School building environments matter for student learning

When policymakers discuss educational inequality, the conversation usually centers on teachers, curriculum, or school funding. Yet one important factor often receives far less attention: the condition of the school building itself.

The aging of the nation’s school infrastructure has brought this issue into sharper focus. According to a report from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the average public school building is 49 years old. Thirty-eight percent of these buildings were constructed before 1970, and roughly one-quarter have never undergone a major renovation.

This matters more than we might realize. A growing body of evidence shows that school facilities influence student achievement, enrollment, behavior, and nearby property values. For example, one study found that elementary and middle school construction increases reading scores by 0.15 standard deviations and public school enrollment by 17% six years after construction. Another study found that deficiencies in school infrastructure are associated with a 16% higher rate of hospitalization among children with asthma. At the same time, substantial disparities persist in the quality of school facilities, suggesting that unequal access to adequate school buildings may be an important, and often overlooked, dimension of educational inequality.

LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Unified Board of Education today adopted a California Education Policy Agenda establishing a multi-year framework to guide the District’s advocacy on state policies and investments that affect the educational success and well-being of Los Angeles Unified students.

The agenda brings together key policy priorities across academics, accountability, education funding, school facilities, student homelessness and other key areas. It is intended to provide a coordinated framework for engagement with the next Governor, State Superintendent of Public Instruction and state legislators and other policymakers, while complementing the District’s annual Advocacy Agenda adopted by the Los Angeles Unified Board of Education each year to inform the upcoming legislative session. The Board is scheduled to consider the 2027 Advocacy Agenda and revised Advocacy Guiding Principles and Priorities on December 15, 2026.

ENFIELD, CT — Enfield’s proposed $511 million school project would do more than replace aging elementary buildings. It would change how children move through their early school years, create dedicated space for services now squeezed into shared rooms and give Eagle Academy a different home.

In May 2024, Ward 7 resident Kate Bockover’s two children missed several days of school after Shirley Chisholm Elementary School closed due to a gas leak. This is the reality for many students across the nation, as many buildings rely on outdated or inefficient temperature-regulation systems. 

“It’s just a huge disruption to the school day, and it’s dangerous,” Bockover told The Informer. “It made me see how the system that we had was so unreliable… and it wasn’t a good way to heat and cool the school.” 

PAINTSVILLE, Ky. (WCHS) — Increased construction costs have impacted seven school construction projects across Kentucky. Now, the search is on to find additional state funding to help complete those projects.

In Johnson County, crews have been working on a new high school for more than a year.

Since the project was first discussed, Johnson County Schools assistant superintendent Noel Crum said construction costs have more than doubled.

Education officials have divided the work into two phases in order to make steady progress on the future home of the county's central high school and career and technical center.

"The increase has astronomically affected the project," Crum said. "When we decided to phase the project, we were mindful of the fact that we wanted to make sure we could get students into the building."

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine and the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission (OFCC) announced the launch of a user-friendly website and video resource guide designed to make information about Ohio's K-12 school facility programs clear, consistent, and easy to access. 

OFCC partners with school districts across the state to renovate and build modern, safe, and functional learning environments. Each school has a custom build shaped around the needs, priorities, and vision of its own community, from urban districts to rural ones and from traditional K-12 buildings to career-technical centers. 

The website transforms OFCC's 71-page Educational Facility Planning Guide into an engaging, first-of-its-kind digital resource featuring videos, graphics, and plain-language explanations of OFCC processes. It covers several areas, including the Classroom Facilities Assistance Program, Vocational Facilities Assistance Program, and Expedited Local Partnership Program funding programs.

Every energy infrastructure conversation I’ve been part of starts the same way: a boiler is failing, a chiller is past its useful life, or a new building is on the drawing board and someone has to decide how it gets heated and cooled. That’s the right starting point.

The problem shows up later when the discussion jumps straight from “we need a new system” to “what’s the cheapest bid?”, skipping the question that actually determines value: what will this cost the institution over the life of the equipment, and what could we do now to reduce that cost before a single contract is signed?

FOX 2 - Voters in Dearborn and a portion of Dearborn Heights will cast their ballot on what the school district is calling a $1.5 billion dollar "transformational bond" which would span 20 years.

(The Center Square) – A proposal to add energy requirements to Virginia’s school construction sales tax provisions drew questions Monday about upfront costs and potential savings for taxpayers.

Energy Commission of Virginia staff presented the recommendation to a commission subcommittee reviewing energy use and backup power in public schools.

Staff recommended incorporating on-site renewable energy generation, energy storage and features that help schools operate during outages into provisions governing the additional local sales tax for school construction and renovation.

Localities can ask voters to approve an additional sales tax of up to 1% for school construction and renovation. Participating cities and counties will put that question before voters Nov. 3.

As enrollment rises or falls across the nation’s largest school systems, as reflected in this year’s AS&U 100 ranking of the largest school districts, one question becomes increasingly important for district leaders: Are students attending schools that are appropriately sized for the populations they serve?

Capacity utilization provides one way to answer that question because it allows districts to compare the number of students enrolled in a school with the building’s calculated capacity and can help identify campuses that are overcrowded, underused, or likely to become either as enrollment changes.

Is anyone against keeping schoolchildren healthy? Surely not, yet the challenges for maintenance and engineering managers seeking to ensure that K-12 facilities consistently provide healthy environments to students and teachers remain stubbornly persistent.  

Five organizations recently came together to co-host the Healthy Schools for Healthy Kids Summit in Washington, D.C., to detail the reasons healthy school facilities are so important, factors that have created barriers to upgrading these buildings and campuses and the way these groups and their allies can work together. The meeting brought together advocates, elected officials, health experts, facility managers, academics, students and others to address these issues.   

Drive by almost any aging school building in Virginia and you’ll find the same story: roofs held together by duct tape, window-unit air conditioners bolted to brick a century in the ground, boiler systems cobbled together by grounds crews who deserve veterans’ medals for serving their time.

This isn’t the case for a few districts enduring bad luck. Nearly 60 percent of the state’s public school facilities are at least half a century old, according to Virginia’s 2021 needs assessment. Taken together, that makes systemic deferred maintenance less of an outlier than the status quo.

Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. has signed the fiscal year 2027 budget bills, authorizing $739.2 million from the General Fund for government operations while approving separate funding for hospitals, the University of the Virgin Islands and other agencies.

The spending package, passed by the 36th Legislature, funds government operations, health care, education, infrastructure and other public services across the territory for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, according to a Government House press release.

In Santa Barbara, California, an unused former school property on the Eastside could be put to use in a way that helps others — by turning it into affordable housing for teachers and school employees.

Supporters are getting closer to turning the site into 30 deed-restricted homes for district workers, a proposal aimed at easing the burden of living costs that keep many school employees far from the campuses where they work.

As K–12 school systems contend with aging HVAC infrastructure and limited capital budgets, improving indoor air quality (IAQ) does not always require major equipment upgrades. Lori Arzaga, director of environmental health and safety service at Clark County School District, whose research examined CO2 levels and ventilation across school classrooms, says facility managers can start by making ventilation conditions visible through real-time CO2 monitoring.  

From identifying problem spaces to making low-cost operational adjustments, Olson-Arzaga's session “Improving Air Quality in K–12 Schools for Compliance and Performance” will cover this and more at NFMT West in Las Vegas from November 3 to 4. 

For Tampa Bay, the 2024 hurricane season changed the meaning of “business as usual.”

Hurricanes Debby, Helene and Milton arrived within weeks of each other, damaging tens of thousands of homes, closing schools and disrupting businesses. Buildings designed for ordinary operations became evacuation shelters, recovery centers and anchors of stability.

Civil Beat recently published an article, “HawaiÊ»i Spent Millions On More Preschool Seats. Now There Are Fewer,” that examines the state’s investment in preschool expansion and raises important questions about the future of our early childhood system. We should pay attention when programs close, providers struggle to recruit and retain educators and families are unable to find care that is affordable, accessible and meets their needs.

Comparing the total number of preschool seats today with the number that existed six years ago does not tell the whole story of HawaiÊ»i’s progress.

Over the past several years, Hawaiʻi has made significant progress in strengthening support for ʻohana. Thousands of Hawaiʻi families now have greater access to affordable early learning opportunities.

Burncoat High School in Worcester has long been due for serious work, and the possible price tags are coming into focus.

Preliminary estimates in front of city councilors range from $150 million to $710 million, depending on how much work the city takes on.

Here's what to know

Several paths are under review, The Worcester Guardian reported. The lowest-cost option is basic work on the building, with an estimate of $150 million to $165 million.

Chapter 310 of the Laws of 2026 amended Education Law § 3602(6)(i)(5)(i)(C) to extend the maximum term for guaranteed recovery of Energy Performance Contract (EPC) costs from 18 years to 25 years. The amendment was signed into law on September 28, 2026, and took effect immediately. The amended provision states “C. The energy performance contractor shall guarantee recovery of contract costs from energy savings realized by the school district during the term of the energy performance contract, which shall not exceed twenty-five years.”

Students, teachers and administrators decried neglected conditions in New Haven schools in front of a crowd of over 60 people in City Hall Tuesday night.

Speakers called for increased school funding and transparency and slammed the city’s Board of Education, which they said has not addressed dangerous conditions, including broken HVAC systems, poor air quality and mold. Alders at the meeting floated the possibility of shutting down schools while maintenance work was done. The city’s schools have long faced a deferred maintenance crisis.

“We’ve reached a breaking point,” Leslie Blatteau ’97 GRD ’07, the president of the New Haven Federation of Teachers, said in a speech to the board.