A proposed North Carolina constitutional amendment on property taxes has drawn pushback from local leaders across the state, though voters largely appear poised to adopt it.

The proposal would bake into the state constitution a limit to how much local governments would be allowed to raise property taxes. 

La Fortaleza, San Juan, Puerto Rico – October 24, 2026 – Governor of Puerto Rico Jenniffer González-Colón announced today that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has obligated $75,565,393.46 in federal funds to advance recovery and reconstruction projects across municipalities and communities throughout Puerto Rico.

The new obligations include projects for the rehabilitation of public housing, structural improvements and seismic mitigation at schools, reconstruction and modernization of electrical infrastructure, repairs to disaster-damaged roads and municipal streets, coastal and slope stabilization, as well as improvements to recreational, cultural, educational, and government facilities.

MESA — Leaky ceilings and failing AC units are among the building problems some Arizona school districts have been waiting years to fix, as a backlog of state repair grants leaves hundreds of projects unfunded.

PRINCETON — The Mercer County Board of Education is embarking upon a feasibility study that could ultimately recommend school closures.

The school board voted earlier this month to conduct the feasibility study and impact statement, which was recommended by School Superintendent Edward Toman in response to continued student enrollment losses.

The two schools that Toman recommended be included in the study are Sun Valley Elementary in Lerona and the Mercer County Early Learning Center in Princeton, which is also known as the Silver Springs Early Learning Center.

East Providence, R.I. — The East Providence City Council on Tuesday night approved by voice vote a resolution asking the city's public works department to assess a vacant, city-owned former school building, according to the East Providence City Council's published meeting recording.

The resolution does not settle the building's future. It asks public works staff to examine the building's condition. Councilman Rick Lawson, who introduced it, said he wants an honest, up-to-date list of what the building needs, starting with mold.

The vote is the latest step in a long dispute over whether the property should be redeveloped for housing or kept for public use.

With our agency partners including the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, the Department of Education, the School Construction Authority, the New York City Housing Authority, and the not-for-profit Trust for Public Land, DEP has been implementing green infrastructure retrofits since 2011 on publicly-owned properties.

State clean-energy investments help schools manage energy costs, bring cleaner transportation to students, create hands-on learning opportunities

ST. PAUL — Minnesota is on track to reach two major clean-energy milestones in the next few months: The state's 400th solar-powered school is scheduled to go online, and the Minnesota Department of Commerce expects to award its 200th Solar for Schools grant.

Commerce highlighted that progress Thursday at Justice Alan Page Elementary School in Maplewood, where school officials and students showed firsthand how state investments are bringing clean-energy technology into schools and onto school buses.

There are three big numbers looming over the school closure debate in Portland.Two are 14 and 11, as in the numbers of buildings that have been proposed for closure in each of two scenarios floated by Portland Public Schools.

When the Atlanta Public Schools announced last year that it would close 16 schools with declining enrollment, district buildings weren’t the only ones on the list. The plans to “repurpose” facilities swept up two KIPP charters, Soul Primary and Soul Academy, which shared a campus in a predominantly Black community on the west side. 

Affected district families have until the end of this school year to say their goodbyes and make plans for the fall of 2027. But for the two KIPP sites, the end came quickly. The schools closed in June.

PORTLAND, Ore. (KPTV) - Some students and parents in Oregon’s largest school district staged a sit-out Tuesday morning, protesting a Portland Public Schools plan that would close several schools and scale back others.

The protest took place at Sunnyside Environmental School in southeast Portland.

“I don’t want to say goodbye to this school,” a student said. “They make me feel happy even, like, on my worst days.”

Portland Public Schools, as part of its rightsizing initiative, is proposing closing 11 to 14 schools.

Newport News' school system hopes to reduce, or maybe even eliminate, its use of portable classrooms. Portsmouth is eyeing the construction of a new K-8 school. Norfolk wants to heighten security in school buildings across the district. York County schools' aging infrastructure will need to be addressed one way or another.

Superintendents of these four districts said if their divisions had more funds and the discretion to wield the money, such ideas could become a reality — or at least a real possibility.

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- A group of parents and community leaders gathered at Third Baptist Church of San Francisco to oppose the San Francisco Unified School District's decision to move away from its lottery-based school assignment system and adopt a neighborhood-based model.

The change marks the first time in more than a decade that the district is changing how elementary school students are assigned to schools. Under the new system, a student's address will determine where they attend school.

For decades, school design has followed a familiar formula: self-contained classrooms lined along corridors. While educational practices have evolved dramatically, many school buildings continue to reflect this decades-old model.

Architecture, planning and engineering firm SHP set out to challenge that convention with Peck Expeditionary Learning School in Greensboro, N.C. The project, completed for Guilford County Schools, was designed specifically to support the Expeditionary Learning (EL) educational model, requiring SHP to rethink nearly every assumption about how a school should function.

Montgomery County Public Schools says aging buildings and sharply rising construction costs are creating increasingly difficult decisions about how the school system invests in its facilities.
The challenges were outlined as the Montgomery County Board of Education received an informational report on the proposed Fiscal Year 2028 Capital Budget and amendments to the FY 2027-2032 Capital Improvements Program (CIP) on Thursday, Oct. 15.
 

Coconino County Superintendent of Schools Cheryl Mango-Paget visited school facilities throughout the county to better understand the conditions facing rural schools and the effect of those conditions on students and educators.

Up on the roof at Community Charter School are a few dozen solar panels, helping to power the Gaston County school.

Channel 9’s Michelle Alfini looked into how schools are taking advantage of their flat rooftops that get a lot of sunlight, and the energy savings could go straight to the classroom.

NC GreenPower has been doing installations like this across the state, not only to help schools lower their power bills but also to offer some educational opportunities.

PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. (CBS12) — Florida schools that use temporary classroom door locks during an active threat will have to follow new requirements for emergency access, including giving a key to all first responders in their respective county.

The changes update the state’s school safety rules and establish additional procedures for districts and charter schools that choose to install the locks.

The New Jersey Local Finance Board approved a $498 million lease for a Newark school building that local officials said is needed to alleviate overcrowding, a vote taken after complaints from Republicans who alleged corruption and mismanagement.

The board’s vote will permit the Newark School District to lease the property for 30 years, and the district’s agreement allows it to purchase the building for $1,000 at the close of the lease term. The proposed Riverfront Elementary School is set to open in the fall of 2028 on the site of a closed Catholic school.

Classrooms across the country are seeing more scrutiny over indoor air quality, and humidity has become part of that conversation. Dry winter air and aging HVAC systems can leave relative humidity far below the range most health experts recommend for comfort and basic respiratory wellbeing.

Facilities managers have long focused on temperature. Humidity control has been more of an afterthought, largely because it is harder to measure, budget for, and retrofit into older buildings without a major capital project.

Charleston, W.Va. - The West Virginia Board of Education (WVBE) voted during its October meeting to take the position in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the state’s public school funding formula that the current funding formula does not provide a thorough and efficient education to the public-school students in this State. The Board made this decision in a 7-1 vote, with one member absent, in the case of Patten v. Hanshaw, et al., in which it has been named as a Respondent. Filed in the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, the Patten lawsuit contends that the state's school aid funding formula fails to meet the constitutional requirement to provide students with a thorough and efficient education.