Dozens of Pittsburgh public schools without air conditioning will switch to remote learning for students Tuesday as temperatures climb into the high 80s.

This marks the fifth time Pittsburgh Public Schools has closed buildings due to extreme heat during this school year.

According to the district’s Extreme Heat Protocol, administrators are expected to consider moving classes in schools without sufficient air conditioning to remote learning any time the National Weather Service forecasts outside temperatures that “reach or exceed 85°F and/or a heat index of 90°F or higher.”

Exposure to excessive heat can lead to dehydration, sleep disruptions and learning loss, and many PPS schools lack the infrastructure needed to keep students cool.

As a result, 39 of the district’s 54 schools will move to remote live instruction Tuesday. Families affected by the switch can pick up grab-and-go meals at 16 locations across the city from 7 to 9 a.m.

Nearly half of St. Louis’ public schools need to be repaired or closed in the next 10 years due to their poor condition, a regional architecture firm has found.

If the district decides to keep the schools open, upkeep will cost an estimated $1.8 billion by 2044, according to the Illinois-based firm Cordogan, Clark and Associates, which presented its findings at last Tuesday's school board meeting.

Steve Raskin, a vice president of the firm, said it’s too early to make a recommendation as to the school district's course of action, whether that’s to close down schools or make major renovations.

“At this point, I think it’s entirely premature to even have that conversation because really, we’re not there yet,” Raskin said.

He said that after presenting the assessments last week, the firm now must work with the school board on next steps, including gathering more data and conducting scenario testing. He said both entities need to ask themselves questions before making big decisions.

WOODSTOCK — On Monday night, the Mountain Views School District Board will consider cost estimates on three options for addressing the maintenance needs of the Woodstock Union Middle and High School buildings. The board hopes to bring another bond measure to voters in September.

The board’s consideration comes following the voters’ defeat on Town Meeting Day in March of a $99 million bond to fund construction of a new middle and high school building. Voters in the Vermont school district’s seven member towns — Barnard, Bridgewater, Killington, Plymouth, Pomfret, Reading and Woodstock — rejected the proposal by a margin of 340 votes, 1,910-1,570.

Following the defeat, the board conducted a survey of community members and began to explore other strategies to meet the needs of the aging school building, which serves 440 students and was built in 1956, with the middle school addition completed in 1968.

HONOLULU (KHON2) – From an engineering standpoint, emergency officials say most Hawaii buildings do not meet hurricane shelter criteria.
“The state has criteria for shelters depending on construction and design and most of the buildings in our inventory don’t meet that criteria,” explained Honolulu’s Department of Emergency Management Director Hiro Toiya.
Kauai and Honolulu have sought alternatives known as hurricane refuge areas which are mostly in state Department of Education school buildings, like gyms or cafeterias.
“So, while these buildings do not meet the criteria and definition of a hurricane shelter, they do serve as better alternative and they are the best we have in our building inventory to make available to the public,” Toiya explained.
 

COLUMBUS, OHIO –– The dire problems facing Columbus City Schools can be illustrated by comparing two buildings: Como Elementary School and Hamilton STEM Academy. Built as identical schools in 1954, they sit less than 2 miles apart, about 4 miles north of downtown.

Como has never undergone a significant renovation. Original floor tiles that an official said contain asbestos still cover a majority of the school, many of its plexiglass windows are no longer translucent and wires snake through the hallways, crudely affixed to the top of cinder-block walls.

While the building has been retrofitted with air conditioning and a new playground, “We can’t do everything,” admits T. Alex Trevino, the district’s director of capital improvements. In addition to its obvious physical shortcomings, the school, with a capacity of 400 students, has only 243.

Children will not necessarily travel farther on average than they do now to get to school if Seattle Public Schools goes through with a plan to close and consolidate about 20 elementary schools. School-level employees — such as, maintenance workers, office staff, principals, and food services workers — will likely be affected by staff reductions.

Those are just some of the details that emerged Thursday night as Seattle school officials answered questions from about 200 parents and community members at Garfield High Schoolduring its second community meeting on its plan to create “a system of well-resourced schools.”

But big questions, such as how much the district will ultimately save through the closures, were harder to answer.

Thursday’s session was an about-face for the district, after the first meeting Tuesday at Roosevelt High School ended with frustrated parents shouting questions at Superintendent Brent Jones and Chief of Staff Beverly Redmond.

Jones said the Garfield meeting was a chance for a do-over, even as many details remained elusive.

Playing at school, it turns out, is not as simple as it sounds.
Many children today are uncertain of what to play or how to initiate and end games. Conflicts arise about rules and who are the winners. The pandemic, educators say, stunted young children’s natural play development.  
As a result, educators, pediatricians and play advocates are encouraging schools to be more mindful and intentional about positive student-led play experiences at schools. They cite academic, physical, social and emotional benefits for kids when there is dedicated time for healthy, inclusive and safe play. 
According to the National Association of State Boards of Education, nine states — Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Missouri, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Virginia and West Virginia — require daily recess for students. Each state has different policies for duration and the grade levels covered. 
Starting next school year, California public schools will be required to provide at least 30 minutes of recess to elementary students, under a law passed in 2023. Recess, the law says, should be held outdoors when weather and air quality permits. 
 

The Wynne High School campus will be open to the community ahead of severe weather on Sunday night.

This was announced by the Wynne Public Schools official Facebook page, in an effort to address the Wynne School District community ahead of inclement weather.

"The safe rooms on the temporary high school campus will be open to the community," the post reads. "Stay safe, and spread the word!"

Back in April, renderings of the future Wynne High School were been posted to social media by Wynne Public Schools.

The school system released a statement reading that they are "thrilled" to finally release these images. 

America’s aging school buildings are on a collision course with a rapidly warming climate.

Last fall, school officials were forced to send students home across the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic — just as many were returning from summer break — because of extreme heat and schools lacking air conditioning. In Baltimore and Detroit, high heat led to early dismissals, the same as it had four months earlier when summer temperatures struck in May.

In Philadelphia last year, administrators moved the first day of school from late August to after Labor Day, in part to avoid a repeat of heat-related school closures in previous years. But the weather didn’t cooperate. They ended up closing more than 70 schools three hours earlier than usual for the entire week.

Hot weather is not a new concern for school districts. But as the burning of fossil fuels heats the planet, it’s delivering longer-lasting, more dangerous heat waves, and higher average temperatures. Across much of the northern United States, where many schools were built without air conditioning, districts are now forced to confront the academic and health risks posed by poorly cooled schools. Fixing the problem often requires residents to pass multimillion dollar school repair bonds, which can be hard to do. Climatic change is arriving faster than most can adapt.

“We have had situations where it’s been 88 degrees outside but the real feel in the classrooms is well over 90 degrees because of the humidity,” said Shari Obrenski, president of the Cleveland Teachers Union. Although most of the district’s schools have air conditioning, 11 switched to virtual instruction during a period of high heat in 2022. “It’s miserable,” she said, “students throwing up, not being able to keep their heads up, just horrible conditions.”

Polk County commissioners approved the release of more than $115 million in educational impact fees on Tuesday for a new Poinciana area high school among other school projects to accommodate the county's growing student population.  

In all, educational impact fees of more than $174.2 million were released for the modernization and construction of additional capacity within the school system. The approval was by a unanimous decision of the County Commission. 

New high school building costs
Among the funds released, Polk County Public Schools received $115.368 million to construct a new 2,500-student high school in Polk County’s Poinciana area, according to a staff analysis by the county’s Office of Planning and Development.  

The Salmon School District in remote Central Idaho will finally get a new school.

After decades in which voters rejected every bond the district asked for, the community on Tuesday approved a $20 million bond to build a new pre-K-through-8 school with a resounding 72% support.

The election comes after the Idaho Statesman and ProPublica reported last year on how children across the state were learning in schools with freezing classrooms, leaking roofs and discolored water. Salmon was one of the most poignant examples — in the last two decades, the district failed to pass around a dozen bonds to replace its dilapidated schools. Idaho is one of just two states that require support from two-thirds of voters to pass a bond.

At Salmon’s Pioneer Elementary, the plumbing is failing, the floors are uneven and pose tripping hazards, and sewage sometimes backs up into a corner of the kitchen. Parts of the building aren’t accessible for students with disabilities. The foundation is crumbling.

PINE BLUFF, Ark. – As the school year wraps up, Pine Bluff High School students are walking the halls of their decades-old buildings for the last time with a new and improved school soon to be in the works.
Back in August, Jefferson County voters passed a millage increase for the district. PBSD is now using the revenue from that increase to build a new high school.
Cracked foundations and run-down buildings are hard to miss as you pull up to the current high school campus which has been in place since the 1960s and 70s and has faced minimal updates ever since.
The new proposed site plan serves as a light at the end of the tunnel for many students and teachers. It shows new school buildings, sports facilities, an auditorium, media center, high-tech rooms for specialty classes and security systems at the entrance.
Students John Thompson and X’Zaveun Sims pushed for new buildings and facilities, meeting with people to receive feedback and advocating prior to the special election for the millage increase.  However, neither will ever actually experience it firsthand.
 

As summer approaches and temperatures soar, one of the most dangerous places for Bay Area students might actually be the playground.

On a hot, sunny day, the asphalt on school playgrounds can reach 149 F, while a rubber mat can reach 165 F, according to UCLA’s Luskin Center for Innovation. That’s hot enough to cause a third-degree burn. But a little shade can go a long way to help kids cool off.

In an effort to provide more green on Bay Area schoolyards — many of which are expanses of barren asphalt without grass, shade or trees — and lower the impact on students’ health, the Trust for Public Land, a national nonprofit that works to create parks and protect public land, is campaigning for $1 billion from the state legislature to transform those playgrounds.

“If you look at our elementary schools in many cases, you don’t see nature. It’s all about blacktop, asphalt,” said Guillermo Rodriguez, the Trust for Public Land’s California director. “(At) some of the schools that we’ve targeted for green schoolyards, playgrounds have turned into parking lots for teachers and staff because the kids weren’t using it.”

The Bolling v. Sharpe Supreme Court decision of 1954, decided on the same day as Brown v. Board of Education, deemed the racial segregation of District public schools unconstitutional.

In the years that followed, local and federal officials attempted to facilitate racial integration at several all-white District schools, including John Philip Sousa Junior High School, where the Black plaintiffs in the landmark civil rights case attempted to enroll their children.

However, those efforts didn’t amount to much according to Carlene Thompson, a Ward 7 resident who attended Sousa Junior High School more than a decade after Bolling v. Sharpe. 

“The class photos we took were all Black,” said Carlene Thompson, 72. “If there were any white students, I didn’t see them.” 

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) — The Huntsville City School Board has given final approval for the system’s 10-year capital plan.

The board approved the plan, which you can find a copy of here, after weeks of consideration and public meetings to discuss how it would affect each school. The board voted to approve the plan unanimously.

All five board members spoke before the vote was taken, each explaining why they were in support of the plan. They all say there’s something for everyone in the district included in it.

HCS Board President Ryan Renaud says this plan pushes the district closer to a partial unitary status motion under its consent order.

“If we get a favorable review on the three partial unitary motions we have…that we’re planning to submit this year…we will be 4/7 of the way there which is more than halfway,” Renaud stated. “In 65 years of the desegregation order…that’s something Huntsville City Schools has never accomplished.”

Schoolyards are hot and getting hotter, but only a tiny fraction of California’s grade school students can play in the shade.
Researchers and advocates are pushing the state to allocate money for green schoolyards, which can include trees, grass or gardens in place of the flat asphalt or rubber play surfaces at most schools. 
With the help of more than $121 million in state grants, 164 schools already are on their way to either designing or building green schoolyards. Many more applied for the school greening grants, with requests totaling more than $350 million for projects they hoped to build.
The high applicant numbers highlight growing demand for greenery at schools as the climate gets hotter. But with California’s Green Schoolyards program depleted and a state general budget deficit of $56 billion over the next two fiscal years, where will the money for green school projects come from? 
Some environmental groups are pushing for a proposed climate bond that would include $350 million for the green schoolyards program. They also are pushing for a $1 billion carve-out in a proposed $14-$15 billion school infrastructure bond that could go before voters this November.
 

California regulators’ hostility to rooftop solar may have hit its political limit, at least when it comes to the impact on public schools.

In the past few months, a host of bills seeking to reverse or amend California’s regulatory push against rooftop solar have faltered in the state Capitol. The exception, so far, is Senate Bill 1374. The bill would amend the November California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) decision that prevents schools, farms, apartment buildings, and other types of customers from using the solar power they generate to offset their power purchases from Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas & Electric, the state’s three major utilities.

The Billings school board approved Monday night an $80,000 project to replace the Rose Park Elementary main water line.

The district hopes the project will fix a serious problem of lead in water at Rose Park, which also plagues many schools in Yellowstone County.

According to a study done by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), 49 of the 55 school buildings in the county that have been tested have shown the need for at least one fixture to be replaced due to high amounts of lead.

The state of school infrastructure plays a crucial role in providing a conducive learning environment for students and faculty. However, several schools, including Van Nuys, face significant challenges in improving infrastructure. 
Sunnybrae Elementary School, located in Winnetka, CA had students, teachers and parents protesting at the beginning of March over the presence of mold and carbon monoxide in student classrooms.
Picking his 10-year-old son up from school, Mike Barnard observed a sudden change in his son’s health and behavior, experiencing symptoms such as headaches, fatigue, throat infections and more. Dismissing the symptoms as a cold and associating his son’s repetitive illness with a weak immune system, Barnard would later realize that he was wrong. 
After being handed a letter by another parent sharing information about what was occurring at the elementary school, Mike Barnard discovered the real perpetrator that was repeatedly making his son sick: mold.
“I noticed that he didn’t have the same energy he used to where he would always want to play, always wanted to do something,” he said. “When I found out about what was really going on, I immediately jumped on board.” 
Experienced in organizing campaigns, Barnard adopted the role of being the speaker of the movement, vocalizing the complaints of parents, teachers and students. 
 

With more than 500 people protesting outside, Poudre School District’s Board of Education halted its plans to close and consolidate schools in a special meeting Monday night.

A motion to end the process was made at the start of the meeting, and the seven board members individually shared why they each thought the process needed to stop now, without the closure of any schools.

The vote to halt the plan was unanimous, and applause broke out in the room and outside with those still gathered.

“We have heard you, and it has made a difference,” board member Scott Schoenbauer said. “The passion that we have seen starting in October has been impressive and has made it very clear that the last thing we should consider is closing a school, a neighborhood school, until we have exhausted every other option.”