bush said in an email to families Thursday that a new start date for the first day of school in the district will be announced soon. It is waiting for a building assessment for 30 properties hit by the derecho and for the city’s infrastructure — including power and Wi-Fi — to be restored and stable before determining when that date will be. A restoration firm has been working with the district’s insurance company “day and night” assessing the damage and beginning mapping out a recovery plan, Bush said. Bush said the district hopes to have an initial assessment to review by Monday — which would have been the first day of school before the pandemic and derecho. “We know that getting our students back to school is how we can help,” Bush said in the email. “It will bring some form of normalcy and support to the chaos of the virus pandemic and natural disaster — a combined catastrophe of historic proportion. We are working hard to create a plan that safely educates and nurtures our students within the parameters of our challenging situation.”

-- Grace King

When Governor Charlie Baker released guidelines for reopening schools, one measure seemed to come out of left field: In an effort to get as many students as possible back into their classrooms this fall, he would allow schools to practice only 3 feet of social distancing instead of the standard 6 feet, sparking a passionate debate across the state.
Teacher unions adamantly oppose the idea, calling it “a path of disaster.” Many parents are up in arms, and some districts, such as Boston and Lexington, have already rejected the lower standard.
“It’s really anxiety-provoking,” said Sharita Fauche, a co-director of the Collaborative Parent Leadership Action Network, whose children attend Brooke Charter School in Mattapan. “For parents who have really abided by the shelter-in-place advisory, you are now exposing your kids to other kids by sending them to school, and you don’t know what the safety practices of those other kids are in their homes.”
President Trump stepped into the fray last week, demanding school districts nationwide resume in-person classes for all students five days a week or lose federal funding, adding more pressure on Massachusetts districts to relax social distancing.
Meanwhile, a growing number of infectious disease experts and pediatricians support Massachusetts’ lower social-distancing standard because it is combined with other safety measures, such as requiring masks and having all desks face forward. They argue that the risk of children getting the coronavirus is low, while the academic, social, and emotional harm they would incur by staying out of school is far greater.
The swirling debate over social distancing exemplifies how difficult it will be for local districts to reopen school buildings after the pandemic forced their closure in March, especially in convincing a nervous public that everyone will be safe. A Suffolk University poll recently found almost half of white parents and 60 percent of Black and Latino parents doubted schools would have adequate safety measures.
 

-- James Vaznis

BOWIE, Texas (TNN) - It’s been nearly a month since an EF1 tornado hit the town of Bowie causing millions of dollars in damages to its school district. With most of the damage and clean-up finishing up, Superintendent Blake Enlow said it’s time to get the district fixed and ready for students. “We’d like to get phase one done by August 1, knowing that we have two-a-days for athletics,” he said, “and then band camp will start the first week of August.” Cleaning up Bowie ISD, though, has not been an easy task. Every item cleared has revealed a new issue at the high school and Jackrabbit Stadium. “You started seeing that once all the big things were cleaned up, there was a lot of damage that was out there that you didn’t know about,” said district athletic director Cory Mandrell. With the school board’s approval this week, Superintendent Enlow was able to make a disaster declaration. That allows him to begin working with contractors and insurance adjusters.

-- Emily Bjorklund

HORRY COUNTY, S.C. (WPDE) — School districts across the state are making sure no student goes hungry, so they're offering free meals. Even though schools are closed, their kitchens are still open. School officials said they are doing their part to ensure every students' needs are met in this uncertain time. "We're in what I'm going to call uncharted territory," said Brent Streett, Georgetown County School District's executive director for food service. "We've prepared for hurricanes and floods and other natural disasters but this is the first time we've experienced this type of closure." Many aren't letting these uncertainties stop them. "I've had multiple staff members come to me who are willing to help before I ask them," Street said. Horry County Schools employees are also pitching in. They, like most districts, have been providing the meals and even bringing them to neighborhoods on school buses.

-- Donovan Harris

CLAYTON, N.C. — In 2016, Hurricane Matthew battered eastern North Carolina, presenting many school districts with lengthy closures. That meant lots of missed learning time for students too. Upon returning to class, Clayton High School Principal Dr. Bennett Jones and his staff began thinking about ways to limit the impact of natural disasters on education in the future. "It really facilitated a conversation among our staff — how can we facilitate learning to students if they're not physically in front of us?" Jones said. The school began working on a new vision, one that would allow teachers to educate their students remotely in the event of an illness, an accident, a natural disaster — or maybe a pandemic. "We established that every teacher would have digital learning platforms to be able to facilitate information to students who may be out," Jones said. In the spring of 2018, Clayton had its first opportunity to put what it called "flex learning" to the test. An unplanned water outage meant the school would be without water for the day, so Jones reached out to district leadership with a proposal.

-- Nick Stevens

AUSTIN, Texas — On Thursday, Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order, requiring all bars, gyms, schools, and restaurant dining rooms to shut down, only allowing delivery and take-out services for food establishments, in response to rapidly growing coronavirus cases in the state. The order takes effect 11:59 P.M. Friday and continues until April 3. This comes after several counties and states in the state already issued similar orders. Texas joins more than 20 states with similar orders - including California, Illinois, and New York. "We have to get back to business as usual as quickly as possible. We can only do that by everybody joining with us," Abbott said. "Our collected goal as a state is to make sure that spike levels off." At Thursday's press conference, Abbott mentioned the fact Texas leads the nation in natural disaster declarations, but this response requires a different approach. "The traditional mode we have employed in the State of Texas for such a long time so effectively does not apply to an invisible disease," Abbott said.

-- Christian Flores

The School Breakfast Scorecard, released by Food Research & Action Center (FRAC), reports 12.4 million children received a free or reduced-price school breakfast on an average school day in the 2018-19 school year, down 6,000 students — a relatively small percentage — from the prior year.
For every 100 students who participated in the National School Lunch program, 57.5 students participated in the School Breakfast Program.
School breakfast participation among low-income students flattened, while overall participation in school breakfast grew, and school lunch participation decreased. These changes are attributed in the report to:
A growing economy shrinking the number of low-income students eligible to receive free or reduced-price school meals
Decreased school enrollment overall
Natural disasters impacting school nutrition operations 

-- Shawna De La Rosa

People in West Virginia’s Nicholas County received good news last week when the Federal Emergency Management Agency released about $132 million to rebuild schools that had to be demolished following the June 2016 flood. A few months ago, in November, FEMA released $52 million to rebuild Herbert Hoover High School in Kanawha County, which also had to be razed following the 2016 floods. Site preparation work for the new school has begun. Meanwhile, plans are still being formulated for the new schools in Nicholas County, according to an article by Ryan Quinn in The Charleston Gazette-Mail. Nicholas County school officials hope construction on the new schools there can begin this spring. Construction could take 3 ½ years, which would schedule the new schools for opening in 2023 — seven years after the flood. Having the money released is good news, but it raises a question: Why does it take bureaucracy so long to release money to meet a critical need? It’s like the problem West Virginia state government had with the RISE program. Red tape can slow things down to a crawl when immediate help is needed. When the floods hit in 2016, volunteers in the private sector were mobilizing before the waters went down. People donated cleaning supplies, heavy equipment and their own labor to help those affected worst by the flood.

-- Editorial

Repairing leaking roofs in most schools in Columbus could cost an estimated $8.8 million, according to a report presented to the Columbus Municipal School District Board of Trustees Monday night.
 
Assistant Superintendent Glenn Dedeaux, who was tasked with assessing the maintenance status of the school buildings last year, said roof repairs need to be prioritized. Some roofs suffered damage during storms in October, he said, and aging roofs at some campuses require constant maintenance.
 
Those projects do not include the roof at Hunt Success Academy, which a tornado destroyed last February and which will be replaced primarily through insurance and disaster relief funds.
"The new school (building) in Stokes-Beard was built ... in 2005, so that roof hasn't been replaced since 2005," Dedeaux said. "It is a 15-year roof. When you think about shingles, shingles last about 15 years ... even on a house."
 
District staff also found a major leak in the roof above the Fairview Elementary School cafeteria, which was renovated in 2017, according to the district maintenance director Stephen Little. "Over by the window where you come in, it leaks pretty good over there," Little said. "And we have some in the hallways also."
 
The costs for roof repairs were estimated based on a flat rate of $16 per square foot, Dedeaux said. Repairing roof leaks just at Columbus High School, which boasts the largest student population of all Columbus campuses, could cost $4.3 million, according to the estimate.
 
The presentation also identified other needs, such as air conditioner replacements and window repairs, which would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The district's spending on school maintenance was $195,207 in Fiscal Year 2019 and around $230,000 in each of the previous fiscal years.
 

-- Yue Stella Yu

TALLAHASSEE – Gov. Ron DeSantis last week announced that Florida has been awarded an additional $63.2 million in federal disaster funding through the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) to restore educational programs in counties affected by Hurricane Michael. The $63.2 million in funding includes $44.2 million under the Immediate Aid to Restart School Operations (K-12 Restart) program, $2.6 million for postsecondary education, and $6.3 million for Emergency Impact Aid. “Since day one of my administration, we have used every resource at our disposal to ensure Northwest Florida completely rebuilds from Hurricane Michael,” said Governor DeSantis. “I’m grateful that we have been able to work with Secretary Betsy DeVos and the U.S. Department of Education to secure these additional funds that will provide much needed relief to local students and families who deserve to return to normalcy after Hurricane Michael. For the many families, educators, and schools who are still recovering from this storm, I can assure you that we are working every day to make sure you and your community recovers.” “As Panhandle communities continue to rebuild after Hurricane Michael, these additional funds help ensure students, teachers, and school leaders have further support to return to normalcy after the devastation of Hurricane Michael, helping these communities rebuild safe and healthy learning environments,” said Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran. 

-- Special to The Star

THOUSANDS OF Californians are being forced from their homes and hundreds of thousands more are without power as wildfires spread rapidly across the state, fueled by dry, windy conditions. Overshadowed by the threats to lives and landmarks and property, the fires are also disrupting things like local economies, the delivery of social services and education, with students increasingly missing more class time as a result. Since the 2002-2003 school year – the earliest for which the state has retained records – nearly two-thirds of emergency school closures in the state have come as a result of wildfires, the threat of wildfires or the fallout from wildfires. California public schools have reported 34,183 cumulative days missed across all public schools because of emergency closures, which include closures due to weather, natural disasters, student safety and infrastructure. Of those total closures, wildfires were responsible for 21,442 days at 6,542 schools, affecting more than 3 million students, according to data from disaster Days, a report by the nonprofit news site CalMatters that tracks school closures in California. About half of those missed days occurred in just the last two school years. And the problem is only expected to grow worse, as wildfire season begins later, stretches longer and becomes ever more destructive. Currently, 11 wildfires are burning in California, with the largest, the Kincade Fire, scorching nearly 76,900 acres. Mandatory evacuations have been ordered for more than a dozen areas with even more voluntary evacuations in place. Entire school districts, as well as more than a dozen individual schools, have been closed this week because of the wildfires. Wildfires can result in school closures when they pose a hazard to schools or surrounding areas and it isn't safe to travel, when the air quality is poor and it's recommended that people remain inside or when the fire has created physical barriers, such as damage to roads or educational facilities. Even the threat of wildfires was enough to impact schools this month when PG&E shut off power to try and prevent fires from sparking.

-- Alexa Lardieri

St. Croix residents – parents, students, educators, employers – are urged to attend V.I. Department of Education (V.I.D.O.E.) meetings this week. The workshops are meant to shine light on the lengthy process of recovery from tens of millions of dollars in storm-damaged schools and facilities. During the process, Virgin Islands schools are expected to reach, or exceed, national school facilities standards long met in the states. This week’s public meetings on St. Croix will be held:  Tuesday, Oct. 29th at the Juanita Gardine Elementary School auditorium from 6:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m.  
Wednesday, Oct. 30th at the St. Croix Central High School cafeteria from 6:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m.   “We want the community to come out and to be a part of the process,” said V.I.D.O.E. Chief Operating Officer Dr. Dionne Wells-Hedrington.  Ms. Wells-Hedrington, the department’s operational-side expert, and Chaneel Callwood-Daniels, who leads the V.I.D.O.E. schools’ architecture project – sat down with the VI Consortium to lay out an ambitious plan that, if successful, would see virtually every school in the territory rebuilt, better than ever, in the coming years. New Schools “Our desire is to build new schools,” said Ms. Wells-Hedrington. “When we are asked how many schools do we want to replace: all … That is our position going forward,” she said.  “Every one,” added Ms. Callwood-Daniels. And how likely is that? “Will we get all? We are not sure,” Ms. Wells-Hedrington said.  In March 2020, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is expected to announce a round of disaster recovery grants that should include school construction funding. As FEMA goes about work, the V.I.D.O.E. “… has been working on getting us ready and prepared for what FEMA says to us,” Ms. Wells-Hedrington said. By the summer, demolition, critical repairs and modernization of some existing buildings could begin, based on FEMA’s edicts, with the input of a local School Construction Advisory Board. The Board, which has 20 members in the St. Croix District and another 20 members in the St. Thomas-St. John District, is taking public feedback from St. Croix tomorrow and Wednesday. “We are doing this in tandem along with FEMA,” Ms. Wells-Hedrington said.  New construction would have to meet or exceed school construction standards found stateside. “… Not just up to (the VI) Code, but providing our students with really rich, nourishing learning environments,” Ms. Wells-Hedrington said. Schools like Arthur Richards Junior High School in Frederiksted or Addelita Cancryn Junior High on St. Thomas would never look the same. 

-- Staff Writer

Dive Brief: A new emergency planning guide jointly released by the U.S. Departments of Education, Justice, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services — all of which were involved in the Federal Commission on School Safety — aims to help school districts create customized emergency response plans to "prevent, mitigate against, respond to, and recover from emergency situations," Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin K. McAleenan said in a press release. Titled "The Role of Districts in Developing High-Quality School Emergency Operations Plans," the planning guide instructs districts to coordinate with schools and community partners to make emergency operations plans (EOPs) and to lay out planning parameters for each school in the district, noting that it is districts’ responsibility to support school officials in the planning process. The guide instructs districts to make sure the plans include all types of hazards, from natural disasters to gun violence, and includes a checklist of actionable items that include developing a fact sheet on possible threats as well as training staff on the emergency plan.

-- Shawna De La Rosa

Natural disasters, disease outbreaks and violence on school campuses can and do happen at any given time. But are schools equipped to deal with such situations with an emergency preparedness plan in place?  Last year, Reuters reported that many public schools in the US are not equipped for disasters. Quoting a study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), they found that less than two thirds of school districts have plans in place to handle an influenza pandemic or another type of infectious disease outbreak. Weighing in, Dr. Laura Faherty, a researcher at the RAND Corporation in Boston and a pediatrics professor at Boston University School of Medicine who wasn’t involved in the study, told Reuters: “The response to an acute emergency that happens on a single day is very different from the ongoing response to an infectious disease like influenza that may affect a school district over many weeks to months.”  CDC researchers also found that when compared with larger districts, smaller and mostly rural districts were also less likely to fund emergency preparedness training for school faculty and staff or students’ families. The authors noted that limitations of the study included that they relied on school district officials to accurately report on their emergency preparedness policies and practices, while it also didn’t examine whether schools complied with any required disaster planning efforts. Dr. David Schonfeld, Director of the National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement and professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, opined that schools may simply state that “students will be provided counseling by school mental health staff” but are not, in fact, prepared to meet that need. “It is therefore quite noteworthy that more than one out of five school districts don’t even reach this bar,” he told Reuters.

-- Staff Writer

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – It’s a drill that’s practiced every year in schools across Southern California: kids prepare for an earthquake. But an investigation by CBSLA’s David Goldstein found that because of a loophole in a state law, not all schools may be as safe as they could be. In the devastating Long Beach earthquake of 1933, 230 schools collapsed in the magnitude 6.3 quake. The disaster prompted new legislation for K-12 school construction called the Field Act, which mandated rigorous oversight of the construction of every public school to ensure they’re safe. But Goldstein discovered not all school buildings are created equal. Charter schools like 18 local campuses of Alliance Schools don’t have to comply with the Field Act, even though they accepted $6.4 million in taxpayer money this fiscal year to rent these buildings. So are students safer in buildings under the Field Act? “Students are absolutely safer in a Field Act when an earthquake happens, no question about it,” said Tom Duffy with the Coalition For Adequate School Housing. Dr. Lucy Jones was on the California Seismic Safety Commission when it recommended twice that “no public school should be exempt from the Field Act”, even though there are hundreds. A CBSLA interactive map shows more than 200 charter campuses in SoCal that don’t have to comply with the Field Act.

-- Staff Writer

From Hurricane Dorian on the East Coast to tornados in the Midwest to wildfires and earthquakes in California, the threat of a natural disaster is always present in some parts of the country. And with winter just around the corner, preparing for inclement weather is as much a part of managing a school as planning instruction.  Here are some tips experts recommend to prepare for weather-related issues and how to mitigate their impact on students, teachers and staff.  1. Review and plan ahead Schools should have emergency operations plans with assessment teams routinely conducting safety audits, singling out high-priority hazards based on weather. Plans should include mitigation, prevention, preparedness and response.  Having plans that outlines actions to be taken in the event of a natural disaster and conducting regular drills based on possible hazards allows districts to have a fall-back plan. This sample plan provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency gives schools a place to start.  An information dissemination system — or the way in which news of disaster and preparation is spread throughout the district — should be Included in plan, administrators say. “Preparation is in the communication,” said Dave Wick, principal of  Columbia Falls Junior High School in Montana. 

-- Naaz Modan

Each year, millions of Californians send their children to public K-12 classrooms, assuming that, from around Labor Day to early summer, there will be one given: A school day on a district’s calendar will mean a day of instruction in school. But that fixed point is changing, according to a CalMatters analysis of public school closures. From massive wildfires to mass shooting threats to dilapidated classrooms, the 21st century is disrupting class at a level that is unprecedented for California’s 6.2 million students. Last year, the state’s public schools closed their doors and sent kids home in what appear to be record numbers, mainly as a result of sweeping natural disasters. It was the third significant spike in four years.  The trend largely tracks the rising frequency and severity of climate-fueled wildfires, with big bumps in 2003 and 2007, the years of San Diego County’s huge Cedar and Witch fires, and then, in recent years, a more sustained but equally dramatic climb with the historic wine country fires and Camp Fire of 2017 and 2018. But fire —which just this month shut down the entire Murrieta Valley Unified School District in Southern California — has not been the only big reason for lost school time. California students also lost instructional days for emergencies such as breakdowns in school facilities that make it unsafe to operate a normal school day — mold or plumbing problems, for instance — as well as threats of potential gun violence.  In the latter case, state data shows, even when school officials don’t deem a threat credible enough to cancel classes, fear alone has increasingly led parents to keep significant numbers of students at home.

-- Ricardo Cano

MEDFORD, Ore. — Due to the constant threat of earthquakes in the region, the Medford School District is working on completing seismic upgrades to all 20 schools in the district. Hoover Elementary School began construction during spring break while students were still in school and completed the cafeteria on Thursday, August 28th. All classrooms were finalized on Friday, August 23rd just in time for the new academic school year. "In light of the threat and the awareness that it's brought, it's the right thing for us to bring these buildings up to life safety standards and to make sure that we are prepared. We don't want to wait until the moment of need to try and go prepare, at that time we will be responding," Jon Havniear of the Medford School District said.

-- Marissa Olid

ROY (ABC4 News) – Roy Junior High School will be the first school in Utah to build with insulated concrete forms that will make the school safe for students and save taxpayer money. School officials say they are doing this to cut back in costs. They say on average a school pays more than $7,000 a month in energy bills. School officials say this will help save money on energy and keep the school safe in the event of a fire and natural disasters. The special concrete will also reduce sound transfer between classrooms, the gymnasium, cafeteria, and music rooms providing students with a quieter learning environment.

-- Staff Writer

Some Denver-area school districts are struggling to obtain the appropriate property insurance coverage since a major hailstorm hit suburbs west of the Colorado city in 2017, causing $12 million in damage to Jeffco Public Schools alone, Chalkbeat reports.
Jeffco now has 14 insurance policies, but the district only was able to get $150 million in limits as compared with $200 million for previous property coverage.
Jeffco and other area districts are looking at other insurance options, including self-insurance, boosting reserves and spending more on mitigation efforts such as stronger and better-maintained roofs and providing roofs over school bus parking lots. Dive Insight: While school safety planning is often focused on preparing for active shooter scenarios, natural disasters occur more frequently and can have a devastating impact on a district’s ability to meet students' educational needs. Recent natural disasters have had a major financial impact on state budgets and insurance costs have skyrocketed in response to disasters, so district leaders need to take a hard look at how weather-related issues could affect their schools.

-- AMELIA HARPER

Do you remember the story of the Dutch boy who held his fingertip in the leak of a dyke, thus saving his community from certain flooding disaster and destruction? We Midlanders have been plugging holes in the local dyke of MISD schools with the fingertips of children, teachers and campus administrators for as long as I can remember. As a child in Midland in the 1980s and '90s, I attended Rusk Elementary, Lamar Elementary, Carver Center, San Jacinto Junior High School, Midland Freshman and Midland High School. Our school facilities were in need of expansion, repair and replacement even back then. I went to kindergarten at Rusk in a classroom which was too small to suit the size of my class but my teacher, the wonderful Mrs. Sublett, made it work. She faithfully filled in the holes in our physical environment with expertise and graciousness. Later on, in the fourth grade at Lamar Elementary, Mrs. Fleck was my fine arts teacher who, I now realize, likely used her own resources to teach me to sing harmony, to have compassion for the smelly boy in my classroom and to draw a beautifully contoured eyeball -- all lessons I remember and treasure. Mrs. Hooker, my beloved eighth grade English teacher at San Jacinto, allowed a group of us to eat lunch in her room each day because there were not enough seats in the small cafeteria. She used a facilities constraint as an opportunity to mentor us all to become effective writers and communicators. At Midland Freshman, Mr. Horner taught me geometry in an aged room full of broken desks, with pieced-together curriculum and an old overhead projector. He made sure I learned the material, plugging in the holes of the classroom with reteaching and differentiated instruction.

-- Opinion

 North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper visited the Public Schools of Robeson County on Thursday to look at the challenges rural school districts face. He toured St. Pauls Elementary School where he pushed for a school construction bond that would allow voters to guarantee funding for new buildings and renovations across North Carolina. The governor’s office said the $3.5 billion bond would provide Robeson County with $16 million more for school construction. Cooper said $41.5 million in guaranteed funds for school construction would go to the Public Schools of Robeson County compared to the legislature’s budget which only provides $25.5 million with no guarantee that projects would be completed. “Students across North Carolina deserve safe, updated classrooms, particularly in areas like Robeson County that are still recovering from natural disasters,” Cooper said. “The legislature’s budget didn’t do enough for our schools and offered no guarantee any school construction would be completed. We must do better.”

-- Staff Writer

Sonoma County Schools Using FEMA Grant for Resiliency Plan In the aftermath of the October 2017 fires, Sonoma County schools decided they needed to develop mitigation plans and protocols to deal with various natural hazards and the trauma they can cause to students and school employees.   Sonoma County, Calif., schools have seen their share of disasters and the havoc they can cause and will use a FEMA grant of $249,706 to develop mitigation plans instead of going off of “intuitive senses” during future responses. Sonoma County schools include 40 districts and about 71,000 students. There will be subsets of plans to deal with the various hazards the different counties face, including floods, fires, earthquakes, tsunamis and severe storm damage, such as from wind. The Sonoma County Office of Education applied for the grant last year following the October 2017 wildfires. The fires destroyed 5,300 homes and wreaked havoc with the school districts, as well as the students and faculty. Some school districts were closed for three weeks and two schools didn’t reopen for months until toxic debris was cleared from the neighborhoods. Further, the county Office of Education did a survey this spring and found that 2,900 students and 400 school employees were still showing signs of stress, anxiety, depression, decreased academic performance or behavior problems. And there has been an increase in suicidal threats or[KA1]  attempts. Each of the 40 districts signed a commitment to apply for the grant, which has a 36-month term. The resulting plan will be in effect for five years at no cost to the district. Since most of the local cities and counties didn’t include schools in their emergency mitigation and response plans, the districts basically responded in[KA2]  instinct during recent fires and floods. “Last season with the flood we had to evacuate schools in the middle of the day, and we had to develop a contingency plan to get those students home because the roads would be isolated by a certain time,” Sonoma County schools Superintendent Steve Herrington said. “There was no plan, no protocol established, we just did it by intuitive sense, but this plan would address those issues — what to do and when and probably address flood stages on the river,” he said

-- JIM MCKAY

Washington state has thousands of school buildings and many are unprepared for a major earthquake, which experts say looms on the horizon. “These buildings really are benchmarks for our communities,” said Corina Forson, chief hazards geologist for Washington Geological Survey with the Department of Natural Resources. “This is where people gather following a natural disaster. This is where we would potentially have shelter options. In my mind, it’s critical that these schools be upgraded to withstand earthquakes that will happen in the future.” A new study on school seismic safety in Washington considers how well the state’s school buildings can withstand a major earthquake. Geologists and other researchers visited a sample size of 222 schools in Washington, assessed the geography of the area, and looked into structural conditions. They found that many of the state’s school buildings are not prepared for a shakeup, especially older buildings. Upgrades and retrofits will be required to make the buildings safe and able to resist an earthquake. The state adopted seismic building standards in 1975, and many Washington schools were built prior to that. Northwest is currently in an earthquake drought
Earthquake map shows Washington’s at-risk buildings The assessment was delivered to the Legislature on Friday. It was also delivered to the 222 schools involved in the study. That’s a small sample given that there are 4,444 school buildings in Washington state.

-- DYER OXLEY

The U.S. Department of Education is creating a dedicated team to help schools prepare for and recover from natural disasters. This would put the department in line with other federal agencies that already have full-time dedicated staff in place to deal with disaster and recovery efforts, said Frank Brogan, assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education. “We have to be proactive and not wait to play catch-up. One of the reasons we’ve established the disaster response unit is to keep pace full time with the growing number of recognized natural disasters and dealing with the appropriations we’ve received from Congress and do the most good,” he told a House Education subcommittee at a hearing Tuesday. The hearing comes amid a series of natural disasters that have affected schools across the country in the past few years, including hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes, floods and typhoons. After lengthy delays, Congress earlier this week passed a $19 billion aid bill that includes $165 million in education funds. The department will create a plan for spending that additional aid within 30 days of President Trump signing the bill, as required in the law, Brogan said.

-- CAROLYN PHENICIE

The Sonoma County schools superintendent appeared before a Congressional committee Wednesday, urging for more federal funding for schools and mental health resources for students and staff affected by wildfires. Superintendent Steve Herrington testified on the financial, emotional and physical impacts the 2017 wildfires had local schools and children during a U.S. House Committee on Education and Labor hearing on schools’ response and recovery in the wake of natural disasters. “In my 46 years as an educator, I have responded to numerous floods and earthquakes. But I have never seen a natural disaster take such a toll on an educational community as did the Tubbs fire,” said Herrington, who testified alongside education officials from Florida, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, places that are recovering from typhoons or hurricanes. Herrington asked lawmakers for portable structures that schools can use after fires, more time for districts to spend recovery grant funds and for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to reimburse schools that set up community shelters. He also urged the committee to create federal standards for school disaster response, as well as guidelines for reopening campuses after wildfires. “You need to reopen schools as soon as possible because it gives children a sense of security,” Herrington told the committee. His requests appeared to resonate with committee members, who followed up his testimony with questions about how schools made up for lost time and how other western states can prepare schools for wildfires. “As climate change continues to intensify, the federal government’s responsibility to provide school communities with resources to recover from natural disasters is more important now than ever before,” said Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, committee chairman and delegate of the Northern Mariana Islands. Insurance companies paid Sonoma County schools over $7.1 million to cover losses and damages after the 2017 wildfires.

-- SUSAN MINICHIELLO

This weekend marks the anniversary of one of the most shattering tragedies to ever happen in Texas, or in the country. On March 18th 1937, the New London school exploded from a gas leak. In all, 293 victims were accounted for, but the real number may never be known. Today, only a handful of survivors remain. At a West Rusk school, old faces greeted one another as family and friends and two survivors of the the New London school explosion returned to remember their lost classmates. “You got to understand the explosion is not in any textbook. Few people know about it,” said Miles Toler, the president of the New London Ex-students Association. At exactly 3:17 p.m., a massive explosion tore the school apart. For some families on that March day, in a split second, whole generations were wiped out. Ninety-three-year-old Odis Bryan was an 11-year-old fifth grader sitting in class waiting for the bell to ring. “I was in that south wing, second floor. They don’t realize how bad it was. It was a sad day,” he said. A spark from a shop sander ignited a vast pool of natural gas that had collected beneath the school building. The huge blast leveled the structure. “I tried everything I could to forget it. I just don’t talk about it, I didn’t talk about it for 50 years,” Bryan said. Bryan says everything just went black from the debris swirling in the air. “Everybody is done gone but me. All my friends, the ones that survived it are gone too,” Bryan said.

-- Bob Hallmark

Florida state Rep. Anna Eskamani and Florida state Sen. Janet Cruz today announced legislation that would create uniform requirements to ensure that all Florida students can receive an education in school buildings that are structurally sound. The legislation, House Bill 1233 and Senate Bill 586, would create what is known as the Florida Students’ Bill of Rights. The Students’ Bill of Rights requires that all Florida students attend schools that are designed and constructed, where applicable, to minimize the impact from hurricanes or other natural disasters; that meet required fire-safety and health standards; that are accessible to individuals with disabilities; that follow safe school design principles; and that have sound infrastructure. Because not all school buildings adhere to the same construction safety standards, many Florida students lack access to life-saving protections. Private schools supported by state funds – and some charter schools – do not have to meet the state building code requirements that public schools do. Additionally, they are not built to the same safety standards as most public schools, and they are not required to meet the same minimum safety requirements. “When newly built schools do not play by the same rules and do not adhere to basic structural safety requirements, student lives are at risk,” Eskamani said. “There are Florida children attending schools that are falsifying fire-safety and health records. How can we expect our students to reach their fullest potential, when we are not protecting them with some of the most basic safety requirements?”

-- Staff Writer

The Berryville, Eureka Springs and Green Forest school districts are partnering to seek federal funds for a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) storm shelter and safe rooms. The districts held a kickoff meeting Tuesday, Jan. 29, at Berryville High School to develop a FEMA hazard mitigation plan. Accredited learning environment planner Aliza Jones said the plan, known as the Carroll County Educational Cooperative Hazard Mitigation Plan, will assess each of the school districts’ risk and vulnerabilities to natural hazards and provide recommendations to increase their resiliency. In doing so, she said these actions aim to protect school district facilities and those who attend classes and work in these school districts. To qualify for FEMA funds to build safe rooms and storm shelters, Jones said the districts must have a hazard mitigation plan. Once the plan is completed, she said it allows the districts to then apply for FEMA safe room funding. “So far, I’ve completed two of these plans: one for Boone County and one for Searcy County,” she said. “All have either been approved for a safe room or have had districts approved to apply. It’s a multiphase process.” Jones said the hazard mitigation plan will look at everything from natural to man-made disasters in Carroll County.

-- Kelby Newcomb

Students at Coughlin High School in Wilkes-Barre enter their school building through a shed, a safety precaution in case part of the school’s crumbling façade falls at the wrong moment. Two elementary schools closed in Arizona after the district found structural defects that could pose safety risks to students. And in Baltimore, students wore coats to class after heaters broke. Some schools didn’t bother to open. “It’s hard to educate people in schools that are crumbling,” said Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), who introduced a $100 billion school infrastructure bill in 2017 that was co-sponsored by 119 House Democrats but stalled in the GOP-run House. “In a lot of areas that’s unfortunately what’s happening.” With the new Democratic majority this year, Scott holds the gavel of the House Education and Labor Committee and plans hearings to show the need for better buildings and how many jobs can be created. Infrastructure is also a major priority for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). They’ll need to persuade Republicans who traditionally view school buildings as a state and local responsibility. The federal government currently spends money to repair schools only in cases of disasters. That leaves states and localities pouring billions of dollars into fixing buildings each year, about $46 billion short of the needs, according to a 2016 “State of Our Schools” study by three groups: 21st Century School Fund, the National Council on School Facilities, and the U.S. Green Building Council.

-- Emily Wilkins

LISBON — Lisbon officials want to be able to open up the high school gym to locals in the event of an emergency or extended power outage, but first they’ll need a generator. When the building was built in 2015, town officials had the gym in mind as a place people could turn to if a natural disaster or outage made it dangerous to stay at home. “We’ve used the police station as a warming center in the past,” said Town Manager Diane Barnes. “This would be a place for people to stay.” The town has previously offered the town hall and police department building as a place for residents to warm up in snow storms. The building didn’t provide a permanent place for people to stay. “Previously, people in Lisbon would have to travel to Lewiston for an emergency shelter,” said Emergency Management Director Lisa Ward. “We’ve had warming shelters, but we haven’t had an emergency shelter”

-- CHRIS QUATTRUCCI

SACRAMENTO December 3, 2018 – State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson and Superintendent-elect Tony Thurmond praised Butte County school leaders and community members for working selflessly and heroically so that their students could return to school on Monday, December 3, less than a month after the worst fire in California history. Fourteen schools were damaged or destroyed during the Camp Fire and all 99 schools in Butte County were closed since the fire began, displacing 31,670 students. “The reopening of schools in Butte County so soon after this terrible tragedy provides a bright ray of hope. It shows the resilience and determination of school leaders and community members, and the generosity and kindness of so many people who gave and continue to give,” said Torlakson. “Thousands of residents have suffered the trauma of narrow escapes and the tragedy of losing their homes. Many have lost loved ones,” he said. “But through all this, Butte County residents are pulling together and rising above the tragedy, devastation, and sorrow caused by this natural disaster.” State Superintendent-elect Tony Thurmond agreed, saying: “This shows that Butte County educators and their communities are continuing to put their passion, priority, and commitment toward helping their students.

-- California Department of Education

Dive Brief:

• Camp Fire, the deadliest wildfire in California history, left Paradise Unified School District with eight schools damaged or destroyed, and at least 3,800 or its more than 4,200 students without homes, closing the district until Dec. 3, EdSource reports.
• Other districts have rebuilt after similar disasters — and the article notes a "herculean effort" to find new schools for Santa Rosa students following last year’s Tubbs Fire — but the magnitude of the destruction in Butte County (where Paradise Unified School District is located), coupled with the region’s isolation and lack of resources, has raised some concerns about the rebuilding process.
• California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson has pledged state support for Paradise USD, and his office is already applying for a federal grant that, following the 2017 Tubbs Fire, levied $14 million for state and local agencies.

-- Allie Gross

HONOLULU (KHON2) - All this week we've been digging into the recovery phase after natural disasters to see the lessons learned and what is changing after storms, lava, fires, and floods wreaked havoc across Hawaii this year. The series continues with a look at schools. What if a big storm affects a whole island or even the whole state? How will kids get back to school, and how will schools -- many of which are the sole designated shelters -- balance both community roles? Hawaii's schools and students have been put to the test this year. In April, historic rain and landslides cut off north shore Kauai communities, including their access to school. The Department of Education set up shop at Hanalei Colony Resort. “Within days we established a satellite campus on the other side, so out there in those communities where kids had an opportunity to go right back to school,” said DOE Assistant Superintendent Dann Carlson. The Big Island lava flow closed or threatened private schools and displaced those students as well as many public school kids from their homes, but many found ways to finish out the school year. It was déjà vu for some who had said a formal goodbye to schools over a lava threat before. “In Pahoa during the eruption four years ago, every single school was closed, private, charter schools, all closed in a very short two- or three-day notice,” said Hawaii County Mayor Harry Kim. “I credit DOE for the tremendous job they did, all the resources of bringing portables over from elsewhere.”

-- Gina Mangieri

If not for the quick thinking of the Emmaus High School maintenance staff, the flooding that damaged 40 classrooms and other areas and closed school for a week could have been much worse. That was the assessment of disaster mitigation specialists who gave a report Monday to the East Penn School Board on how the water affected the school and what has been done to rehabilitate the building since the flooding during torrential rains Friday, Nov. 2. Classes resumed Monday with a three-hour delay. Andrew Goldberg, CEO of RestoreCore of King of Prussia, praised the district staff. “The quick action of the staff here made all the difference in the world,” Goldberg told the board. “We do a lot of jobs that are similar to this and we see all different types of responses. This was as good as you could have done.” Because the staff got the water out of the building within two to three hours, it allowed the cleanup crews to dry the building faster, which meant less permanent damage, he said. As it was, the water damaged 40 classrooms, the main office, auxiliary gym and the wrestling room.

-- Margie Peterson

Communities facing the loss of a school after a hurricane, earthquake or other disaster can increase school infrastructure resilience. Get a roadmap for stakeholders, tools and best practices.  School districts that face the loss of a school in a natural disaster like a hurricane face myriad challenges after the immediate danger passes, ranging from education and public safety to reconstruction. To improve disaster-resilience-competition/" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(47, 180, 91);">community resilience, replacement schools can be designed to mitigate disaster risk and increase school infrastructure resilience in affected areas following a disaster. The World Bank Global Program for Safer Schools (GPSS) offers a 2017 roadmap to engage stakeholders and 2018 100 Resilient Cities workshop in Cali, Columbia, generated best practices for communities focused on or disaster-recovery-reform-requires-local-investment-empowers-local-decisions/" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(47, 180, 91);">required to increase school infrastructure resilience.

Roadmap for School Infrastructure Resilience 

disasterriskmanagement/brief/global-program-for-safer-schools" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(47, 180, 91);">According to a 2017 World Bank briefing, there is impact to the learning environment through the affected community’s recovery phase, which extends into public safety and public health operations.

Damaged school infrastructure exposes the educational community to physical and mental stress and interferes with school operations, teaching and learning. When non-resilient communities experience a natural disaster, the effort to bring children back to school and recover the full operation of the education sector is prolonged, often involving a lengthy emergency response and a protracted recovery and reconstruction process. 

The GPSS launched a Roadmap for Safer Schools in 2017 to provide governments affected by devastating natural disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes a systematic guide infrastructure managers and government and school district stakeholders can use to structure and promote a more informed dialogue on making new school infrastructure investments. The Roadmap:

• Uses concepts and language that are accessible for those without experience in disaster risk reduction and construction
• Provides guidance on the technical expertise required by the activities

It consists of six steps that follow a logical sequence from diagnosis to analysis, opportunity and investment, shown in this inforgraphic posted to the blog:
-- Andrea Fox

Local schools had their preparedness for natural disasters tested with the 2013 floods and can offer lessons in responding, especially during the recovery phase. In a collaboration with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, CU's Natural Hazards Center is highlighting the risks posed to K-12 schools by a variety of potential disasters — and Lyons schools' flood response was highlighted as an example of best practice. University of Colorado Boulder sociology professor Lori Peek was one of the authors of the free FEMA guide "Safer, Stronger, Smarter: A Guide to Improving School Natural Hazard Safety." While much attention has been paid to violence-prevention, Peek said, parents and policymakers often overlook the growing threat of natural hazards. "We are experiencing more frequent and more intense climate-related disaster events, including severe storms and floods," she said. "Yet many of our schools were built before modern codes existed or are in places where codes and land use planning standards are not rigorous." Locally, flooding, wildfires, snowstorms and high winds are the main threats. "Natural disasters by their nature are unpredictable," said Rob Price, Boulder Valley's assistant superintendent of operational services. "We want to make sure staff is ready to respond to an emergency and is prepared as possible." He added that the district follows the guidelines suggested by FEMA. "A lot of what I read in the FEMA report is what we're doing," Price said. Hard to plan for a catastrophe Boulder Valley and St. Vrain Valley have the advantage of being among the better funded school districts in the state thanks to local voters' willingness to approve property tax increases.

-- Amy Bounds

BATON ROUGE – Today, Gov. John Bel Edwards announced that the Louisiana Dept. of Education in partnership with LSU and the Governor’s Blue Ribbon School Safety Commission has been awarded more than $3.6 million for the Grants to States for the School Emergency Management (GSEM) program to assist schools statewide with developing and expanding their emergency operations plans for disasters. The grant is through the U.S. Department of Education.  LDOE will work with LSU’s National Center for Biomedical Research and Training/Academy of Counter-Terrorist Education (LSU- NCBRT/ACE) to provide schools with the necessary technical assistance, training and implementation of their disaster plans. "It is imperative that we do everything possible to ensure the safety of our students, teachers and school faculty. This grant is going to help our schools develop high-quality plans to respond to a disaster whether natural or manmade,” said Gov. Edwards. “We’ve experienced a number of federally declared disasters over the past 13 years. Since Hurricane Katrina,  152 school districts (public, private and charter) have applied to the Louisiana Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness for public assistance funds following those disasters. LSU’s NCBRT/ACE has an outstanding history of collaborating with national experts who contribute to the development, delivery, and research of effective emergency plans, and I applaud everyone involved in securing this important grant to help create safe and secure schools.” 

-- Staff Author

Iowa State Department of Education held a workshop yesterday to help schools develop high quality plans that cover active shooter and natural disaster events. A state law passed in April now requires all k-12 schools in Iowa write plans that help prepare for these events. The workshop was led by Jane Collacecchi, a contractor for the Iowa Department of education. "We want to hope that the state continues to push resources in this direction because this planning effort takes more than a year, it's an ongoing effort," says Collacecchi. "We always say emergency plans are never done, they're an ongoing living documents.. and every time we exercise them and every time we have a disaster we learn, and we improve our plans each and every time." The most recent event happened in Eldridge, when police say a 12-year-old North Scott Junior High student brought a gun to school and pointed it at a teacher. North Scott administrators were present at the safety plan workshop. Superintendent, Joe Stutting says the plans the district already has in place are good, and would meet state requirements. A safety committee for the district meets once a month to review the plans for schools.  

-- Judith Palma

LUMBERTON — As of late Monday afternoon, 451 people were staying in the three emergency shelters still open for use by Robeson County residents displaced by Hurricane Florence and the floodwaters the storm generated. The remaining shelters are at Lumberton and Purnell Swett high schools and the Bill Sapp Recreational Center in Lumberton, said Emily Jones, Robeson County government public information officer. The American Red Cross has assumed operation of the shelters, and how long the shelters remain open will be up to the Red Cross. A disaster recovery center has not been opened yet, Jones said. County leaders were to meet Tuesday with Federal Emergency Management Agency representatives to decide when and where a recovery center will be opened. A decision could be made and announced by Wednesday. As many as eight emergency shelters were open around the county in the days immediately after Florence struck, Jones said. In addition to Lumberton and Purnell Swett high schools and the Bill Sapp Center, shelters were operated at Red Springs, South Robeson and St. Pauls high schools and Fairmont Middle School for use by people fleeing Florence’s wrath.

-- T.C. Hunter - Donnell Coley

CANNON FALLS, Minn. (KTTC) - The Mayor of Cannon Falls declared a State of Emergency for the City of Cannon Falls on Friday. Strong winds and tornadoes left a trail of disaster in Cannon Falls, Minn. School in Cannon Falls was canceled Friday due to power outages. The city says been it could be a couple days before power is back on.Until then, it's recommended residents without power stay with family or friends.  Friday afternoon a shelter was set up at the city's high school. Residents from The Garden - a local nursing home in Cannon Falls, are taking shelter there. The school is hosting 56 elderly residents, until they can be taken to another nearby establishment  Cannon Falls Police sent a request to residents Thursday night urging them to stay inside their homes while they dealt with down trees and power lines throughout the town. Mayo Clinic Health System also wanted to share a message with the public explaining how those power outages are affecting patients. The Cannon Falls Clinic is closed Friday. The hospital and E.R. remain open for emergency care. The Kenyon and Faribault clinics are also closed Friday. Officials are working to set up shelter at the Cannon Falls High School for residents affected. Care center residents are also being evacuated due to a generator fire.

-- Staff Author

The Milton School District is seeking federal aid to help offset the cost of mold remediation in its buildings. Representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) visited the district this week to assess the damage and the scope of work that needs to be done to rid the five buildings of mold that delayed the start of the school year. Superintendent Cathy Keegan said the district "identified two separate weather events" that occurred in July and August that likely attributed to mold growing in the buildings this summer.   A failing HVAC system has also been undergoing repairs this summer with costs already at $116,000 and rising. The district has not yet determined how much it will cost for the mold remediation, which required the hiring of crews from ServPro and Mountain Research to scrub the buildings and test the air quality, or replacing ruined textbooks and materials. School buildings located in counties that are included in a federal disaster declaration for FEMA Public Assistance could be reimbursed by the federal government for up to 75 percent of their costs, said PEMA spokesman Ruth A. Miller. PEMA is looking at damage from storms that occurred between July 21 and 27 and August 10 and 15, she said. Frequent rainfall and high humidity helped mold to bloom in several school districts, including Selinsgrove

-- Marcia Moore

To know what the Academy at Palumbo is, you have to know how the kids talk about the Academy at Palumbo. I've worked there, and I've worked with kids who wanted to go there, and I've seen the high quality of education that the school provides. It's the kind of school that Philadelphia's middle schoolers hope to get into, and that they don't want to talk about too loudly as not to jinx it. To get in is not only to symbolize your achievement — it's to keep your head above water in a school district that chews students up and spits them out. It's a chance. Earlier this month, Palumbo, where I worked as a substitute teacher last year, was flooded after heavy rain. The photos and videos are brutal; The ceiling was entirely underwater, and debris was floating across the floors as if it were monsoon season in Thailand. School was dismissed early. But if you had read Palumbo's school maintenance report, which ranked Palumbo very highly, you'd have thought the building was in pristine condition. Now, there's a lot to say about a building condition system that rates a school that can't sustain a few days of  wetness roughly as an 89 out of 100.  Philly's neighborhood schools are falling apart, as they are, on average, 66 years old, and the situation is an infrastructure disaster. We're hurtling into a climatically absurd 21st century with our kids placed in aging fortresses that are not ready to match a hotter, wetter, and generally crappier future. The hallways are jungles, the floors are swamps, and fixing these schools would cost a jaw-dropping amount of money — if many of them weren't just destined to be shut down to make way for upscale condos.  

-- Quinn O'Callaghan

FEMA has approved more than $2.6 million for Pinellas County school shelters used during Hurricane Irma. A number of public schools participated in a mutual aid agreement with Pinellas County to provide shelter to county residents during and after a hurricane or other disaster. The schools opened their doors to people seeking safety when Hurricane Irma approached. Sheltering expenses incurred include food, fuel, staff, custodial supplies and gym floor covering. The county will reimburse these expenses with federal assistance provided through FEMA’s Public Assistance program. FEMA’s Public Assistance is a cost-sharing program with FEMA reimbursing applicants no less than 75 percent of eligible costs and the remaining covered by a nonfederal source. FEMA approved 100 percent of the total costs of this project. The federal portion is paid directly to the state, which disburses funds to the agencies, local governments and nonprofit organizations that incurred costs.

-- Staff Author

CARLSBAD — Last week, the Carlsbad Unified School District approved a $265 million bond question to put on the November ballot. The district needs 55 percent of Carlsbad voters to approve the measure, which Superintendent Dr. Ben Churchill and district board of trustees President Ray Pearson said is for needed facilities upgrades. Two of the other primary focuses, they said, are upgrading school security including fence lines and points of entry and energy costs. Pearson said the recent school shootings is a concern for the district, and noted Carlsbad suffered tragedy in 2010 at Kelly Elementary School when two children were shot. The students survived. Pearson said safety concerns also center on natural disasters, a nod to the 2014 Poinsettia Fire where Aviara Oaks middle and elementary schools were evacuated. “We’ve had a shooting before,” Pearson said. “There is a heightened concern and awareness for the safety of our students, staff, guests and administrators on campus. We want to make sure that our campuses and our facilities are as safe as possible.” Churchill said another focus is on incorporating solar power and sustainability measures to tackle the district’s second-largest line item, energy use. Currently, it pays more than $2 million per year on energy costs, and with the bond money and sustainable strategies, would pay off those solar costs in seven years.

-- Steve Puterski

A bill that would create a test program to retrofit four school buildings in the state to withstand a Category 3 hurricane has passed the state House of Representatives and will have a public hearing next week. House Bill 2196 would establish a pilot program to retrofit one unspecified Department of Education building in each of the state’s four major counties to be disaster shelters in the event of a major hurricane.

-- Michael Brestovansky

SOUTH BEND �" School district officials in South Bend are celebrating a long-awaited victory. For years, they’ve been struggling to come up with enough money to replace the aged and disaster-prone Chauncey Davis Elementary. With the belated passage of the state’s capital budget on Jan. 21, they got their wish. “We’re pretty excited,” Superintendent Jon Tienhaara said in an email. The budget includes more than $11 million dollars toward the estimated $16 million cost of the new kindergarten through sixth-grade campus.

-- Natalie St. JOhn

The old adage “A stitch in time saves nine” aptly applies to issues such as the development of mold and other maintenance concerns in schools. This problem can easily occur, especially in areas of high humidity or in the wake of plumbing issues or natural disasters. However, it can also be easily addressed if handled right away. Delay can cause massive costs for school districts in terms of repairs, as well as more sick days for both teachers and students.

-- Amelia Harper

As the state legislature looks at possible cuts to the Long Term Facility Maintenance budget, the Perham-Dent School Board considered its options to pay for such projects at its meeting Monday night. District Superintendent Mitch Anderson shared with board members an email alert he received from Sam Walseth director of Legislative affairs for the Minnesota Rural Education Association that said House leaders were considering cutting the LTMF funding as part of its budget plan. "It was a hard-fought equity provision for rural schools," the alert said. "And districts now have 10-year maintenance plans in place with funds committed to those projects. The loss of this funding would be a major disaster for rural education."

-- Debbie Irmen

With initial flood-related damage pegged at $50 million, a number likely to grow substantially, East Baton Rouge public school officials are hoping to recoup as much as 75 percent of their costs from federal disaster relief. The difficulties of qualifying for reimbursement from FEMA, as well as the greater than expected damage, have prompted school officials to slow down ambitious plans to try to repair several flooded schools quickly. When the school system’s 77 schools reopen Tuesday, after being closed for more than three weeks, 12 will be operating in new locations. Eight of them are relocating because of flooding, forcing four smaller schools to relocate. Even a week ago, school officials expressed hope that Twin Oaks Elementary and perhaps Brookstown Middle, both of which flooded, could be repaired quickly and obviate the need to move kids.

-- Charles Lussier

“Thank God it happened on a Saturday,” is the first thing Diane Blackman, principal of Greene County Middle School, said when questioned about the tornado that destroyed her school five years ago. While Blackman wasn’t in Greene County at the time of the tornado, she has seen the impact it left on the school and the community. “If not, there definitely would have been casualties,” she said. The tornado, which was rated an EF3 on the Fujita scale, gutted the school, causing more than $16 million in damages. After the storm passed, Lisa Grant, bookkeeper for GCMS, was one of the few staff members allowed to step back inside the school. “There was tons of debris and glass,” she said. “Doors were blown out in the hallway. You couldn’t hardly tell where anything was. I just couldn’t believe it.” Recovery teams were sent into the school to gather teaching materials for students, but only items deemed absolutely necessary were allowed to leave the building. Anything that couldn’t fit into a small crate was thrown away.

-- Dustin George, The Free Press

HOUSTON �" Nearly 20 fertilizer plants in Texas and others nationwide have the same dangerous proximity to schools, parks, nursing homes and housing as the one that exploded in the Central Texas town of West in 2013, federal officials said in releasing a final report on the blast Thursday. The proximity of homes and schools to the plant in West contributed to the widespread damage and death caused by the blast, and a lack of regulations has put other communities at risk of another disaster, the officials said. Fifteen people died and more than 260 others were injured in the explosion. Nearly three years after the deadly conflagration, the officials with the United States Chemical Safety Board discussed the findings of their final investigation report on Thursday in Waco, 20 miles south of West. The 265-page report, released this week, found a series of shortcomings in federal and state oversight, as well as in the plant’s handling of the fertilizer and the training of the responding volunteer firefighters. And it warned of the dangers of the locations of fertilizer plants in Texas and around the country. For decades, West had slowly developed schools, parks, nursing homes and housing around the plant �" the nearest cluster of homes was about 370 feet from the property line and the West Intermediate School about 200 feet. The majority of those injured were within 1,500 feet of the blast. A similar situation exists at 19 other Texas plants that store the same fertilizer and are within a half-mile of a school, hospital or nursing home, the report found. More than 1,300 facilities nationwide store the type of agricultural chemical that set off the explosion: fertilizer-grade ammonium nitrate. State and federal officials have failed to issue regulations governing facility locations, and fertilizer-grade ammonium nitrate is not categorized as an explosive or hazardous material, the report said.

-- MANNY FERNANDEZ

If students at the District’s Murch Elementary School, which is about to undergo renovations, were to temporarily relocate a mile away at Lafayette Elementary’s campus, it would be a “travesty,” one parent said. It would start a “mutiny,” another parent declared. “Asinine,” said another. “Your kids would not be safe if they come here,” said Patrick Donovan, a parent of 4-year-old twins at Lafayette, who says crossing the streets around the school during pickup and drop-off times already is dangerous. “Believe me, it will be a disaster.” Dozens of D.C. parents gathered Tuesday night in upper Northwest to rail against a proposal under which Murch’s 620 students would be moved into trailers and temporary buildings on Lafayette’s fields for two years while their school is renovated beginning next fall. Lafayette, in the Chevy Chase neighborhood, is also under renovation, and its 700 students are being taught in the makeshift structures on school grounds. The Lafayette project is slated to end by the start of the next school year, and the idea would be for students at Murch �" which is near Fort Reno Park and between Connecticut Avenue and Reno Road NW �" to take over the trailers at Lafayette. The influx would nearly double the student population at Lafayette.

-- Perry Stein

DETROIT (WXYZ) - For more than a year, Action News has been exposing the state of disaster at countless vacant Detroit public school buildings. The City of Detroit made a deal with the school district to take over dozens of the buildings. To address the blight, about 100 young Detroiters will help secure some of the vacant buildings through the Opportunity Detroit Youth and Trades Board-Up Program. It's a great program that will teach Detroit residents new skills that can lead to good jobs. Neighbors living across the street from the old Jamieson Elementary school are happy to see the school boarded up, but believe the boards won't be enough to keep the crooks out. Metal thieves have ravaged the building beyond saving. "We'll see how long that last," said long time resident Jonathan Proctor. "Better off bricking it off or tearing it down." Proctor and other neighbors say they used to report the constant stream of metal thieves, but got little to no response from authorities. The scavengers are so bold, a neighbor told Action News she spotted illegal scrappers inside the building, as the students were working outside to board the place up.

-- Ronnie Dahl

EPPING �" School officials are looking into installing a system to measure the snow load on school roofs after the weight of last winter’s heavy snow caused cracks at Epping Elementary School and forced the district to close its schools for nearly a week. Stratham-based Emanuel Engineering is exploring options that would take the guesswork out of determining the density of the snow and its weight since it can vary depending on whether it is dry or wet snow. The discussion comes as the school district awaits a reimbursement check from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the cost of snow removal and other related expenses during the snow blitz from late January into February, when a series of storms dumped several feet of snow on New Hampshire. School Business Administrator Martha Williamson told the school board Thursday that FEMA is expected to reimburse the district approximately $69,000 �" or 75 percent �" of the $92,000 bill for snow removal, overtime for custodial staff and engineering work. FEMA announced in March that New Hampshire would receive federal disaster aid to help areas affected by the heavy snow.

-- JASON SCHREIBER

Joplin area school districts and Mercy Health are among those in Southwest Missouri that will soon receive more than $20.3 million in disaster assistance payments for tornado rebuilding and $6.5 million in reimbursement toward the cost of building safe rooms. Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon on Thursday signed House Bill 16, which allows the State Emergency Management Agency to pay out federal funds that were due for local recovery and hazard mitigation for schools and hospitals as well as road and bridge repair and debris removal by towns and state agencies. "From the new high school in Joplin to repairing roads and bridges damaged by floods in Phelps and Pulaski counties, these federal disaster funds are urgently needed to reimburse local communities across the state," Nixon said in a statement. SEMA has received requests since January to reimburse $36.5 million for more than 200 projects across the state, his office said. The Joplin School District has obtained bridge loans to help with rebuilding and safe room construction while waiting on some of its reimbursements. The district is to receive $5,286,960 in disaster assistance payments and $3,679,839 for safe room construction reimbursement.

-- DEBBY WOODIN

The Southwest Licking school district shouldn’t return those 300 door barricades that recently were banned by the state just yet. Existing state building and fire codes ban the use of any door barricade that needs “a key or any special knowledge or effort” to open from the inside, but the director of the Ohio Department of Commerce decided on Monday that maybe it’s time to review those codes. In a letter to Gerald Holland, chairman of the Board of Building Standards, Commerce Director Andre Porter wrote: “The Ohio Building Code exists and has evolved to protect public safety with a major emphasis of that code being to assure the safety of our children in school buildings. Yet, the threats to public safety are ever changing and so we must constantly examine and re-examine the code to assure that it responds to the threats that are known today.” Porter told the board to examine both “school building emergencies that are created by fire or other disasters that require a fast and safe exit of the building as well as those emergencies that can be created by an intruder intent upon attacking the occupants of the building.” The letter was prompted by a ruling last month in which the Board of Building Appeals voted 4-1 against allowing the Southwest Licking district to use door barricades.

-- Eric Lyttle

When City Hall in late 2012 proposed a wave of mass school closings, all in just one year, our reaction could be summed up in two words: No way. EDITORIAL We carried that view into 2013, when CPS voted to 49 elementary schools, even as the mayor and the schools CEO insisted they could pull off the closings in way that wouldn’t hurt the nearly 12,000 affected children and would even make them academically better off. We write today to offer credit where credit is due. Some 93 percent of the students ended up at schools that were at least marginally higher performing than the under-enrolled shuttered schools they left, according to a University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research study released last week. It is too early to tell if individual students actually are better off �" and the odds aren’t great. Previous U. of C. research on prior closings found that students had better academic outcomes only if they moved to “substantially” higher-performing schools. After the 2013 closures, just 21 percent of students went to CPS’ top-rated schools.

-- Sun Times Editorial Board

Keeping Schools Running In addition to providing incentives for generator purchases, the state now requires new schools and those under construction to install generators to enable the schools themselves to be sheltering places. Although the requirement has been in the works for several years, it went into effect this year. “[The requirement] does things for our sheltering, but at the same time it’s a resilience program because it would allow schools to get back up and running as schools in the event of a loss of power,” said Brendan McCluskey, preparedness director of the Maryland Emergency Management Agency (MEMA). Under the state’s Emergency Shelter Compliance Process, new schools or those undergoing significant renovations are required to install either a generator or transfer switch to accommodate a portable generator, with schools being allowed to decide how to comply. Although most schools have generators to keep elevators and fire detection systems running, those generators aren’t enough to keep a large space humming for days, as is required in a mass sheltering environment, said David Lever, executive director of the Maryland Public School Construction Program.

-- Jessica Hughes

WASHINGTON --(ENEWSPF)--October 17, 2014. Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released new guidance to help school districts protect indoor air quality while increasing energy efficiency during school renovations. “This guidance provides common-sense solutions for improving energy efficiency and indoor air quality in schools across the country,” said Janet McCabe, acting assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation. “By using these guidelines, school districts can cut their energy bills and help ensure that students have a healthy and safe learning environment.” Both energy management and protection of indoor air quality (IAQ) are important considerations for school facility management during energy upgrades and retrofits, and schools can protect occupant health by addressing both goals holistically. These renovation and construction activities can create dust, introduce new contaminants and contaminant pathways, create or aggravate moisture problems, and result in inadequate ventilation in occupied spaces. EPA’s Energy Savings Plus Health: Indoor Air Quality Guidelines for School Building Upgrades offers opportunities to prevent and control potentially harmful conditions during school renovations. The practices outlined in the new guidance support schools as healthy, energy-efficient buildings that play a significant role in local communities. Nearly 55 million elementary and secondary students occupy our schools, as well as 7 million teachers, faculty and staff. In addition, many communities use school buildings after regular school hours as after-care facilities, recreation centers, meeting places and emergency shelters during natural disasters.

-- Staff Writer

When the 800 students of Frank W. Ballou High School in southeast Washington, D.C., come back to classes in January after the holiday break, they won't return to the time-worn, heavily used 54-year-old brick building they left in mid-December. Instead, they will go next door to a just-completed, $124-million complex that will not only serve students but the entire neighborhood. The project's architects, engineers and construction firms all faced numerous tests as they worked to deliver a 356,000-sq-ft facility that will meet a diverse set of local needs. Besides providing long-awaited upgrades to Ballou's high-school classroom areas, the new facility's design had to accommodate a range of other activities: an outpatient health clinic; an 800-student adult education program; a full-service automotive shop; a collegiate-level competition swimming pool; and a rehearsal/recording area for Ballou's nationally recognized marching band. Brian Hanlon, director of the District of Columbia Dept. of General Services (DGS), says his agency recognized that if the new Ballou were to be a true community anchor, it would have to stand up to more than the wear and tear expected from future generations of teenagers. Facing the Slope "We didn't want to just plug another building into the grid," Hanlon says. "This was an opportunity to bring the community together in a lot of ways and provide a model of sustainability, with a design and materials that won't be torn down in 50 years, but rather restored and renewed." The team faced site challenges from early in the process. The new building had to be integrated into a 16.4-acre hillside site, which had been partially leveled decades ago to construct Ballou's athletic fields. The slope includes marine clay and other difficult soils that required foundations sturdy enough for a structural system to support expansive interior spaces and ample daylighting and also enable the school to fill a critical role as a neighborhood shelter-in-place in case of natural disasters. As is DGS's custom for big projects, its procurement path for the new Ballou began with a best-value design competition. The winning design, from a joint venture of Washington-based Bowie Gridley Architects and Perkins+Will's D.C. office, includes three multi-level wings for academics, athletics and career development oriented around a 38,500-sq-ft courtyard.

-- Jim Parsons

An exhibit at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. is highlighting the only state in the union �" Alabama �" that requires tornado safe rooms in new schools. Designing for disaster, which runs through Aug. 2, allows visitors to take a close look at how policies, plans and designs can help communities withstand natural disasters. An Alabama school, Park Crossing High School in Montgomery, is featured in a portion of the exhibit that is focused on state building codes. Park Crossing, which opened last fall, incorporated seven safe rooms into its multi-building, 165,390-square foot campus, with the areas of refuge integrated into classrooms and music/band rehearsal spaces. Instead of building one large safe room, multiple safe rooms were distributed throughout the school so students and staff would have a shelter in close proximity. The safe rooms span two stories and are enclosed by rebar-reinforced concrete walls designed to meet the state standards that took effect in 2010, according to the design firm, Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood (GMC). Steel shutters, which also function as bulletin boards, are located within the classrooms to keep debris and broken glass from flying inside when locked. The shelters have the capacity to protect 1,200 people from 250-mile-per-hour winds.

-- Jill Nolin

After Hurricane Katrina's devastation in 2005, Louisiana embraced a radical vision for New Orleans education, leaning ever more heavily toward charter schools. That shift culminates this month as the last of NOLA's traditional schools close. New Orleans is now an all-charter school city. It's the story of a school district that destroyed itself — on purpose. The Recovery School District, under state control, had actually begun rebuilding the city's schools in 2003, two years before Katrina, Education Week notes. The RSD's name refers to the disaster that was New Orleans education, and predates the Katrina disaster. But after Katrina the Legislature gave the RSD expansive new authority of the city's schools. "It started with just five schools, but the August 2005 storm that ravaged the city triggered the massive takeover," Education Week reports. "Only 17 higher-performing schools escaped the takeover and remained under the authority of the elected Orleans Parish school board. Several of those schools also eventually converted to charters, leaving just five traditional schools still under the direct operations of the board." Now the Recovery School District's job is done. And the Washington Post writes that of the RSD's 600 employees, 510 are now out of a job. "An all-charter district signals the dismantling of the central school bureaucracy and a shift of power to dozens of independent school operators," the Post reports, "who will assume all the corresponding functions: the authority to hire and fire teachers and administrators, maintain buildings, run buses and provide services to special-needs students.

-- Eric Schulzke

More heavily reinforced safe rooms are needed in Iowa schools to help protect children from tornadoes and other severe weather, says the state's top disaster management official. Mark Schouten, director of the Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, said Monday that his state agency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency endorse the construction of school safe rooms. "Clearly, it is an important thing to keep our schoolchildren safe in event of a tornado or other severe weather. It is something we are promoting, and I expect you will see more safe rooms in the future," Schouten told reporters during a Statehouse news conference. Questions have been raised about school safety in Iowa since the devastating tornado that struck Moore, Okla., last year, killing seven students and demolishing two elementary schools. In Iowa, building codes stipulate that a school's exterior walls be built to withstand winds of at least 90 mph, but nothing mandates that a shelter or safe room be provided. A Des Moines Register examination of state data last July found that only 37 of Iowa's 1,400 public school buildings included safe rooms, with most built in the last five years. Only about 6 percent of Iowa's preschool-through-12th-grade students had access to safe rooms during the school day. Stefanie Bond, spokeswoman for the state disaster management agency, said the latest figures show that 40 tornado safe room projects have been approved at a cost of about $42 million in 33 school districts. Thirty-two projects have been completed and eight are in progress, she said. The list only includes projects funded through hazard mitigation grants via the state agency. Safe rooms are multipurpose auditoriums, weight/wrestling rooms, classrooms or school activity rooms.

-- William Petroski

A disastrous fire that destroyed an Edison elementary school is weighing on the minds of educators throughout New Jersey. Board of Education President Robin Kulwin described the loss of the James Monroe Elementary as the kind of nightmare scenario that has "many of us staying up late at night worrying. "Nobody wants to see a school in their community lost to a fire or some natural disaster like a hurricane," Kulwin said. "But we were all happy to see how the community came together in Edison and was able to get those children into a new school building in a matter of a few days. "It takes a community response in a situation like that," she said. "I think a lot people are going to be studying how they did it." It took just three days for the Edison School District and Middlesex County College to convert two vacant buildings into a new James Monroe Elementary School. The temporary space is being provided by the college at no cost and should serve the displaced students until the end of the year. In the meantime, district officials will be looking for a more permanent location that can accommodate the students for the two years it will take to rebuild the school. Montclair School District Chief Operating Officer Brian Fleischer said most districts have plans in place in case a school is shut down by fire, storm damage or mechanical issues like a blown boiler. "Every school in Montclair has an emergency location that they can move [into] if they need to move to it during the school day," Fleischer said. "We know where we have available space, if it's going to be for one day or two days, when we have a building that's going to be closed," he said. According to Fleischer, existing space in other district schools is where administrators would turn to first. "We have media centers and libraries and auditoriums in the other district schools which are the initial backup in the short term," noted Fleischer. For a longer-term problem, the district might look to public schools in neighboring districts.

-- George Wirt

The Massachusetts School Building Authority, as pledged by its chairman, State Treasurer Steven Grossman, on Wednesday announced approval of full reimbursement of funds for the $27.9 million Elias Brookings Elementary School project and the $15.2 million Mary Dryden School project in the aftermath of severe damage from the tornado of 2011. At a press conference at City Hall, local officials, including Mayor Domenic J. Sarno, praised Grossman and the state authority for fully funding the projects with the aid of approximately $4 million in federal disaster funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Grossman had visited the city days after the tornado of June 1, 2011, seeing the severe damage at Brookings on Hancock Street, deemed beyond repair, and the serious damage at Dryden School on Surrey Road, including the need for major renovations and a new wing. “He gave us his word at that time that he would make Springfield whole,” Sarno said. “True to the testament of the man, he has done that.”

-- Peter Goonan, The Republican

BRIDGEPORT -- Concern about building the new Harding High School atop a former manufacturing site that contains arsenic, lead and petroleum-based pollutants has kicked up again. Members of the new city school board, bolstered by worried members of the public, want to hit the pause button on the $78 million project to relocate the city high school to the former GE site on the city's East Side. "We have to be aware of what is going on ... We don't want another Three Mile Island situation occurring there," Board Chairman Sauda Baraka said during a meeting Monday night, referring to a 1979 nuclear accident in Pennsylvania -- a huge environmental disaster. Baraka wrote a letter to the city's Planning and Zoning Commission asking it to postpone acting on the matter until the board has seen the site plans and environmental reports from the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. The zoning meeting has been rescheduled to Feb. 10. The property is bounded by Boston Avenue and Bond Street, and is still owned by GE, which for decades manufactured small motors and various electrical devices in its factories there. Before that, Remington Arms made munitions on the property. The board gave an initial nod to the location last year, but has not been consulted on the plans. GE is responsible for the cleanup, and outgoing Schools Superintendent Paul Vallas said the property must be brought up to residential standards for the federal Environmental Protection Agency to allow a school there.

-- Linda Conner Lambeck

Nearly $5 million in federal funds has been allocated for major Hurricane Sandy-related repairs and emergency protective measures at Beach Channel High School and related cleanup in Jamaica Bay. The total funding, $4,902,607.21, will reimburse 90 percent of the costs the School Construction Authority undertook for post-storm repairs at the school on the shore of Jamaica Bay. They include cleaning up an oil spill caused by the school’s ruptured oil tanks; rental and installation of temporary power generators, including staging for more than two dozen other schools in the disaster zone; rental and installation of a temporary boiler and a fuel oil tank; and new fire alarms. The grant was announced by U.S. Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) last Thursday. “This new funding will go a long way in helping Beach Channel High School move forward with their recovery and ensure our children continue to receive the quality education they deserve,” said Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder (D-Rockaway Park), who pushed for federal reimbursments for Beach Channel and several other schools in the disaster zone. “I commend Senators Schumer and Gillibrand for staying on the forefronts of Sandy relief and I will continue to work with them until every school in southern Queens and Rockaway makes a full recovery.”

-- Domenick Rafter

Despite the tragedies of the last school year in Newtown, Conn., and Moore, Okla., more than half of states are lacking when it comes to their policies and plans for school emergency preparedness, according to Save the Children's 2013 National Report Card on Protecting Children in disasters. The report judged states' school preparedness based on four minimum standards: • A plan for evacuating children in child care; • A plan for reuniting families after a disaster; • A plan for children with disabilities and those with access and functional needs; • And a plan for multiple types of hazards for K-12 schools. According to the report, 28 states and the District of Columbia fail to meet minimum standards set by the National Commission on Children and disaster in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Seventeen states lack a child-care evacuation plan requirement, and 16 don't require providers to have a family-reunification plan. Six states and the District of Columbia were found to fall short of the K-12 school multi-hazard plan standard—one that the report qualified as "extremely basic." The report includes a full list of how each state measures up against the set standards.

-- Alyssa Morones - Guest Post

After a massive fertilizer plant explosion devastated the rural town of West in April, local teachers and administrators did what they could to help the community cope with a disaster that killed 15 people and wrecked hundreds of structures, including three of West's four schools. They borrowed classrooms in a nearby town so that children could return to class, and salvaged the school year so that the 113 high school seniors could graduate on time. But now West's schools are confronting another challenge as they plan to begin the new term next month in clusters of portable buildings that some are already calling "Portable City." It's not clear how temporary the prefab village will actually be. Federal officials have rejected $40 million in disaster aid for the schools and insurance companies have offered just $20 million of the estimated $59 million value of the schools' insurance policy. Leaders of the town of 2,800 worry about the impact of the schools' uncertainty on hundreds of residents who are deciding where to rebuild their lives— in West or possibly elsewhere. "Delaying it another year is not going to do any good as far as morale goes, for the community and for our kids," said Superintendent Marty Crawford. Parents are wondering about the schools' future, and the town's. "You want to be home. You want that sense of normalcy," says Crystal Anthony, a school board member and the mother of a rising ninth grader who has been living in nearby Waco since the blast destroyed her house. For some, she said, moving somewhere else might be easier, but Anthony said she intends to stay in West and rebuild.

-- NOMAAN MERCHANT - Associated Press

When it comes to making sure that school kids have access to tornado shelters, Oklahoma’s state government has kept its distance. The state does not require public schools to install shelters, does not keep track of which schools have them, has provided limited state tax dollars to build them and has not assessed the cost of installing them statewide. The state’s minimal intervention in school shelter issues reflects a concern over costs and a long tradition of local control. It’s been left up to local school districts to decide where shelters will be located and how to pay for them. Many state officials say they want to keep it that way. But as people across the country ponder the devastation caused by Monday’s EF5 tornado in Moore, including the destruction of Plaza Towers and Briarwood elementary schools, some have begun asking whether more state involvement is needed. “We’re going to have a discussion about that once we get through the some of the initial disaster recovery efforts,” Gov. Mary Fallin told reporters Thursday. “I think it is important for the state to talk about that.” Ernst Kiesling, executive director of the National Storm Shelter Association, acknowledged that tight school construction budgets would make it difficult to finance installation of shelters at all schools. But he said it makes sense for Oklahoma and other tornado-prone states to begin requiring them in new school buildings. “I believe it would be a prudent thing to do,” said Kiesling, a wind engineering research professor at Texas Tech University. “The added cost of providing safety in a new building is relatively small.”

-- Warren Vieth and Clifton Adcock

In the wake of the deadly bombings in Boston and the fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas, the Maryland State Board of Education on Tuesday approved new emergency planning guidelines meant to help local school systems better prepare for disaster. "It's very timely that we're here today, given the events that occurred last week," said Chuck Buckler, executive director of the student services and strategic planning branch of the Maryland State Department of Education. The 218-page document updates safety guidelines developed a decade ago and emphasizes the creation of individualized plans that address multiple hazards, from school shootings to tornadoes. But its developers were careful to stress that the text could only do so much. It "means nothing" if the local school systems don't adopt it and put it into regular practice, said Sally Dorman, a psychological services specialist for the MSDE. Among the recommendations are conducting an assessment of core buildings to determine how well they can weather different hazards, making sure that access to facilities is controlled, and requiring that schools conduct multiple drills for different scenarios — including severe weather, lockdowns, sheltering in place and evacuations — throughout the year. School shootings in Baltimore County on the first day of school last August and in Newtown, Conn., where 26 elementary school students and staff members were fatally shot in December, demonstrated the need for a clear, concise strategy. Some area school systems reviewed their policies after the tragedies, but their commitment to implementing safety plans varies, Buckler acknowledged. He added that new regulations governing how the systems put their plans in place are also in the works and will likely be brought to the board next month.

-- Tricia Bishop

The commission handpicked to oversee Chicago Public School closings is leaning strongly toward recommending that no more than 20 schools be closed in any one year to give students, parents, teachers and bureaucrats an opportunity to adjust to the upheaval, sources said Monday. “They haven’t demonstrated to us that they can close 100 or even 50 schools. They don’t have the expertise to accomplish that in such a short time-frame. When they closed down as many as 12 schools, it was a disaster,” said a source close to the commission. “Our initial talk was that a recommendation go out that CPS close no more than 20 schools in an given year. It’s still fluid. But, something to that effect is the way it’s going to be. Twenty-at-a-time would be less chaotic and give parents more time to prepare instead of scrambling to find alternatives this late in the year.” Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett have made clear their desire to get the political pain over with in one fell-swoop �" kind of like removing a Band-Aid. In fact, after convincing the Illinois General Assembly to push back the deadline for releasing a list of school closings until March 31, they agreed not to close any more schools for five years. But, that political argument is unlikely to convince the School Closing Commission to go along with massive closings, the commission source said.

-- Fran Spielman and Lauren FitzPatrick

Central to the agita over remaking Boston’s byzantine school assignment system is a chicken-and-egg conundrum. The city wants more parents to choose schools close to home, believing that will help improve them. But many parents want to see those schools improve before they’ll send their kids to them. Everybody agrees it would be beyond great if every kid could walk to a good school. Less travel time means more students could take part in after-school programs, and more parents could get to school events. More schools could be community hubs, like churches used to be. Heaven, right? But here’s another fact on which everybody agrees, and it’s a depressing one: Sixteen years after Mayor Tom Menino invited voters to judge him harshly on his efforts to transform education, there are still schools to which many parents wouldn’t dream of sending their kids. And those parents are terrified a new assignment system would give them no choice. “We can play around with drawing lines on a map, but at the end of the day, there aren’t enough quality schools to go around,” says Kim Janey, senior project director at Massachusetts Advocates for Children. The current system is a disaster, so bewildering and unpredictable that it sends middle-class parents running for the suburbs or for parochial and charter schools. An alarming number of the remaining kids the city spends tens of millions busing each year get little benefit from the trek, arriving at schools no better than those they could walk to. Most of those unlucky souls are concentrated in the East Zone, the third of the city that includes South Boston, Mattapan, parts of Dorchester, and Hyde Park. Citywide, while 84 percent of white kids (who make up 13 percent of students) are landing in quality schools, only 52 percent of African American kids and 61 percent of Latino kids manage it, according to the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. “Moving kids around the city is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic,” says City Councillor John Connolly, who supports a new assignment plan.

-- Yvonne Abraham

There are plenty of good reasons to support the Portland Public Schools bond (Measure 26-144). Certainly we need to provide safe schools for our children and our community in the event of disaster and upgrade building systems that have outlived their useful life. But skeptics are right to question how this will affect the quality of education. Upgrading our school facilities and upgrading education are symbiotic. Many teachers are embracing exciting new models of teaching, but our school buildings can limit such innovation. We must imagine new schools that prepare our students for the 21st century. Questions we should be asking: How can a school be designed to foster collaborative learning? Studies show that lectures are far less effective than peer-to-peer and experiential learning. Some teachers are "flipping the classroom," assigning online lectures for viewing at home at a student's own pace and then guiding individuals and small groups through problems and projects in the classroom. Most every endeavor today demands teamwork. How can we encourage collaborative learning and cross-discipline teaching by the way spaces are organized and designed? Imagine clusters of open classrooms sharing flexible resource, breakout and collaboration space instead of narrow corridors flanked by hermetic classrooms. What would a school look like if it were the hub of a community? We think of our high schools as the province of teenagers. Have you tried to find a welcoming front door at Jefferson or Lincoln high school? We understand that learning is a lifelong endeavor and is most effective in the context of community. Let's integrate the community into our schools, building on the model of our own Rosa Parks Elementary School, which shares space with a health clinic, Portland Parks Community Center and the Boys & Girls Club. Let's also add arts organizations, day care and senior centers. Imagine the benefits to all with retired seniors working with students and to teens working with younger children in after-school programs, all sharing a campus and facilities.

-- Will Dann

Los Angeles, America’s city of cars, is experiencing a roadblock over a subway line. A key section of the subway �" known originally by its romantic marketing term, “Subway to the Sea,” but now by the more mundane “West Side subway extension” or “Purple Line” because it never really reaches the ocean �" is being held up with a lawsuit by Beverly Hills. Because the track is slated to pass 70 ft. beneath the 1927-built, Beverly Hills High School �" which itself was built on active oilfields �" the tony zip-code is spending millions to fight the project for reasons, it says, of safety. “Methane gas, toxic chemicals and teenagers don’t mix,” says the opening line of a PTA-produced video, which blends computer-generated images of exploding fireballs with newsreel footage of an actual methane fire that ignited nearby in 1985 and burned two city blocks for five days. “But this dangerous combination is on the verge of exploding at Beverly High, turning the school into a mega-disaster.” The city of Beverly Hills, which reportedly has spent $2 million in legal and public relations fees, filed suit last month to force the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to reroute the link 1,000 ft. away, eliminating the need for a tunnel. The MTA says it has ruled out the alternative route because it would attract fewer riders and is dangerously close to an active earthquake fault, and subway backers are denouncing the Beverly Hills campaign.

-- Daniel B. Wood

Legislation aimed at overhauling the state's school construction law sailed through the Senate Education Committee yesterday. Senate Majority Leader Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro, introduced the bill, SB 1271, following a California Watch investigation and scathing state audit that found state regulators charged with overseeing school construction had failed to ensure that school buildings are safe. It now heads to the Senate Governmental Organization Committee. The bill establishes a task force that would have until Jan. 1, 2014, to consider changes in the law to better protect schoolchildren during earthquakes. Following committee recommendations, the bill was narrowed yesterday to focus the task force's activities on changes that would prohibit the use of a school building where the state has identified significant safety concerns and would implement penalties for school districts that do not provide all the required construction documents. Corbett said the bill is still a work in progress pending a public hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Earthquake and disaster Preparedness, Response and Recovery, scheduled for April 20. Representatives from California's Coalition for Adequate School Housing and the California Coalition of Professional Construction Inspectors spoke yesterday in support of the bill. In a letter to the committee, the inspectors coalition stressed that the current practice of allowing schools to use buildings that have not complied with state standards compromises the entire seismic safety program. �"No other private or public permit department allows occupancy before the building is signed off as safe so why should schools be allowed this loophole?” wrote Skip Daum, on behalf of the organization.

-- Kendall Taggart

Eight vacant schools where investigators found evidence of drug use and vandalism pose a threat to public safety, and at least one should be demolished immediately because of severe structural issues, city Controller Alan Butkovitz said Tuesday. A new report released by the controller's office urged school officials to secure the properties and establish a plan to address the problems. The district plans to shutter nine more schools in the coming years because of low enrollment. "Our current review found that the school district continues to allow the majority of its vacant buildings to become neighborhood eyesores and safety hazards," Butkovitz said at a news conference. District spokesman Fernando Gallard said school officials "clearly understand the need for these buildings to be safe and sealed" while looking for buyers or new uses. But vigilance is expensive, he said, and the cash-strapped system is still trying to close a $629 million budget gap that has already forced layoffs and program cuts. "The priority for us right now is the open buildings," Gallard said. The controller's report was spurred by a fire that destroyed the long-vacant Edison High School in August. The district had just sold the property a month before to a private developer, but it had sat vacant for more than a decade. Butkovitz said his office had recommended the building be razed in 2008. "It was a disaster waiting to happen, and unfortunately, it did happen," Butkovitz said.

-- Kathy Matheson

School modernization funds included in the White House jobs bill won a compelling brick-and-mortar argument for congressional support on Oct. 21 when AFT president Randi Weingarten, AFT Connecticut president Sharon Palmer and U.S. Rep. Christopher Murphy (D-Conn.) toured a New Britain, Conn., primary school that exemplifies the thousands of public schools currently stretched beyond capacity. At Chamberlain Primary School, the AFT president and congressional leader visited a block of portable classrooms that have been in use for more than 20 years. "There is nothing portable about those portables," Weingarten remarked about classrooms now entering their third decade of service. The four-portable cluster was recently flooded when a pipe burst, and the children are being taught in temporary quarters, including a room normally reserved for faculty meetings. As workers removed water-damaged fixtures, school leaders explained somewhat tongue-in-cheek to visitors that there was one saving grace to the disaster—due to poor foundations, the portables sit on a slant, meaning water from the burst pipe could seep out of one side of the damaged buildings relatively easily. Capacity problems are being compounded by job cuts. The New Britain public schools lost 10 percent of their school staff last year. Class sizes of 27 students in K-3 classrooms are common, and specialists are stretched thin. In fact, the portables at Chamberlain are used to teach children with emotional challenges because it is the only way to ensure daily coverage by social workers, psychologists and other professionals. At a press conference in the school media center, tour participants and Chamberlain staff took the opportunity to call on Congress to pass vital support that would help relieve problems at the primary school and other public schools nationwide. The White House jobs bill would help modernize and repair 35,000 schools. Connecticut would stand to receive $185 million under the plan, supporting as many as 2,400 jobs. With Senate Republicans refusing to let the full bill come before a vote, congressional Democrats and the administration have moved to offer the bill piece by piece in a series of congressional votes. On Oct. 20, the U.S. Senate blocked a vote on the first component, which would have provided $35 billion to rehire teachers, police officers and firefighters. "We need to make an investment in this school, and the president's jobs bill will do that," Murphy told reporters. Connecticut, he stressed, is the only state where unemployment has not budged since the recession. "Our country is in stall mode," he said; a big reason is "dramatic public sector job losses, [and the] decision not to invest in teachers is irreversible" for the children whose learning depends on them. "If we tell our kids that it's important to get an education," then elected officials had better be prepared to offer the resources that match their rhetoric, Weingarten said. "We can't talk the talk and not walk the walk for our kids."

-- Staff Writer

The Recovery School District is launching a seven-year, $1.8 billion effort to replace New Orleans schools citywide. That's a massive expenditure of federal disaster aid involving hundreds of contracts -- and the district needs an effective watchdog to make sure the effort is free of fraud and waste. The state wants New Orleans Inspector General Ed Quatrevaux's office to be that watchdog, and that's a smart move. The Louisiana Department of Education has a tentative deal with Mr. Quatrevaux, and the City Council should ratify the agreement. The inspector general had said budget constraints allowed him to monitor only projects administered by the Orleans Parish School Board. The board manages only a small number of the city's 80-plus schools, however. Under the proposed agreement, the state would provide $800,000 a year for Mr. Quatrevaux to hire staffers to monitor RSD projects and hire contractors to do testing work on construction sites. Mr. Quatrevaux said his office also would set up a fraud hotline and screen contractors for previous financial problems, fraud or failure to complete projects.

-- Editorial Page Staff

Former Bedford County Superintendent Jim Blevins had seen school disaster. Toxic fungus had invaded Jefferson Forest High School in 2000, and Blevins led the district through a public-private partnership renovation of the school. So it didn't take many mornings of reading Blacksburg High School news last fall to prompt Blevins to reach out. He contacted Montgomery County Assistant Superintendent Walt Shannon and suggested a relatively new approach to school construction. It "was a speedy process for us to go in and do what we needed to do," Blevins said. "It brings both the contractor and the architect to the table along with financing and tax structure." Following guidelines set in Virginia's Public-Private Educational Facilities and Infrastructure Act of 2002, the partnership approach allows school districts to build holistically, by negotiating with one private group to take care of design, construction and some loan deals. "We tell our kids all the time to think outside the box. This is outside the box," Blevins said. Public-private proposals also have built the Green Ridge Recreation Center in Roanoke County, Belle Heth Elementary School in Radford and a handful of schools near Richmond and in Northern Virginia. Until Blevins' call, Montgomery County followed a more traditional strategy: design-bid-build, where government officials tweak and push a project step by step. Tonight, Montgomery County School Board members will discuss four public-private plans received since February. The board hasn't made a decision to use the public-private option or to keep the design-bid-build approach for three school projects. The building of new Auburn and Blacksburg high schools and the renovation of Auburn High into a middle school will cost $125 million, the district estimates.

-- Katelyn Polantz

I've served 10 years on the citizens committee that oversees the Los Angeles Unified School District's building program. As I leave that post, I've drawn one clear conclusion: Educators should not manage large school construction programs. Without an independent, professionally run school construction authority, taxpayers will never be protected from the kind of mismanagement chronicled in The Times' "Billions to Spend" series on the bungled building program of the Los Angeles Community College District, and in news articles more than a decade earlier about the Los Angeles Unified School District's Belmont fiasco. For those who don't remember, Belmont was the school construction disaster in which L.A. Unified put a football coach in charge of building a $160-million high school, which the state ultimately declared unusable for children. A scathing audit concluded that an "uninformed" and "unaccountable" school board had violated laws governing hazardous waste, environmental quality and public safety. The debacle earned a segment on "60 Minutes." In the wake of Belmont, voters in 1999 elected a reform slate to the Board of Education, and the new board hired Roy Romer as superintendent to fix the district's construction mess. To preclude another Belmont, and the kind of wasteful mistakes we're seeing today at the community colleges, Romer leveraged an overcrowded-schools court victory won by my law firm and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund to create a nimble, expert-run school construction system. That lawsuit freed up $750 million in state bond money for school construction in Los Angeles. With it, Romer hired a talented team of retired Navy engineers led by Capt. James McConnell, and I joined the citizens oversight committee. Romer and his team transformed L.A. Unified's disastrous building program into an award-winning one.

-- Connie Rice

The American Civil Liberties Union presented a financial plan Wednesday to fund $2.8 billion in upgrades of dilapidated Baltimore school buildings that suggests imposing local taxes, partnering with an investor and increasing government funding. The funding proposal follows an ACLU report released in June that found that 70 percent of city schools were in urgent need of upgrades. For years, Baltimore students have attended schools with nonfunctioning heating and air conditioning, broken windows and limited electrical systems, the June report said. The follow-up report released Wednesday, compiled by the Maryland Budget and Tax Policy Institute, likened the crisis of the city schools to that of a natural disaster and asked that city and state leaders respond as such. The work would need to take place rapidly over 10 years, the report said, rather than the 50 years it would take under the current city school funding structure. The Tax Policy Institute explored how the city could establish new revenue streams through a 1 percent local sales tax increase and a 1 percent tax on meals and beverages in Baltimore, both of which would require legislative approval. The proposed sales tax increase is the largest source of suggested revenue, and a conservative estimate shows it would generate about $67 million in 2012. The meals tax, the report said, could generate about $11 million a year. Numerous jurisdictions around the country have tapped these revenue streams for school construction costs, the report said. Bebe Verdery, education reform director for the ACLU of Maryland, said that while some will quibble with the proposed tax increases, the report is an effort to present the feasibility of a large-scale makeover of school buildings in a reasonable amount of time. The report suggests that construction could begin in 2013 and be completed by 2022. "It's clear that what we need is the political will to implement this plan on behalf of the students and teachers of Baltimore City," Verdery said. Local leaders have recently homed in on the problem, with Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and city schools CEO Andrés Alonso announcing last month that a 10-member task force would begin working on how to obtain the $2.8 billion needed to respond to the ACLU's initial findings. Alonso said the report "is very much in line with our ambition to provide our kids with the learning settings they deserve now, and not sometime in some unfathomable future." Ryan O'Doherty, the mayor's spokesman, said the Mayor's Task Force on School Construction will fully examine the institute's recommendations, and that the mayor has committed to some of the suggestions, such as using revenue generated from a city slots facility for property tax relief and school construction as prescribed by state law. But O'Doherty said the mayor would have to explore ways to mitigate increasing the sales tax in Baltimore when the city is trying to build its tax base and create jobs. To execute the plan, the report said, the city must develop a partnership with an independent financier that would take on the debt and oversee the projects. It recommends that the partner be a government agency, an independent public authority or a state-chartered nonprofit organization. The organization would take on what would eventually total $3.4 billion in construction costs after inflation, to be repaid over 30 years — double the life of normal construction bonds. At the end of the repayment period, the facilities and assets would be turned over to the city and school system. State and city governments would need to increase their funding to schools to assist with repayments.

-- Erica L. Green

In case of an emergency, classes in the Central Berkshire Regional School District will be ready to go. The district's School Emergency Planning Council (SEPC) recently completed a yearlong project to fund and assemble emergency "Go-Kits" to put in every classroom and administrative office in the district's six schools as well as St. Agnes School. Council members include school staff and educators; local and state police; fire, emergency management and emergency medical personnel from the seven member towns of the district

-- Jenn Smith

Five years after Katrina flushed water through the failed floodwalls, destroying homes, damaging classrooms and dashing dreams, the opportunity to build green schools that save millions of dollars on energy bills is just within reach for the school districts that serve New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina knocked out dozens of schools along with thousands of homes, and for quite a while the mission was just to keep education alive and the three Rs solvent. But now, with the help of federal disaster dollars, the school district has launched an ambitious goal to build 40 new schools and renovate 38 others that are at least 30 percent more energy efficient than required by code. The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory helped stitch together a blueprint for what the new and renovated schools should become. Now that the first of the new schools have opened, NREL will monitor some schools to illustrate what works well and what opportunities were missed, helping the districts to push new school design teams toward ever more efficient designs.

-- National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Billings Public Schools have a long list of deferred maintenance needs for the 30 buildings that house the district’s 15,600 K-12 students. This isn’t news. Billings citizens have heard about school building needs for many years, even as school operating levies were defeated. The district provided an itemized list running several pages with estimated costs to Billings area lawmakers before the 2009 Legislature. Altogether, the Billings Public Schools have an estimated $120 million in deferred maintenance. This list needs to be whittled down for the sake of both our children and local taxpayers. These projects aren’t frivolous: We are talking about replacing old heating systems that are at risk of failing; replacing antiquated plumbing, worn-out roofs and windows that drain heat out of schools; repairing sidewalks and pavement; upgrading electrical and ventilation systems; and complying with handicap accessibility requirements. All of the projects involve safety, meeting life safety/building codes, preventing foreseeable disaster, enhancement of educational opportunities, energy conservation or a combination of these benefits. Billings applications fail Thus, it was disappointing to learn that the state Department of Commerce rejected the half-dozen applications that Billings Public Schools made in the first round of Quality Schools grants established by the 2009 Legislature. Five of the proposals would have improved energy efficiency and the comfort of students and staff in our schools; the sixth application was to replace a leaky section of the Castle Rock Middle School (730 students) roof that was installed when the school was built in 1979. Superintendent Jack Copps raised valid concerns about Billings schools being shut out of these grants. It is concerning that Commerce Department officials, by their own admission, gave five of the Billings applications a zero score because the district didn’t submit copies of its 2009 energy audit, a document that was referenced in the applications and that was previously submitted to the department. Moreover, the Commerce Department asked other districts for additional information after receiving their grant applications, yet didn’t notify Billings Public Schools that its applications would fail without new copies of the energy audit. The needs here are tremendous. A lot of good would come from fixing up our local schools.

-- Staff Writer

At its monthly meeting the State Allocation Board also approved the funding of a $4.5 million school modernization project at the Calexico High School as part of the state’s effort to help school districts impacted by the recent earthquake in Imperial County. The Calexico project was financed as a result of new funding now available to school districts statewide due to recent bond sales by the Treasurer’s Office. Given the emergency state of affairs in that area due to the recent earthquake, the Office of Public School Construction, the state agency that handles applications for state funding from school districts, expedited the fund release request for the Calexico High School project. The local district will receive the cash transaction in a few days rather than the more typical four week process. Funding the Calexico project, which had been previously approved but was on a list of projects awaiting funding, was part of a series of actions recommended by the State Allocation Board. At the same meeting, in addition to apportioning funds to many statewide projects, the Board agreed to consider neighboring San Pasqual Valley School District’s three approved projects for funding acceleration based on health & safety reasons, and offered relocatable (modular) classrooms and help in working with Federal Emergency Management Agency programs to local school districts in Imperial, Riverside, and San Diego counties that were affected by the recent Baja earthquake. The Office of Public School Construction worked closely with the Division of the State Architect and the California Emergency Management Agency to quickly analyze the structural damage to schools in the region in the days following the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that was centered in Baja California on April 4, 2010. On April 5, 2010, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a State of Emergency in Imperial County and signed Executive Order S-06-10 �" a preliminary step in securing federal disaster funding.

-- Staff Writer

A task force assembled by Governor Manchin to address school safety is nearing completion of a comprehensive study of the safety and security of West Virginia's schools. State Homeland Security Director Jimmy Gianato is tasked with heading up the massive undertaking. He says first and foremost, the public needs to realize that schools in West Virginia are already secure. "Most counties already have plans,” said Gianato. "I don't want to mislead anybody to think there aren't plans out there." The task force is working to build upon existing security measures and to create a system that is standardized statewide. "In the event of a major event, everybody is using the same codes, the same radio terminology, those type things,” said Gianato. The results of their nearly year long work is a template that is nearly complete. The template, once finalized, would serve as a blueprint for all 55-county school systems to use as the pattern for customizing school security. Gianato says the biggest obstacle they've been trying to overcome is writing a template that fits every situation. "Obviously every building is unique,” said Gianato. "So that becomes a challenge in itself to develop a standardized one-size fits all approach. But we've covered the basics of everything you need to have." The plans are also crafted to work not only in the worst-case scenarios like Columbine or 9/11 style terrorism. They also encompass security procedures for dealing with floods or other natural disasters. Gianato's task force will work with the Regional Education Service Agencies to help deliver training, assessment, and consulting experts to county boards of education if they wish to adopt the templates for their own system. "For the last several years, the Governor has put forward quite a bit of money into the security of school buildings,” said Gianato. "This plan builds upon what is already being done in the counties."

-- Staff Writer

President Barack Obama's top economic pitchman made a few sales calls in the Cleveland area, arguing that the administration's economic stimulus plan is taking hold here and across the country. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, one of the architects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act approved by the Democratic-led Congress, said the nation has "pulled back from the edge" of financial disaster, though he acknowledged recovery is slow-moving. Ohio is supposed to receive $8 billion, which comes in the form of tax relief and money for construction projects and other programs. In Berea, Geithner stood in front of a large backhoe and a half-demolished Fairwood Elementary that will be rebuilt as a "green" building. The $23 million project, which will house several consolidated elementary schools in 2011, was already set. But the school district recently tapped into the stimulus package's "Qualified School Construction Bonds" program that lets districts finance projects with interest-free bonds. Bond holders get a tax credit instead of interest. School districts then can spend the money they save on interest elsewhere.

-- Mark Naymik

Last week, I sponsored and passed an amend­ ment to H.R. 2187, the 21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act. The bill pro­vides local school districts resources to make their fa­cilities more environ­mentally and energy effi­cient. While H.R. 2187 con­tained specific funding for schools damaged by Hurri­canes Katrina and Rita, it did not authorize money for other disaster-related damages. My amendment sets aside money for other school districts affected by recent natural disasters. The amendment passed by a unanimous 433-0 vote, and the overall bill passed by a 275-155 margin. I sponsored the amend­ment due to the lack of addi­tional funding for Enter­prise High School following the devastating March 2007 tornado that leveled the school and left eight chil­dren dead. The new high school remains under con­struction and the city and school board have exhaust­ed their options for addi­tional revenue sources, leaving them $9 million short. I am hopeful that En­terprise and other school districts affected by natural disasters will be able to ac­cess money in this bill once it is signed into law. Over the past two months, our district alone has seen flooding and storms that have led to at least one federal disaster declaration. Small towns across America are simply not equipped to rebuild a mainstay in their commu­nities like schools when they are destroyed by natu­ral disasters. Moreover, I am a believer in the old adage 'if you're going to do something, do it right.' Up­grading schools- regardless of whether or not they were affected by natural disas­ters- to 21st Century and en­vironmentally efficient standards will help create a positive and healthy learn­ing experience for our stu­dents. Under the bill, local school districts will be able to access grants for envi­ronmentally and energy ef­ficient upgrades. It is esti­mated that Alabama alone will receive over $105 mil­lion in funding from H.R. 2187. The bill now goes to the Senate for further con­sideration.Saving Tax­ payers' Money Congress passed a very important bill last week that will reform the mili­tary procurement process and save taxpayers billions of dollars. The Weapons Ac­quisition System Reform Through Enhancing Tech­nical Knowledge and Over­sight Act of 2009 (WASTE-TKO) passed by a unani­mous 428-0 margin. I also supported the legislation when it was in the Armed Services Committee.

-- BOBBY BRIGHT

Today, Congresswoman Suzanne Kosmas (FL-24) voted to pass legislation to provide funding to Central Florida schools for modernization, renovation and repair projects, as well as to encourage energy efficiency and the use of renewable resources in schools. Florida would receive over $278 million to improve schools and turn them into "green buildings" through the 21st Century Green High-Performing Public Schools Facilities Act (H.R. 2187), which passed the House 275-155. The Green Schools Act includes an estimated $5.6 million for Brevard County schools, $17.6 million for Orange County, $3.7 million for Seminole County, and $8.6 million for Volusia. Workforce Management: At the Heart of the Contact Center Learn more, download free white paper. The Modern Contact Center and Workforce Management's Vital Role Learn more, download free white paper. Realizing the Full Promise of Workforce Management Technology: Avoiding Mistakes That Short-Change Your Investment Learn more, download free white paper. Convergence in Telecommunication Learn more, download free white paper. Convergence in Telecommunication Learn more, download free white paper. SIP Conferencing/Collaboration Learn more, download free white paper. Modernizing schools and making them more energy efficient is an effective way to lower costs and save taxpayer dollars. A green school typically utilizes about 30 percent less energy and 30 percent less water, saving thousands of dollars per year. "This bill provides critical funds to modernize our schools and turn them into 'green buildings,' which will help our environment while creating jobs in the process," said Congresswoman Kosmas. "The funding will help ensure that schools are able to make needed repairs, bring their buildings up to safety codes, and create healthier learning environments for Florida's children. In addition, these fiscally responsible investments will provide long-term benefits by saving taxpayers thousands of dollars per year in energy costs."The legislation included an amendment offered by Congresswoman Kosmas, along with Reps. Bobby Bright (AL-2), Henry Cueller (TX-28) and Al Green (TX-9), that would set aside more than $300 million for school districts in regions that are suffering from significant economic distress or are recovering from natural disasters.

-- Staff Writer

The Enterprise school system and other Alabama school systems could receive more than $105 million to repair schools damaged in natural disasters such as the March 1, 2007, tornado. The funding for schools damaged in natural disasters was included in an amendment successfully sponsored by U.S. Rep. Bobby Bright, R-Montgomery, for a federal school funding measure. Bright successfully amended the proposed 21st Century Green High- Performing Public School Facilities Act to include the funds for schools damaged in natural disasters. The bill also provides local school districts with resources to make their facilities more environmentally and energy efficient. Bright’s amendment to include the natural disaster provisions passed by a unanimous 433-0 vote, and the overall bill passed by a 275- 155 margin. Enterprise Mayor Kenneth Boswell and City School Superintendent Jim Reese expressed appreciation for Bright’s efforts on the legislation. “We are currently $9 million short in finishing the auxiliary facilities at Enterprise High School, but the funding in this legislation would help us reach our goal of finishing the school destroyed by the March 2007 tornado,” Boswell said. School officials are “very appreciative,” Reese said. “Enterprise schools are still dealing with the after effects of a tornado that destroyed our schools and left eight children dead. Though we have received funding from various sources, we are still short of what we need.” Under the bill, local school districts would apply for grants. Alabama is expected to receive more than $105 million from the measure. The bill now goes to the Senate for consideration.

-- Staff Writer

Second District Congressman Bobby Bright is working to secure federal funding to rebuild Enterprise High School. Bright successfully amended a bill Thursday that allocates money to schools damaged or destroyed by hurricanes. Bright's amendment provides funds for schools damaged by any natural disasters, including a 2007 tornado that destroyed Enterprise High School and killed eight students. The bill now goes to the senate. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Congressman Bobby Bright- Statement for the Record on the Bright Amendment to H.R. 2187 Mr./Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of my amendment to H.R. 2187, the 21st Century Green High Performing Public School Facilities Act. Put simply, this amendment allows the Secretary of Education to reserve 5 percent of Section 102 grant funds for local educational agencies serving geographic areas with significant economic distress or recovering from a natural disaster. In its current form, the bill sets aside money for schools damaged in Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Indeed, those two storms caused unprecedented damage to the Gulf Coast, including my home state of Alabama. Americans will never forget the images of storms that overwhelmed a city and region and left hundreds of thousands of people homeless and destroyed its infrastructure, including schools and educational facilities. However, Congress would be shortsighted if we don't recognize that natural disasters happen across the country, across all seasons. Whether it's wildfires in the west, floods in the Midwest, ice storms in the north, hurricanes in the Gulf, or tornadoes throughout the country, our schools are also damaged when Mother Nature strikes. The specific need for this amendment came to my attention because of the ongoing struggles that a community in my district has experienced. On March 1, 2007, a tornado ripped through the town of Enterprise, Alabama. In the middle of its 180-meter path of damage was Enterprise High School, full of children going about their daily routines and preparing themselves for their futures. The tornado left eight children dead, and left a community devastated by more than just material losses.

-- Staff Writer

Bridge City school officials have a plan for a new 100,000-square-foot elementary school, combining the Hurricane Ike-damaged Hatton and Sims campuses to teach grades Pre-K through 2. However, two things need to happen before the project can get underway. In the proposal, Hatton Elementary would be torn down and a new campus built, Superintendent Jamey Harrison said. “We know we can get $2.5 from our insurance company,” he said. “That’s cash value minus depreciation. Our ‘project worksheet’ approved by FEMA for Sims is $4.4 million. [‘Project worksheet’] is a FEMA term that says ‘This is what you applied for.’” The district has also put-in for $4.9 million through the Community disaster Loan Program, which provides a five-year loan usually re-evaluated after three years. What the district is still waiting on is the possible passage of Senate Bill 4586 in the state Legislature. Recently the bill passed in the House and will go to the Senate Finance Committee. If it moves forward to the Senate and passes, Bridge City ISD’s portion will be $8 million. Also holding up things is FEMA approval to cover the Hatton school. “Sims and Hatton are very similar,” Harrison said. “So if it goes through, we’ll probably get the same as Sims �" $4.4 million.” If the bill passes and Hatton FEMA funds approved, the disaster loan funds would be applied to another facilities project within the district. “We recently went to Austin to meet with Sen. Tommy Williams (R-The Woodlands), a member of the Senate Finance Committee,” Harrison said. “And he is with us 100 percent. “We’re fully aware of the traffic situation in front of Hatton on Roundbunch Road, and we are working with local and state officials to help alleviate that.”

-- Robert Hankins

Fire prevention sprinkler systems in several New York City public schools are a disaster waiting to happen, a plumbing inspector for the School Construction Authority charges. Roy Van Allen told the Daily News he has warned supervisors about sprinkler systems and fire standpipes that are inadequate or may not work at all. Van Allen contends he found serious problems at a half-dozen schools - including improperly installed pipes, a disconnected standpipe and a substandard fire suppression system. "I wouldn't feel safe with my kids in those schools," he said. "These systems are operating not as designed. It doesn't mean it won't put out a fire, but ... you shouldn't have to wonder if it will work." Case in point: Last December, Van Allen discovered a standpipe that would be used by the Fire Department to pump water to the upper floors of Public School 125 on W. 123rd St. in Harlem was disconnected. "It existed for an unknown time until discovered by me by accident," Van Allen wrote in a Jan. 7 e-mail to his superiors. In January, Van Allen found problems with a pipe used to distribute water for the sprinkler system that was installed on the wrong floor and could confuse firefighters. In a memo to his superiors, Van Allen wrote: "This place is a wreck." Nearly 600 children attend PS 125 in grades K to 7. The Columbia Secondary School is also housed in the building. Harriet Barnes, president of the Community Education Council of District 5, whose office is on the second floor of PS 125, said she knew nothing about the fire safety issues. "Never mind me, there are kids in there every single day," Barnes said. "That's not right." Principals of the two schools did not return calls. An FDNY spokesman was unaware of any problem at the school. A spokeswoman for the city Department of Education said the standpipe at PS 125 passed a Feb. 12 inspection. "We were not aware that [the standpipe] was disconnected. We were aware that it was not working," said DOE spokeswoman Margie Feinberg.

-- Greg B. Smith, Meredith Kolodner and John Marzulli

The town has a school building from 1794, but for the last five years town officials have been scratching their heads over what to do with it. The conundrum was brought to the forefront again last week after Town Administrator E. Winn Davis told the Board of Selectmen that the Massachusetts Interlocal Insurance Association recently contacted the town about the structure. At last week’s meeting, selectmen requested more information from the association about potential insurance coverage. However, all agreed that there is no specific plan right now for the Village School building on North Main Street, which is boarded up. Both Selectmen Lisa A. Pacheco and Jean C. Fox cited the economy as one reason there is no plan for the building. “Coming up with a long-term plan would be moot because we couldn’t follow through with it,” Fox said. Officials noted that not insuring the building could also be a problem, especially if there was a fire or some disaster there. Pacheco asked for a spreadsheet, reflecting the prices of minimal and moderate coverage for the building. “We need to have dollar signs,” she said. Despite the structure’s rotting condition, Building Inspector Paul R. Bourgeois said the abandoned structure does not represent a major fire hazard.

-- Jeffrey D. Wagner

SHOVEL THIS, kids. Last weekend, Senate Democrats, in trying to get a filibuster-proof number of Republicans on board with the stimulus bill, allowed tens of billions of dollars to be slashed from education. It made you forget who won the election. Republican Senator John McCain, so persuasive with his economic plans during the presidential campaign that he lost to Barack Obama 365 electoral votes to 173, howled that stimulus spending was at the point of "generational theft." In the House, Republican Mike Pence of Indiana said, "The center of this stimulus bill is massive, unaccountable government spending and the American people are tired of it." Wait a minute. What the American people were tired of back in November was the massive spending on Iraq, and the unaccountability of such entities as former Vice President Dick Cheney's Halliburton, and other overcharging no-bid military, terrorism, and disaster contractors. As Iraq stole a tragic portion of the next generation, Big Oil lurked in the background racking up record profits, with even less accountability.

-- Derrick Z. Jackson

Voters overwhelmingly approved authorizing the city to spend $1.3 million in grants it received to pay for a fuel cell energy system and emergency generator at the new Middletown High School. The approval allows officials to use the money to pay for a hydrogen fuel cell that will supply a portion of the school's electrical power needs and a two-megawatt generator, costs that were not included in the $106.65 million school construction project voters had approved. The referendum marks one of the final votes on the 282,000-square-foot high school, which sits on 44 acres off Route 3. The project took seven years for planning, approvals and construction, and it involved several votes on funding, a new construction company to build the school after the first was fired, and more money to get the job done. During construction of the school, which opened last month, the state legislature came up with $1.3 million in grants to pay for the fuel cell system and the generator, sparing local taxpayers the additional expense. Although the additions did not cost the city more money, the grants did put the project above the $106.65 million voters had approved. The generator allows the school to be used as a shelter during natural disasters. It would be used to power food services, heat, air conditioning, hot water and lighting.

-- Peter Marteka

Why is DCPS following recommendations that led to disaster in another city school system? The consulting firm of Alvarez and Marsal (A&M) – the firm hired in 2007 by the Fenty administration for advice on DCPS – worked with the St. Louis Public Schools in 2003-04. In 2003-04, A&M organized the closing of 16 schools, outsourcing of food and janitorial services, and firing of many employees – not unlike what is being proposed for DCPS. In that year, SLPS' accreditation score dropped 16 points. In the subsequent four years, SLPS' performance score dropped so severely that the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) stripped St. Louis schools of their accreditation on Mar. 22, 2007. The state took over the city's schools in June. The decision was appealed by the elected school board, but it was upheld in Cole County Circuit Court on Jan. 23, 2008. St. Louis is now holding public meetings to discuss another round of reconfiguring and consolidating its schools. Why did Mayor Adrian Fenty hire this firm – on a no-bid basis – last summer? They were recommended, according to Deputy Mayor Victor Reinoso, �"by a number of school districts across the country as well as School Board President Robert Bobb. The company's experience bringing operational and financial reform to troubled public school districts fit with the goals for turning around District of Columbia Public Schools." Although A&M was only hired for four-months, DCPS has since been following a path parallel to the one A&M recommended in St. Louis.

-- Virginia Avniel Spatz

After tussling with FEMA for months over design differences, the St. Tammany Parish school system has reached a compromise on the preliminary scheme for a new Salmen High School. Salmen was the only campus in a 52-school system to be destroyed by Katrina. The Slidell school will be rebuilt as a consolidated, one-story complex at the original campus, officials said. The Federal Emergency Management Agency will pay $20 million of the project's approximate cost of $36 million with a public assistance program grant, awarded to state and local entities to expedite disaster relief.

-- Jenny Hurwitz

NEW ORLEANS -- Long before Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans, the city's public schools were a disaster. For decades, New Orleans students, most of them poor and black, posted dismal results in classrooms run by poorly trained teachers. Inept and corrupt education officials nearly bankrupted the district and left old, neglected campuses to fall apart. In a country with many struggling urban school systems, New Orleans was widely considered the worst. So, it is little surprise that, as the city spent the nine months since Katrina trying to reassemble itself, no one clamored to recast schools in the old mold. Instead, many educators, parents, and students say, Katrina offered the Crescent City a perverse gift: The chance to start from scratch.

-- Joel Rubin

The federal government will help rebuild parochial schools, nursing homes and similar religious institutions but will not pay for reconstruction of churches or other houses of worship destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, administration officials said. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans, the Southern Baptist Convention and other religious groups are believed to have suffered hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage from the hurricane. Many have been asking what help the government will provide, said H. James Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Towey announced in a conference call to reporters that religious groups that run "essential, government-type facilities" can apply for reconstruction grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In addition to schools and nursing homes, he listed assisted-living facilities and community centers as the kind of institutions that FEMA would pay to rebuild. Churches, mosques and synagogues are not eligible, he said. Until three years ago, FEMA would not have paid to repair religious schools. The Bush administration changed the policy beginning with a $550,000 grant in 2002 to the Seattle Hebrew Academy, a private school devastated by an earthquake. "The aftershocks of the Seattle Hebrew Academy policy will be felt now in the gulf states," Towey said. Before receiving federal funds, religious groups must exhaust private insurance coverage and apply for disaster loans from the Small Business Administration. After that, Towey said, there is no cap on how much FEMA can provide per grant; the only limit is the amount of money appropriated by Congress for disaster relief, about $62 billion so far.

-- Alan Cooperman

A majority of East Texas school districts will remain closed until power lines knocked down by Hurricane Rita are restored by power companies servicing the area. There have been no reports of major damage to school buildings in East Texas, but some power line damage is so drastic that some districts may be closed as long as a month. The majority of the districts are located in Chambers, Hardin, Jasper, Jefferson, Liberty, Newton, Orange and Tyler counties �" all of which have been declared disaster areas by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. DeEtta Culbertson, spokeswoman for the Texas Education Agency, said TEA officials are still waiting to hear back from superintendents in East Texas to report on when districts will reopen. Superintendents are working with county officials and emergency management personnel to assess any damage made by the hurricane to determine whether the infrastructures of the schools are safe, Culbertson said.

-- Geronimo Rodriguez

Federal officials are grappling with the next steps to help students displaced by Hurricane Katrina return to school and to help districts and educators also cope with the aftermath of the disaster. Secretary Spellings announced a new Web site aimed at helping schools that have enrolled student evacuees, called www.ed.gov/katrina">Hurricane Help for Schools. The Web site is aimed at getting additional supplies to schools that have enrolled students from New Orleans and other hard-hit areas. Schools can post messages about what resources and supplies they need, and companies and organizations can respond directly. Groups can also offer their own resources and provide ways for schools to contact them. On Capitol Hill, federal lawmakers were also moving to aid schools handling an influx of evacuated students. Though Congress has already approved $10.5 billion in general emergency funds for the affected areas, some lawmakers were seeking to provide help specifically to schools and students.

-- Michelle R. Davis

In the aftermath of one of the worst natural disaster in U.S. history, education officials from the three states are working hard to get children back in school and, in hard-hit Louisiana and Mississippi, establish plans to rebuild or repair destroyed and damaged school buildings. In addition to Texas, states throughout the country are also welcoming displaced students into their schools. Louisiana officials are piecing together a picture of what their school system will look like in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. For now, it appears that both the New Orleans district, the state’s largest, and the nearby St. Bernard public schools could be out of commission for the entire school year, and that other districts could take weeks or even months to reopen, state schools Superintendent Cecil J. Picard said in a Sept. 6 statement to the press. In Mississippi, state and local education officials were considering setting up portable classrooms and establishing double-shift schedules at some schools to accommodate students whose schools were destroyed or are too damaged to use for months. And in Houston, a prime destination for hurricane evacuees, one of the largest school enrollment efforts in local history is starting Sept. 7 in the Houston Astrodome sports arena, the convention center, and other nearby facilities that have been turned into shelters that Houston residents are now calling “Dome City.”

-- Erik Robelen, Alan Richard, Christina Samuels

Examples of the impact on schools from previous hurricanes and other natural disasters include Hurricane Charley in 2004, Hurricane Floyd in 1999, Northridge Earthquake in 1999, Hurricane Andrew in 1992, Hurricane Hugo in 1989, and Hurricane Camille in 1969.

-- Erik W. Robelen

Thousands of children displaced by one of the most destructive natural disasters ever to strike the United States will be back in school soon, sometimes as far as 500 miles away from home. Whether their own schools are flooded in New Orleans or missing roofs in Biloxi, Mississippi, many students will find a spot in a classroom in the town where they’ve landed. Some 48 hours after Hurricane Katrina left the Gulf Coast, districts in the same or neighboring states started enrolling the storm’s refugees, as school officials across the South responded to the massive emergency migration caused by the devastating storm. The open-door policies were among many steps taken in an effort to bring some sense of normal life to students, parents, and educators after Katrina left hundreds of schools in Louisiana and Mississippi closed indefinitely. While school officials are willing to accept evacuees as students, they face many logistical problems, such as finding temporary classroom space and hiring teachers to handle the influx of students. In Jackson, Miss., state officials were talking about the possibility of converting an abandoned K-Mart store into a temporary school. But they don’t know if they will need to do that until the survey of the damage is completed. Once they have helped displaced students find temporary schools, officials in Louisiana and Mississippi will set to work figuring how long schools will be closed. Initial reports from Mississippi suggest many schools, along with casinos, hotels, and other structures, were leveled. According to the Web site of television station WLOX in Biloxi, the walls of Harrison Central 9th Grade School in North Gulfport collapsed, the roof blew off St. Martin High School in Pascagoula, and, at the very least, the elementary schools in Harrison County saw significant damage to their roofs. In New Orleans and five districts near it, schools remained flooded along with other buildings. Officials with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimated that it would take a month simply to pump floodwaters out of the city. Until then, school officials will not be able to provide an assessment of the structural damage done to their buildings.

-- David J. Hoff

Louisiana Superintendent of Education Cecil Picard urged school systems across the state and elsewhere to quickly find a place for roughly 150,000 public school students displaced by Hurricane Katrina’s devastation in the New Orleans area as officials said recovery efforts will consume months. Administrators of various private schools around New Orleans, meanwhile, began mapping plans for "alternate placements" for their students, making Web site appeals for information about where families are temporarily living. Archdiocese of New Orleans school officials are discussing options for displaced families but haven’t yet released details, a spokesman for the Diocese of Baton Rouge said. It was not immediately clear how many parochial and private school students will need to seek new school placements. Picard said 23 percent of the region’s public school students were severely affected by Katrina, noting that once flood waters recede it may be found that some schools no longer exist. Federal education officials said they expect Congress, as part of an emergency supplemental spending bill covering hurricane relief costs, will tackle funding issues resulting from the disaster. For example, they must decide whether districts taking extra students will get extra per-capita financing that is generated based on enrollment, and whether districts losing students because of the hurricane should lose money. Louisiana and Mississippi education officials already have told the U.S. Education Department they face unprecedented costs in repairing or replacing damaged buildings, and Picard said he hopes that the federal government will provide a major infusion of money for building needs. The superintendent said federal emergency management money is available for 75 percent of the cost of adding portable buildings to serve displaced students, and that federal officials may be persuaded to waive the 25 percent local match.

-- Coleman Warner

Rebuilding New Orleans could cost "at least" $75 billion, a leading expert warned. That would make Katrina and her deadly aftermath by far the most expensive disaster in American history. U.S. Census data shows there were 215,000 housing units in New Orleans. To rebuild 150,000, or 70 percent, at $150,000 a home would cost $22.5 billion. But that figure may be low. Streets, sidewalks, new sewers, telephone and electrical lines and other basic infrastructure, add 33 percent on top, or $7.5 billion. Shops, dry cleaners, restaurants, gas stations and other small commercial buildings across the city: "at least another $10 billion." Renovating and refitting the downtown high-rise office blocks? That's $100 per square foot, for 25 million square feet: $2.5 billion. The hotels? At $50,000 a room for perhaps 50,000 rooms, that's another $2.5 billion. Schools, hospitals, fire and police stations across a city of 500,000 people: at least $5 billion more. That takes the total to $50 billion. But the expert warns: The bigger and more urgent the project, the faster the costs rise. Think Big Dig . . . times six. Labor and raw material costs would rise sharply, Dixon says. There's gouging and fraud. "And then there's all the things we haven't even thought of. If we've found $50 billion in costs, the actual total will come to $75 billion, easy," he says.

-- Brett Arends

Top federal education officials said that they would streamline the bureaucratic process for states and school districts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, pledging to issue waivers as needed from key requirements in the federal No Child Left Behind Act as they reached out to state leaders to determine their needs. Raymond J. Simon, the U.S. deputy secretary of education, and other federal education officials offered few details on other types of assistance, but made clear they stood ready to offer states various types of support in dealing with huge numbers of displaced students and destroyed or damaged schools. But they provided little information on how many schools or students have been affected by the hurricane, which is expected to be the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.

-- Erik W. Robelen

Video surveillance could be instituted in Craven County, North Carolina middle schools and electric door locks installed on front doors if the Board of Education determines these security measures are needed. A preliminary estimates put the cost of 16 cameras at about $26,000. While the measures are designed to protect children, some research indicates the extra security can impact some students in a negative way. Researchers at East Carolina University are studying post-traumatic stress disorders in children after natural disasters and have looked at their reactions to restrictive environments meant to ensure their safety, said Carmen Russoniello, director of ECU's psychophysiology and biofeedback laboratory. There is a line that can be crossed between protectiveness and creating an "atmosphere of fear" that makes children become hypervigilant, Russoniello said.

-- K.J. Williams

The attack at a school at Red Lake, Minnesota is the worst school shooting since Columbine. But even as the nation mourns the tragedy, experts on school violence are calling attention to how much has been learned in the six years since Columbine, and how much better prepared schools can be to avert such disasters - if they have the will, the time, and the resources to do so. Certainly, school guards, emergency plans, and metal detectors can help when violence is attempted. But preventing attacks often comes down to good relationships, listening, spotting warning signs, and persuading students to overcome the hallway code of silence - that it's OK to report threats.

-- Amanda Paulson

Sampson County, Pennsylvania,is pretty well assured that about $40 million in loans will be coming from Washington to help build schools, says Ed Causey, a federal official from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Development program. The money is from a pool of $330 million in disaster relief funds spread over a 16-state area. Considering the relatively small amount of total funds available and the large area of coverage, Sampson County, said Causey, is "very fortunate" to get the $40 million.

-- L.E. Brown Jr.

Just six months after voters nixed building a new Littleton Middle School, town officials are talking about posing the question again, perhaps as early as January. Project supporters are hoping better communication, a less complex ballot with fewer requests for tax increases, changes in the state's School Building Assistance program, and expanded tax breaks for seniors will change voters' minds. The present school, built in 1957, is a "financial disaster waiting to happen." The roof and all the major systems of the building -- heating and ventilation, plumbing, and electrical -- need to be replaced.

-- Sally Heaney

Along with kidnappings, suicides, and natural disasters, Wilmington school officials are reviewing emergency protocols and adding terror scenarios to the catastrophes they must prepare to respond to. "The situation in Russia was tragic, and it could happen anywhere," Wilmington Superintendent William McAlduff said. "It raised our awareness, and we are working to make sure our public safety protocols are in place." The current emergency guide provides steps to take in the event of accidents, natural disasters, fire, explosions, kidnappings, bomb threats, or sexual assaults. It also provides guidelines for dealing with missing children, custody procedures, child abuse reporting, suicide and suicide symptoms, or bites from dangerous animals. The updates will provide procedures for mass evacuations, McAlduff said, and the district is currently working on what to do for acts of terrorism. McAlduff said he hopes to have the new procedures in place within the next few months.

-- Melissa Russell

Education and business activists hope voters will pass a $12.3-billion March ballot measure to repair campuses and build new ones. The bond measure, Proposition 55, will be on the same March ballot as a separate $15-billion bond to help pay off the state's current budget shortfall. Voters who live within the boundaries of the Los Angeles Unified School District, meanwhile, will decide an additional $3.8-billion school construction and repair bond on that ballot. Proposition 55 backers called their measure an investment in California's schoolchildren, many of whom attend dilapidated campuses with leaky roofs, faulty plumbing, broken toilets and other maintenance problems. Opponents argue that the bond would increase the state's huge debt and make it difficult for government to respond to natural disasters and recessions.

-- Duke Helfand

For years, big urban school districts have been considered educational disaster areas, full of underperforming students. But a new federal study suggests that this picture is a caricature, and that urban students perform similarly to their peers elsewhere. A study of 10 urban school districts released yesterday by the National Assessment of Educational Progress shows that students in some districts do better than the national average on standardized tests, while others lag behind. But there is no consistent pattern of underperformance in urban areas when they are compared to suburbs, small towns or rural areas. "Differences in student performance do not appear to be caused by the urban environment," said Darvin M. Winick, chairman of the National Assessment Governing Board.

-- Michael Dobbs

The 126-year-old mission, founded in 1877, is the city's oldest and largest homeless shelter, employs 90 people and receives no government funding. Advocates for the poor say the loss of the mission would be a disaster. However, space is needed for expansion of Jones College Prep high school located next door. Sean Murphy, chief operating officer for Chicago Public Schools, said students are now forced to practice and play sports at another school. Gym class consists of instruction in health and walks around the neighborhood. The city this year filed a lawsuit to take possession by eminent domain.

-- TARA BURGHART

Last November, California voters passed a $13 billion bond to pay for statewide school construction and repairs. Governor Gray Davis said in his budget address that the bonds and construction would create more than 300,000 jobs in addition to improving educational quality and increasing the number of classrooms. Officials in Los Angeles have been dealing with the struggles of school construction for years, and know first hand the difficulties associated with implementing and finishing a full construction plan. The deputy chief for new construction in Los Angeles says it takes an average of five to six years to complete the entire construction process- from site acquisition of land to construction- providing the process is not bogged down by bureaucracy. Many feel that the state of California is putting all their eggs in one basket, relying too much on the school construction plan to solve many of the state unemployment problems, and that in reality, the process will take too long to make any noticeable difference in the near future. However, state officials are working with districts to teach them how to streamline the process, and many districts have already begun the planning process, counting on the bond passage. The critical necessity, according to district officials, is to get the state to ease on some regulations, for example the mandatory land area required for a school. Whatever compromise the state and districts make, everyone involved hopes to avoid another disaster of management and spending found in the Belmont School site.

-- James Sterngold