Asthma and Allergy Awareness Month is in May, and it presents a timely opportunity to consider the factors that influence asthma, which is one of the most common chronic diseases among children. Nearly five million American kids live with asthma today—a figure that has increased by 160% since 1980—and, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA), it causes an estimated 14 million missed school days annually.
While the educational impact of these absences is generally understood, what often goes overlooked is the critical connection between school facility conditions and student respiratory health. When indoor air quality (IAQ) is poor, the health of children with asthma is increasingly put at risk.  
According to the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), the average American school building is 49 years old. Even more striking, more than one-third of schools have never undergone a major renovation. Outdated HVAC systems, poor ventilation, and building materials past their prime are more than just operational headaches; they contribute to indoor air that is often more polluted than the air outdoors. Dust mites, mold spores, chemical irritants, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) build up in stagnant indoor environments and can have health consequences even for healthy students and staff. 
 

Philadelphia is getting its first new charter school in nearly a decade — a major milestone for a district that had not granted a new charter since the days of the state-run School Reform Commission.
Early College Charter School of Philadelphia will give about 800 sixth through 12 graders early college and career exposure and either college courses or industry certifications. It will open in 2026 in Center City but recruit students from underserved neighborhoods.
The school board voted 8-1 to approve the application Thursday. It was the second try for the school, whose application got voted down in February over concerns about finances, student interest, and academics.
But the revised application, and $2.6 million in private donations secured in a reserve account, helped seal the deal and sway votes from board members Sarah-Ashley Andrews, Cheryl Harper, ChauWing Lam, Joan Stern, and Reginald Streater, all of whom had voted no last time. Board member Joyce Wilkerson cast Thursday’s lone no vote.
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker is viewed as more charter-friendly than former Mayor Jim Kenney, emphasizing unity in the sector and across the city. And board member Whitney Jones acknowledged that in expressing support for Early College, which he said presented a strong application.
“When we made our oath for these seats, we said that we were looking to support Mayor Parker in her vision for one Philadelphia, governing one system of public education that includes both traditional public schools and charter schools,” said Jones, who has worked in the charter sector. While the board has work to do in authorizing and monitoring charters, “I do not think we can hold one individual applicant for the gaps in the system.”

Back in 2022, lawmakers allocated $5 million for school districts to explore consolidation. 

No one took the lawmakers up on it in the first year. 

But the following year, 16 districts got money to study consolidation. Still, no local district has actually consolidated.

K-12 enrollment in public schools is declining amid lower birth rates in Michigan and policies that give parents more choice in where to send their children to school. 

That has left some districts with far more capacity than they need. But rather than merge with neighbors, Michigan school districts are closing buildings and expanding programs they think will increase enrollment. 

Merging districts remains unpopular. Experts say consolidation is hard for several reasons: residents like the identity of their local schools, there are logistical challenges and managing joint debt is tricky.

“It’s a challenge to consolidate districts,” Ypsilanti Community Schools Superintendent Alena Zachery-Ross told Bridge Michigan. “People really value their own identity. They value local control, especially in Michigan.” 

WALHALLA, N.D. — A school district in northern North Dakota is looking toward a mill increase vote with the goal to relieve pressure on its general fund to pay for building maintenance and a 20-year bond payment for previous renovations.

North Border School District Superintendent Seth Engelstad said the increase will not only assist the district in maintaining its buildings, but also act as an incentive for future employees in the competition to hire school staff in a teacher shortage.

"Just trying to stay competitive in a market that's very tight right now," he said. "There's a shortage of teachers — there's a shortage of pretty much most positions."

The district will hold the vote Thursday, June 5, at its schools in Pembina and Walhalla. Both schools, as well as a bus barn in Walhalla and a gym in Neche, are buildings the school maintains. The Walhalla school was the subject of a renovation project around 2015, Engelstad said, and the district is halfway through paying a 20-year bond for the work. The vote is for an increase of up to five additional mills, which could raise the current five mills to 10 for the district. A similar vote was conducted last year, but was about 6% to 8% short of the 60% majority needed to pass.

WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — Planning to demolish up to 60% of Hartford High School and Hartford Area Career and Technical Center is on hold while the school district further investigates the presence of toxic building materials and develops a strategy for how the contamination might be removed.
The decision comes after school and state Department of Conservation officials met earlier this month to discuss next steps.
“The plan we have to date has not changed a whole lot,” Hartford facilities director Jonathan Garthwaite said during a School Board meeting last Wednesday. “The timeline has changed a little.”
There are no plans to relocate students to other areas of the school for the 2025-2026 school year. “We’re not going to move athletic programs out of the gym in September,” he told the board.
Previously, school officials had said that they’d like to remove polychlorinated biphenyls — chemicals more commonly referred to as PCBs that were added to construction materials from the 1930s until they were banned by the federal government in 1979 — “as quickly as possible.”
 

KALAMAZOO, MI -- For years, the Kalamazoo Regional Education Service Agency has offered career classes to students across Kalamazoo County.
But those classes were scattered in various buildings across the county. Some students would have to travel up to an hour.
Next year, those challenges will be a thing of the past.
Construction has finished on KRESA’s new Career Connect facility at 3500 Vanrick Drive, just off I-94 near Sprinkle Road. The 162,000-square-foot facility provides a centralized location where Kalamazoo County students can take classes in 22 career fields.
KRESA wanted to focus on the career fields where students only need an associate’s degree to enter the field, said Eric Stewart, KRESA assistant superintendent.
“People need jobs that pay well, that bring a wage that can help them exit generational poverty and that‘s the opportunity for our kids,” said Jeff Thoenes, superintendent of Comstock Public Schools.
For every 10 jobs on the labor market, one requires a master’s degree, two require a bachelor’s degree and seven require an associate’s degree or less, Stewart said.
“This project has given me, and dare I say many of us, a new deep appreciation for the spaces we’re in and the people who make them possible,” Stewart said at the building’s ribbon cutting. “This place will produce the next generation of builders, after all.”
Each classroom in the building has a label indicating what career the space is designed for.
 

Pennsylvania’s Financing Authority announced that 25 Philly-area schools and community colleges have received grants of up to $500,000 for solar installations, as part of the $22.6 million in state funding distributed across Pennsylvania.
The funding comes from the Solar for Schools Program, originally introduced as a bill by state Rep. Elizabeth Fiedler, D-Philadelphia, and signed into law in 2024.
“I am so happy for each of these schools and excited to see names from nearly every corner of the state,” Fiedler said in a release about the first-ever grant recipients.
“I’ve heard from rural schools who plan to include their solar panels in agricultural education and from city schools that are thinking strategically about rooftop solar with limited space. I have no doubt that the recipients will benefit from the program’s flexibility to meet their school’s needs and to make the most of their strengths,” she added.
Grants cover up to half the cost of equipment, installation, permit fees, energy storage and utility interconnection, helping to reduce the financial burden of going solar.
 

A team of high school interns is on a treasure hunt for energy savings around the Wenatchee Valley in Washington State. So far, their work shows the potential to cut electricity use up to half at large facilities, including Wenatchee High School in Wenatchee, Wash, Chelan PUD said on May 16.

The Advanced Energy Management Program is a paid internship that provides real-world training in energy efficiency. 

The interns – all sophomores at Wenatchee High School – use data from Chelan PUD’s advanced metering system to identify opportunities to reduce energy in the buildings.

The students also conduct on-site visits, scouring unoccupied classrooms, kitchens, attics and hallways searching for equipment that is running unnecessarily, equipment failures, thermostat settings adjustments, and lighting control opportunities.

Over the last six months, the students audited about 10 facilities, including JC Penney, North Central Educational Service District, Town Toyota Center, Confluence Technology Center, Foothills Middle School and several Wenatchee elementary schools. 

More than a dozen school districts throughout Oregon asked voters this week for their financial support to refurbish aging school buildings and shore up declining operations budgets.
For the most part, Oregonians delivered. But in some districts, finding the support and votes to pass a bond or levy continues to be out of reach.
The most recent count of ballots from the May 20 special election shows voters backing 10 out of the 13 school bond and levy measures on the ballot throughout the state.
Some efforts, like Portland Public Schools’ nearly $1.83 billion construction bond, passed with a comfortable margin on election night. Mount Hood Community College’s $136 million general obligation bond is still too close to call. The college’s bond is passing by the slimmest of margins, with just over 100 more votes approving the measure than votes rejecting it.
On the other hand, school districts that have been hard pressed to pass a bond for years or even decades — such as the Central Linn School District — received a resounding “no, thank you” from voters in their area.
There are several factors to consider when it comes to the success of a school bond or levy measure, like how large a district’s tax base is, the age and income of the electorate, voter turnout and the general health of the state and national economy.
“During economic uncertainty, it becomes harder to pass bonds and levies,” said Emielle Nischik, executive director of the Oregon School Boards Association.
Nischik noted that the bleak state revenue forecast, released by Oregon economists last week, most likely had an impact on voters’ attitudes coming into this election.
“Taking on an additional tax is a challenging thing for folks to do right now,” she said.
 

As part of an effort to increase access to parks for Tacoma residents, two elementary schools in Tacoma saw new schoolyards open on May 19.

The new schoolyards at Whitman and Mann elementary schools will be accessible to students during the school day and open to the public as a park after school hours and on weekends. They are the result of a partnership between the nonprofit Trust for Public Land, Tacoma Public Schools and Parks Tacoma, and cost about $2 million. The three partner organizations and other groups like Kaiser Permanente, the State of Washington and Boeing contributed funding to the project.

“We want all kids to have safe, welcoming spaces to learn and play, and that’s exactly what this does,” Korey Strozier, president of the Tacoma Public Schools Board, said in a release.

John Leahy knows a lot about paint.
The former School Committee member and District 3 / Belvidere Lowell City Councilor owned and operated Leahy Painting for 25 of the 40 years that he’s been a professional painter.
He gave up his private contracting business to take a position as the School Deputy Facilities Director in the Facilities Department of the Lowell Public Schools. In his new role, one of the things he immediately questioned was the quality of the paint in the completed sections of the almost $400 million Lowell High rebuild/renovation project.
“They were using the ProMar 200,” Leahy said by phone Monday afternoon. “They should be using the ProMar HP.”
By “they,” Leahy is referring to the LHS paint contractor Sherwin-Williams. The “HP” stands for high performance.
According to the company website, the Sherwin-Williams’s ProMar 200 is a “popular, professional-grade, interior latex paint…It’s known for its durability, easy application, and good coverage.”
In contrast, the company describes its high-performance paint as made for commercial or light industrial jobs because of its “high-performance durability, abrasion resistant formula, and outstanding hide.”
Leahy brought his concerns to the Dec. 19 meeting of the School Building Committee, of which the former mayor is also a member. He told Perkins Eastman Project Manager Robin Greenberg that the newly painted walls were already “getting beat up.”
“Maybe use a semi-gloss finish to keep the walls cleaner,” Leahy said. “A better quality so it holds up over the years.”
Greenberg said “We’ll look into that.”
At the April 3 meeting, Leahy again asked Greenberg for an update on the paint being used on the project’s interior spaces.
“I’m not happy with the finishes,” he said. “You’re using construction-grade eggshell paint on all the walls. By the time you guys leave, we’ll have to start painting again.”
Greenberg said she still was not prepared to answer that question, although she said, “We believe it is a school-durable paint.”
 

Voters appeared to have approved Portland Public Schools’ proposed $1.83 billion bond to rebuild or modernize three high schools and carry out seismic retrofits and other upgrades at its aging middle and elementary schools.
In partial returns tallied at around midnight, the bond was passing 58% to 42%, a margin that had improved as the night went on and more votes were counted.
The last time Portland voters weighed in on a school construction bond, in 2020, it passed by a 3-to-1 margin.
The vote marks the fifth time in the past 14 years that the district’s voters have weighed in on a construction and maintenance bond and the fourth straight time that they have approved such an ask.
Portland Public Schools Superintendent Kimberlee Armstrong declared victory soon after 8 p.m. Tuesday.
“With the passage of the 2025 school bond, you’ve made it clear that our students matter, and that safe, modern and inspiring learning environments are a shared priority,” she wrote in a message to families. “Thanks to your support, we will continue the critical work of rebuilding and restoring Portland’s aging school buildings.”
 

The Fort Worth Independent School District Board of Trustees voted 8-0 with no discussion or comments, to approve a plan developed by district administrators to close 18 campuses, mostly elementary schools, over the next five years.

Parents from Briscoe and De Zavala elementary schools packed the board room Tuesday night, many took a back seat and allowed their children to speak about why their schools should stay home.

"I really enjoy my teachers not only are they hardworking and kind, but they helped me be a better student in the future," said a former Briscoe student.

“I’m hoping that the district reconsiders the list, and they don't vote yes right now,” Stephany Velez said.

Velez’s two children attend De Zavala Elementary School.

“They won't be voting on each school. They'll be voting on the whole plan, which includes all of the schools. So, I just hope that they take a step back and they rethink some of the things.”

Velez said she chose De Zavala for its dual-language program, high rating and overall community environment.

“It's an A-rated school, and there's four elementary schools in the whole district that have that rating,” Velez said. “It’s the only one that's on the list that has A-rating … It's also a school that has a 95.7% attendance rate, so the students are there every day. There's no suspension rate as well.”

Velez said it should be communities over dollars as the board decides whether to close 14 of its campuses.

Pasadena Unified School District Superintendent Elizabeth Blanco issued an update Sunday, addressing mounting community concerns about contaminated soil at nearly half the district’s schools following the release of Eaton Fire soil testing results last week.

The detailed email communication aimed to reassure parents and community members about safety protocols as the district works to address contamination found at 11 of the district’s 23 campuses. Test results showed more than 40% of schools had lead exceeding state health-based limits, with one site showing levels triple the allowable limits in one portion of the campus.

“Your concerns have been heard, and they are guiding our work every step of the way,” Blanco wrote in the community email, directly acknowledging widespread anxiety among parents about potential health risks to their children.

The Superintendent’s message came days after the district released soil testing results showing severe contamination at several sites, including Blair High School’s tennis courts, where lead levels reached more than three times the state’s allowable limit of 80 milligrams per kilogram of soil. Four elementary schools showed lead levels more than double the state limit.

Dr. Parveen Kaur, acting health officer at the Pasadena Public Health Department, provided context in the email about health implications.

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - Atlanta Public Schools wants to make schools more modernized and safer for students, staff and community.
The district has started to outline a “Comprehensive Long-Range Facilities Plan,” for the next 10 to 15 years.
The goal is student success, from facility use, to safety and possibly rezoning some school facilities.
National school research company HPM is helping Atlanta Public Schools draft the plan with research and community input.
“The data gathering continues, we got a lot of data already in place but we want to make sure its the right data help citizens make informed decisions,” said Tracy Richter, HPM Vice President of Planning Services.
The plan is intended to improve facilities to meet the needs of student enrollment and growing technology.
Implementing school safety laws, like House Bill 268 signed into law this April, is at the forefront.
HB 268 requires schools to provide maps of their buildings to law enforcement. It will also mandate public button technology inside ever classroom.
“We will make sure however we become compliant to make sure that law enforcement and fire and safety get this information,” said Richter.
Boosting the presence of early childhood education is stressed in the plan, while addressing the lack of a performing arts school within APS is up for discussions.
District parents said they are absorbing all the new information.
“I still am going over and trying to processing the data myself. I‘m just trying to go thru that. It seems like they’ve done a lot of work here,” said Satu Garrett, who has one child who just graduated high school, and a rising third and fifth grader.
 

The Indiana Court of Appeals ruled that Indianapolis Public Schools can sell one former school building to a nonprofit — but must make another building available to charter schools for $1 under state law. 

The decision, issued Friday, is the latest development in a years-long legal battle between Attorney General Todd Rokita and IPS over whether the school system was exempt from a law that requires districts to make buildings available to charter schools for $1 before selling them to other buyers. 

Under the court ruling, IPS may sell Francis Bellamy School 102 — a former preschool on the Far Eastside of the district — to a nonprofit that works with youth. In 2023, the district agreed to sell the building to VOICES, which currently rents the facility, for $550,000. The sale has been on hold during the legal case. 

The district also sought to sell Raymond Brandes School 65, a former southside elementary school, but the court ruled that it must make the facility available to charter schools under the $1 law.

In a statement, IPS said it will go forward with the planned sale of the School 102 building and property to VOICES.

On May 9th, 2025, the U.S. Department of Education’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Expanding Opportunity through Quality Charter Schools Program-State Charter School Facilities Incentive Grant Program (SFIG) Notice Inviting Applications (NIA) published in the Federal Register. 
The Department plans to award an estimated $10,000,000 for new SFIG grants this fiscal year. The deadline for submission of a grant application under this competition is 11:59:59 p.m., Eastern Time, on July 8th, 2025. 
Program Description
This Expanding Opportunity through Quality Charter Schools Program-State Charter School Facilities Incentive Grant Program (SFIG) provides competitive grants to help states establish and enhance or administer "per-pupil facilities aid" for charter schools. The federal funds are used to match programs funded with nonfederal dollars that make payments, on a per-pupil basis, to provide charter schools with facilities financing. The program is intended to encourage states to share in the costs associated with charter schools facilities funding, and as a result states pay an increasing share of the cost of the program. Under this grant, the maximum federal share of facilities funds decreases each year (from 90 percent in the first year to 20 percent in year five) and phases out entirely after five years. 
 

Springfield Public Schools is at risk of losing more than $750,000 in state funding due to calling off class this spring after a severe storm caused widespread power outages to homes and school buildings.
The April 30 closure caused the state's largest district to drop below 169 days of class for the 2024-25 year, the minimum level required to qualify for a 1% state funding incentive.
Superintendent Grenita Lathan announced at the May 13 school board meeting that she has applied for a waiver from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Lathan said the unexpected closure was caused by "extensive storm damage to the power grid" and created "circumstances beyond our control."
 

POTOSI, Mo. – It’s the kind of news every parent dreads—an incident involving their children at school.
On April 29, an EF-1 tornado touched down in Potosi and damaged the elementary school. Footage from the school shows the tornado’s quick impact, with winds over 100 miles per hour, which tore off a section of the roof and damaged several cars.
“Luckily, all the students were inside the FEMA building in the back of the school and were safe inside the building when the storm came through,” Cpl. Dallas Thompson, Missouri State Highway Patrol spokesman, said.
Fortunately, the school was well prepared for the incident. A storm shelter was completed in 2021 and provided safe haven for the students and faculty. No one was injured in the storm, and it proved that storm shelters can be invaluable.
“We have approximately 700 kids here and about 100 staff members. All in there just in a matter of minutes. Less than a few minutes, got them all in there,” Potosi R-III School District Superintendent Alex McCaul said.
The storm shelter at Potosi Elementary School was designed by an architectural firm based in St. Louis that specializes in weather resistant structures, with a focus on helping school districts be prepared for weather emergencies.
 

Seismic safety has gripped the Portland Public Schools Board for the past few weeks as parents have urged board members to develop a system to prioritize retrofits at some of the most high-risk schools.

On May 6, the School Board approved a resolution to prioritize seismic upgrades for funding from the $1.83 billion bond now on ballots. The district’s proposed bond includes $190 million for deferred maintenance upgrades. It could also bank an additional $176 million to $208 million of spillover from high school modernization projects. Both those pots of money now carry the directive that they should be spent on seismic upgrades before most of the district’s other needs. (The resolution allows the district to first prioritize $100 million toward imminent risk projects.)

The resolution’s approval led Safe Structures PPS, a recently created parent group advocating for seismic upgrades, to endorse the school bond on Thursday.

Calls for the district to allocate money toward seismic safety grew louder after reporting by WW in late March highlighted 19 unreinforced masonry buildings across PPS that weren’t going to receive much funding from the upcoming bond. Particularly dangerous are buildings with beams, girders and trusses resting on unreinforced masonry walls. Even a moderate quake, much less the feared “Big One” in the Cascadia subduction zone, could cause some schools to collapse on students (“Shake Shacks,” March 26).