On a grassy hillside nestled into a live oak woodland ecosystem in the San Francisco Bay Area, a group of elementary students armed with clipboards huddle around a cluster of native vegetation, sketching its craggy form and jotting down observations. There’s dirt under their fingernails and, lacking desks, their clipboards wobble precariously on their knees, but not one of them seems to care. They are completely engrossed in the landscape they’re studying.

This is a fairly typical morning at the Nueva School, where the newly built Science and Environmental Center (SEC) houses indoor-outdoor classes for lower and middle school students. Recently awarded the 2024 Green Good Design: Green Architecture award, the bustling new building is the latest net-zero carbon addition to the campus.

It’s also evidence of an increasingly vital part of our built environment: sustainable school architecture. Not just because it is infrastructure that will always be necessary—unlike, say, office buildings, as the post-pandemic years have proven—but as William Leddy, principal architect of Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects (the firm that designed the Nueva School SEC) says, thoughtful school architecture can “actually empower kids to understand that they have agency to make changes in this world.”

The next time it rains hard in Poway, the water could wash away a $70,000 investment at Black Mountain Middle School; its newly refinished gym floor. Above that shiny surface is a roof lacking the ability to keep out the weather. Not only because it’s filled with holes but also because its six rusty air conditioning units are purely decorative.

Along with educating students, Principal Darcel Glover’s mission is to keep the 50-year-old middle school campus operating. 

“You can see the wear and tear,” Glover said as he gave NBC 7 Investigates a tour of safety concerns.

Those include heavy wooden roll-out bleachers that are difficult and dangerous to move.

“There’s thousands of pinch points within here,” Glover told us. “You can get fingers caught between these bleachers. There’s a ton of cases of serious injuries with these types of bleachers.”

We couldn’t help but notice disconnected electrical wires suspended above fire doors. Those are supposed to automatically close and lock during a fire. Needless to say, they don’t.

The Wake County school system needs to reverse its growing backlog of facilities maintenance — including air conditioning replacements and repairs — school board members said Tuesday. But they’re still working on a plan to do that.
Wake County schools are $214.3 million behind on updating heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment, the board learned during its monthly facilities committee meeting Tuesday. That’s only about a quarter of the $752.2 million the district is behind on replacing or updating facility needs across its about 200 schools. Just $114 million is planned to alleviate that backlog over the next four years. Other needs don’t have funding sources for them yet.
And that’s likely an undercount of pastdue maintenance; the numbers provided by Wake on Tuesday were only for equipment that was five years past its expected lifespan.
It means the district has fallen short of maintaining its facilities based on industry standards for various equipment. Now, the cost of getting equipment back to update is $752.2 million — on top of the regular equipment maintenance the district already must do for equipment that is not yet past its life expectancy.
 

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. 

Idaho school districts could start receiving their proceeds from House Bill 521’s facilities bond next month. 

The Idaho State Building Authority (ISBA), the organization tasked with issuing the HB 521 facilities bonds, is close to finalizing the first sale in a series of bonds that will fund public school capital projects across the state, according to Wayne Meuleman, the authority’s executive director and general counsel. 

Idaho Education News recently spoke with Meuleman to learn more about the HB 521 bonds and the group that’s working behind the scenes to secure funding for needed school infrastructure upgrades. Meuleman has been an attorney for the building authority since 1975 and its executive director since 1980. 

Here’s what we found out:

Building authority tapped as $1 billion bond-issuer
After the Legislature enacted House Bill 521 this spring, the Idaho State Building Authority got to work organizing the sale of bonds that will support a grant fund for school facilities upgrades. 

The sweeping spending package invested $1.5 billion in state funds, including $1 billion for bonds backed by sales tax revenue. Each school district will get a share of the bond proceeds, which are divided through an attendance-based formula. 

Members of Local 1740 assembled a strong display of solidarity on July 25, in response to standstill contract negotiations between the union and their employer, the School Construction Authority (SCA). Representatives from DC 37, Local 1740, and the SCA attended a total of 14 bargaining sessions and were unable to come to an agreement. The previous contract expired in 2021.

The local, formed in 2018, represents architects, engineers, and other technical professionals responsible for the construction and maintenance of approximately 1,900 public school buildings in New York City. The city’s public school system is the largest in the country, servicing more than 1 million students daily.

With a 15% vacancy rate and high attrition at the agency, the workers tasked with ensuring the safety and reliability of City public schools are taking on more work to meet construction timelines for new building projects.

“There’s a revolving door. Why do people come and leave? Because they’re not getting paid their fair share, and they’re being dumped on with excessive workloads,” Local 1740 President Charles Komlo said during the rally. “Tell me anywhere in the country where an architect has 100 projects concurrently under their belt. This agency needs to have reform, and it needs a fair contract for those who are doing the work.”

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. 

The price tag on a new elementary school in Bar Harbor is $63 million. An Auburn high school completed in 2023 came in at $122 million. And at the ballot box this fall, Cape Elizabeth voters will consider a $94.7 million bond that would be used to build a new middle school and renovate the district’s elementary and high schools. 

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the average price of school construction in the United States has increased by 32 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

There is no statewide data showing the change in the average per-square-foot cost of school construction, but Maine Department of Education data of state-funded major construction projects shows how construction costs have grown in recent years. 

BRUNSWICK COUNTY — The Brunswick County school board met Friday to address the impact of Monday’s tropical cyclone and next steps toward reopening; the schools have been closed all week due to catastrophic flooding the unnamed storm caused countywide.
It left multiple people stuck in schools and stranded due to rising floodwaters. In the district, only one school, Bolivia Elementary, is currently undergoing remediation due to flooding, but should be completed by next week. 
Other schools, including South Brunswick High, South Brunswick Middle, and Southport Elementary, experienced significant damage from flooding leaks. Southport Middle School also faces sewage backups, as the entire town was under a sewer advisory.
 

The Chicago Board of Education owns more than 800 school buildings, annexes, and other property.

The average age of a Chicago public school building is 83 years and 70 schools operate in facilities built before 1900. The oldest building — James Ward Elementary — was built in 1874 and is 149 years old.

According to the district’s most recent Educational Facilities Master Plan, it would cost $14.4 billion to update and repair all of Chicago’s public school buildings, and of that, $3 billion is considered critical.

Across the nation, school buildings are considered public infrastructure owned by the community and decisions about facilities upgrades and construction typically filter through elected officials who sit on the local school board.

The bare hot asphalt schoolyard of the American past is getting a redo.

The schoolyard of the future has trees to play under, or canvas canopies to shade a climbing gym. Some have native plants to sniff during recess or fallen logs to climb over. Instead of hard ground, some are tearing out asphalt in favor of more spongy materials to absorb heavy rains.

They are all solutions to tackle not only the hazards of extreme weather but also a growing recognition that playing in nature could be good for children.

Many of these innovations are happening in some of the hottest, most climate vulnerable parts of the country, like Arizona, which this summer endured over 100 consecutive days of 100-degree Fahrenheit temperatures, or California, where some schools closed early because of record high temperatures earlier this month.

WASHINGTON – Today, Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) introduced groundbreaking new legislation to establish the Julius Rosenwald and Rosenwald Schools National Historical Park. Rosenwald, a Jewish American business executive and philanthropist, partnered with African American communities to build thousands of schools across the South.

NPCA is a founding member of the Rosenwald Park Campaign, led by longtime national park advocate Dr. Dorothy Canter, which seeks to establish the first national park site to honor a Jewish American: Julius Rosenwald.

Rosenwald, the son of German Jewish immigrants, was a successful business leader at Sears and Roebuck and a prominent philanthropist motivated by tzedakah, a Hebrew term meaning an obligation or calling to pursue righteousness and charity. In partnership with Booker T. Washington and Black communities across the South, Rosenwald helped fund the construction of more than 5,300 schools and related buildings for children with little or no access to quality public education.

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.”

BRIDGEPORT — Bridgeport school officials are aiming to wrap up a monthslong study of the district's three-dozen buildings by early next year as they weigh plans to close a half-dozen faltering schools. 
The highly anticipated findings will be used to develop a blueprint for the future of the district's facilities, including potential infrastructure upgrades, reworked attendance zones and new bus routes.
The study “will give us that 10-year roadmap that we need in order to ensure that we're giving the school district exactly what the students, the staff and the parents deserve,” Jorge Garcia, the district’s chief operating officer, told a school board committee Monday.
 

Hundreds of parents flooded the Seattle School Board meeting Wednesday to speak out against proposed school closures.
The outcry comes a week after Seattle Public Schools officials released new proposals that would shutter as many as 21 elementary and K-8 schools next fall and trigger sweeping school boundary changes and other reconfigurations across the district.
The closures are part of the district's efforts to fill a nearly $100 million budget gap. Other belt-tightening measures, like staffing reductions, will also likely be necessary.
Wednesday's school board meeting marked the first chance for families to address the board since the proposals came out with the names of specific schools on the chopping block — and families clearly had some thoughts.
As of Tuesday afternoon, nearly 150 people had signed up to testify — for just 25 available spots.
And on Wednesday afternoon, just before the meeting, more than 300 parents, kids, activists, and former school board members gathered outside, rallying to keep schools open. Many of them wore red and carried signs with messages like, "don't do this to our kids."
 

Ylenia Aguilar raised her two sons in Arizona — first in Tucson and later Phoenix, so they’re no strangers to scorching heat. Just recently, Phoenix hit its 100th straight day at or above 100 F (37.8 C), shattering the record set in 1993.
She remembers scary moments “seeing soccer kids and my own children pass out and faint from, you know, heat-related illnesses,” she said. “It was seeing my sons dehydrated.”
Scores of U.S. schoolyards like hers are carpeted in heat-absorbing asphalt, with no shade even for play areas. The buildings were often made with wall and roofing materials that radiate heat into indoor spaces. Kids are also more vulnerable to heat illness than adults. Their bodies have a harder time self-regulating in extreme heat in part because they sweat less, so they can become dehydrated faster.
Climate change is heightening the risks. School closures related to heat are becoming more frequent, according to a report by the Center for Climate Integrity and the firm Resilient Analytics.
 

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - The Anchorage School District sent a letter to families and staff on Monday with more information about what it calls “rightsizing” the district in the face of declining enrollment.
The letter from district Superintendent Jharrett Bryantt urges parents and family members of students to express their preferences in a district survey that includes questions about what special programs, staffing and building conditions are most important when it comes to considering which schools to close or repurpose.
For example, the survey asks participants to rank the importance of “School sizes that allow a full range of classes such as art, music and PE at the elementary level.”
Another question asks participants to rank the importance of maintenance and utility costs at schools.
The survey closes on Sept. 30.
“Your feedback has been invaluable as we move forward with the next phase of the Rightsizing process,” Bryantt wrote in the letter. “Now, we’d like to seek your input on the metrics that will be used to evaluate our facilities. The insights you provide will play a key role in shaping the District’s Rightsizing plan, which will be submitted to the Anchorage School Board for review and discussion later this year.”
 

An important area for school safety planning that is often overlooked is school accessibility for students with disabilities. Accessibility barriers in public schools remain pervasive even decades after passage of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which bars disability discrimination by recipients of federal financial assistance, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). Some of these barriers pose significant problems for ensuring school safety for students with disabilities. For example, students who use wheelchairs or mobility scooters must have an effective means of evacuating during a safety threat situation, such as a fire emergency, when elevators may not be used.

Last September, the board of the Little Rock School District approved the development of a solar power project expected to save the district some $400,000 annually and provide about five megawatts of electricity, a quarter of its total energy needs. 

That may sound like a lot. But it is far smaller than the school district’s original plans, which envisioned a 19 megawatt array that would have met all of the LRSD’s annual needs and reduced its power bill by a projected $1.1 million every year, according to the company constructing the project. 

The LRSD was forced to scale back its plans — and lose out on an estimated $700,000 in potential annual savings — because of a new state law that makes it infeasible for large, commercial-scale consumers such as school districts to build solar projects larger than five megawatts. Arkansas has made remarkable progress in developing solar energy over the last few years, but renewable energy advocates and solar installation companies are warning that the young industry could crater because of the policy change.

Some school districts are struggling to cover routine maintenance costs — even as the state is delivering the largest single investment in school facilities in Idaho history. 

House Bill 521, enacted this year by Idaho Gov. Brad Little and the Idaho Legislature, directed an additional $1.5 billion in state funding to schools over the next decade. The biggest slice is a $1 billion state bond, which will soon be divided between school districts for capital projects. 

But HB 521 had some give and some take. The legislation eliminated August elections for school districts, and it created new rules governing minimum instructional hours and days. The bill also altered the way school districts receive lottery funding — in a way that’s leaving districts cash-strapped in the short term. 

The facilities bill rerouted about $50 million in annual lottery dividends to a restrictive property tax relief fund that must be used to pay off local bonds and levies. Many districts used the lottery money for routine upkeep, from asphalt repairs to new light bulbs, as well as maintenance staff salaries. Those funds can now only be used for debt repayment, and that’s left a potential $30 million gap in funding for day-to-day upkeep.

The Ririe School District, for instance, is short about $100,000, according to superintendent Jeff Gee. That’s a significant chunk for the 700-student, eastern Idaho district with a total budget around $2.7 million.

“We’re kind of scrambling, honestly, to figure out how we’re going to move forward with that,” Gee told Idaho Education News.