(The Center Square) – Gov. Mike DeWine signed legislation lawmakers say will districts to building new schools across the state. House 479 allows the local share of building projects to be calculated on the government’s existing financial conditions rather than older property valuation and income data..

Summer is the critical window for school upgrades, but planning must be realistic. With the average public-school building nearly 50 years old, schools often use summer break for renovations and modernization projects. Success depends on prioritizing projects that can realistically be completed within the limited summer timeframe and accounting for ongoing summer programs that may still use school facilities.

Strong scheduling and contract protections are essential to avoid costly delays. Construction delays can disrupt students and staff while creating significant financial consequences, including rental, storage, financing, and operational costs. Schools should establish clear completion deadlines in contracts and consider mechanisms such as consequential damages or liquidated damages to hold contractors accountable.

Financial incentives and proactive contract terms help keep projects on track. Early-completion bonuses, overtime requirements, additional staffing provisions, strict delay-notification rules, and termination rights can motivate contractors to meet or beat schedules. Careful planning and contract negotiations before construction begins are key to ensuring projects are finished before students return.

Time outside in school has been treated as a pause button: recess, a break from instruction, a chance for students to move their bodies before heading back indoors to “real learning.” That mindset no longer fits what we understand about how attention works, how children develop or what our students are carrying into classrooms every day. Outdoor learning is an underused part of learning that schools can no longer afford to treat as optional.

The urgency for this shift has reached the national stage with the introduction of the Revitalizing America’s Schoolyards Act of 2026, a bipartisan bill that proposes federal grants to help schools transform asphalt-heavy grounds into nature-rich, instructional spaces.

Funding for school facilities, both building new ones and maintaining existing buildings, is growing more unpopular at the ballot box, an Idaho EdNews analysis of 10 years of election data shows.

A school bond hasn’t passed since May 2024, more than four election cycles.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Hundreds of construction and infrastructure projects across Ohio can now move forward with state funding after Gov. Mike DeWine signed the state’s $3.7 billion capital budget Monday.

His signature was the final step in a months-long budget process and will release funding for projects ranging from water and sewer upgrades to museum expansions and community centers.

Public school closures are increasing across Texas as districts face historic enrollment declines and mounting financial pressure. 

Despite Texas’ continued population growth, public schools lost 76,000 students in the past school year—the first nonpandemic decline in nearly four decades. Districts across the state are consolidating and shuttering campuses in response to the decline, setting the stage for major structural changes to Texas’ education infrastructure.

Iowa schools are losing out on millions of dollars that the state is redirecting to property tax relief, putting some schools at risk of defaulting on bonds taken out to fund facility projects.

More than 100 Iowa school districts were put on a watch list by S&P Global — a financial information company that provides credit ratings to some Iowa school districts — to monitor their credit rating following the passage of property tax reform by the Iowa Legislature last month.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani plans to name construction executive Celeste Ramirez as president of the New York City School Construction Authority on Friday afternoon, putting fresh leadership atop the publicly funded organization responsible for building and modernizing the city’s public schools.

The Boise School District is working on a number of facilities projects this summer, including parking lot construction and HVAC upgrades at several of its schools. Many of the projects are already underway and are expected to be completed before the start of next school year.

At this month’s school board meeting later this month, I will be proposing to modernize Miami-Dade County Public Schools’ (M-DCPS) attendance boundary, student assignment and school planning processes. The goal is to create a system that is more transparent, predictable, accessible and responsive to the realities facing today’s students and families.

Construction will start next week on new Career Technical Education Maker Spaces in three middle schools and expanded classrooms in Weeks Middle School.

From Guam's executive office, two pieces of legislation have been signed into law aimed at strengthening Guam's public education system through higher standards in student mental health services and continued investment in school facilities.

As school districts nationwide confront declining student enrollment, reduced funding, expiring pandemic relief funding and budget shortfalls, conversations about school closures and so-called rightsizing are intensifying.

From large urban systems to smaller districts, leaders are under pressure to consolidate and reduce costs while still accelerating academic recovery for students

School Construction News attended Bisnow’s inaugural Southern California K-12 School Real Estate & Facilities Summit on June 2 at the Omni Hotel in Los Angeles, the organization’s first conference dedicated entirely to K-12. The event brought together school district leaders, architects, contractors and investors to address the funding, design and delivery challenges reshaping school campuses across the region.

Legislators unpacked the details of one of the most contentious words to echo around the Capitol in the past few years: consolidation.

Mississippi representatives met on Thursday, June 4, to discuss, specifically, the consolidation of K-12 schools and districts throughout the state.

Every time storms threaten the Tidewater region, Superintendent David Daniel worries the next round of severe weather could cripple Mathews County Public Schools’ aging environmental system, forcing classroom closures and creating safety risks for students.

In one case, the storm did just that. Moisture overwhelmed the elementary school’s heating, ventilation and cooling system, causing water to collect on the floors and forcing staff to close the school for three days because of safety concerns. Daniel said the infrastructure is decades behind where it needs to be.

A team at the University of Michigan has created an online tool to track school closures and consolidations in West Virginia as the state is grappling with population decline and widespread school financial issues.

The project was led by Roane County native Christina Weiland, who is currently professor of education and social policy at the University of Michigan. 

Across the country, K-12 school districts are navigating a tough, familiar equation: aging buildings, rising utility costs and intense pressure to stretch every tax dollar. HVAC systems, particularly central energy plants, often sit at the center of that challenge. They’re essential, expensive to maintain and easy to postpone until problems become emergencies. At the national level, the U.S. Department of Energy notes that K-12 school districts spend nearly $8 billion each year on energy, making it the second-largest expense after salaries.  

The city’s “AC for All” initiative, launched in 2017, aimed to bring air conditioning to every public school classroom. But the policy doesn’t require the city to verify whether the units are functioning properly, or to extend cooling to common spaces.

WASHINGTON (DC News Now) — For generations, the American schoolhouse has symbolized opportunity — a place where communities invest in the next generation and where children prepare to shape the future.

Now, as the nation approaches its 250th birthday, one Washington, D.C., elementary school is drawing attention for what that future might look like.

John Lewis Elementary School is the first public school in the world to achieve Net Zero Energy, LEED Platinum and WELL Platinum certification, according to officials with the District of Columbia Department of General Services.