HIGH SCHOOL UNVEILS BUILDING FOR METAL WORKS, SPECIAL ED
-- Staff Writer, UT Sandiego

California: March 2, 2012 -- Not content to dedicate El Cajon Valley High School’s new Metal Works Facility and Special Education Suites with a symbolic snip of a ribbon, school and district representatives resorted to fire power last week. As begoggled officials looked on, welding student Anthony Crisp used an oxy acetylene torch to slice through a chain link rope like a hot knife through butter. With that sparkling gesture, Building 600 — a $3.6 million, 16,866-square-foot modernization and expansion project completed in December — was formally unveiled. It was a far cry from 1952 when the building was first dedicated as a barn for the agriculture department. “What you will see today is a totally transformed facility, which no longer houses cows and horses, but a modern welding and fabrication facility with state-of-the-art equipment, which will provide training in the vital manufacturing industry sector for many years into the future,” said El Cajon Valley High Principal Erin Richison in her welcoming remarks to Grossmont Union High School District officials, staff, and community members and leaders. For the past 30 years, Building 600 has housed the high school’s successful ROP welding program that gives students — and adults in the evenings — the opportunity to explore careers in manufacturing and welding. The only public education offering in San Diego County that provides American Welding Society certification, the program is expected to certificate 180 El Cajon Valley High students this year. But the facility itself was in a sorry state. It was dark, crowded, lacked restrooms, and was so poorly ventilated, the air quality left “a haze of smoke like Los Angeles in the 1960s,” said project architect John Neighbors of Sprotte + Watson Architecture and Planning, the Vista firm charged with bringing Building 600 into the 21st century.

1/3 U.S. Schools Have Serious Mold and Dust Making Kids Sick
-- Jennifer Lance, Eco Childs Play

National: February 3, 2012 -- Schools are germy places, almost as bad as hospitals. As a teacher, I’m suffering from my second illness this school year. Children are in and out of class with various viruses and bacterial illnesses, but sometimes, those illnesses come from the school facilities themselves. Astonishingly, “a third or more of U.S. schools have mold, dust and other indoor air problems serious enough to provoke respiratory issues like asthma in students and teachers.” CNN reports: Dr. John Santilli, a Connecticut allergist, says he has treated dozens of students sickened by school air. Even when children don’t miss school, he said, the medications they take for asthma and conditions like rhinitis, an allergic reaction to mold or dust, can make it harder for them to do their best work. “They’re on antihistamines, they’re on nasal sprays, they’re on asthma medications, and this limits their ability to perform,” Santilli said. “These kids can’t concentrate. They can’t focus on what’s going on.”… Researchers and others who follow the issue say school air problems have probably been exacerbated in recent years by funding cutbacks that have resulted in less money for building upkeep and maintenance… Researchers at the New York state Health Department found a correlation between building maintenance at the public schools and hospitalizations for asthma. The condition of roofs, windows, walls and boilers were all related to the health of children at the school, researchers found. A similar study in Boston schools found a link between asthma rates and leaks, mold, lack of repairs and visible signs of insects or rodents.

State (MD) OKs School Improvements
-- Shawn J. Soper, MD Coast Dispatch

Maryland: February 3, 2012 -- The state’s Board of Public Works last week approved roughly $250 million in public school improvement projects across Maryland, including several significant upgrades in Worcester and Wicomico counties. The Board of Public Works, which includes Gov. Martin O’Malley, Comptroller Peter Franchot and Treasurer Nancy Kopp, last week approved a laundry list of recommendations from the Interagency Committee on School Construction (IAC) for the fiscal year 2013 budget totaling roughly $250 million statewide. Among the projects approved last week for Worcester County included new heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems for Berlin Intermediate School, Pocomoke Middle School and Snow Hill Middle School totaling $47,000 each. The three county schools are all at least 40 years old and each has HVAC units at least 30 years old. For years, the Worcester Board of Education has tried a piece-meal approach to replacing the school’s failing heating and air conditioning systems but the process has been a slow one. For example, the current proposed budget identifies a total of 21 HVAC units that need replacing, but the spending plan only includes funding for two or three replacements.

Oklahoma Gets First LEED Gold K-12 Building
-- Susan DeFreitas, Earth Techling

Oklahoma: February 2, 2012 -- Green schools have been cropping up all over the country in recent years, some of them far from noted green building centers. Such is the case with the the Jenks Math and Science Center in Jenks, Okla., (a suburb of Tulsa) which recently became the state’s first LEED-certified K-12 building. The project was built by Tulsa-based Manhattan Construction and designed by Tulsa-based GH2 Architects, and Michigan-based TMP Architecture, and has garnered LEED Gold certification. Encompassing 91,580 square feet, the Jenks Public Schools Math and Science Center includes ten math classrooms, fourteen flexible science teaching studios, a student health center, a 200-seat multi-purpose meeting room and a 105-seat planetarium. Located in the center of the main Jenks high school campus — creating a visual and physical link between the Freshman Academy and senior high classroom buildings — the building was designed to encourage collaboration between math and science and also between the different grade levels.

Classroom farm at Bronx public high school, Green Bronx Machine, shut down despite fresh successes
-- Daniel Beekman, NY Daily News

New York: February 2, 2012 -- A celebrated classroom farm that yielded fresh produce and great jobs for students at a South Bronx public high school has been quietly shut down. For two years, Discovery High School special education teacher Stephen Ritz used vertical garden plots known as "green walls" to teach science and technology. He grew crops such as tomatoes and celery with his students, who sold some of the produce at school and donated the rest to a local food pantry. Lesson plans developed there are now used by the State University of New York. "I’m disappointed....the kids loved it," said Ritz, a veteran teacher, speaking out this week about the school’s termination of the Green Bronx Machine program last August. "It really took root because it cultivated minds and harvested hope." The city Department of Education referred questions to Discovery Principal Rolando Rivera, who failed to return repeated requests for an interview about why the program was shut down.