Synopsis

Natural hazards, some fueled by a changing climate, have a devastating effect on children’s education and lives in every corner of the globe. Through its Global Program for Safer Schools (GPSS), the World Bank works hand-in-hand with client countries to ensure the resilience of school infrastructure. Managed by the Bank’s global unit for disaster and climate risk management and primarily funded by the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), GPSS uses a comprehensive approach to inform school infrastructure investments and government capacity building encompassing technical assistance, knowledge, and analytical support. A prime example of how knowledge, financing, and grants from the World Bank can combine to create impact at scale, over the last 10 years, GPSS has made schools safer for 121 million students across 35 countries.

When caregivers meet with teachers, they want all the details on how their children are doing in school: Are they making friends? What subjects do they need a little extra help with? Where are they excelling? But they’re probably not asking about something that could be having an outsized impact on their kids’ education: How’s the classroom air quality?

Boston University environmental health researcher Patricia Fabian has studied indoor air quality for more than 20 years and says the better the air in a school, the better kids perform: improved ventilation has been associated with reduced absences due to illness and higher scores on math and reading tests. Now, a new research collaboration between Fabian and Boston Public Schools (BPS) could lead the way in helping schools improve their indoor air quality.

Since 2022, Fabian has been working with the school district to study the quality of air in the city’s classrooms, leveraging sensors that were installed in more than 4,400 classrooms through $6.7 million in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds.

Fabian says there are relatively few standards for indoor air quality, despite a growing body of evidence to suggest that pollutant levels indoors may be significantly higher than outdoors. But the pandemic has reshuffled priorities, as the airborne transmission of COVID-19 called attention to the safety of enclosed, shared spaces and generated increased interest in, and funding for, projects to implement or improve heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems in aging public buildings, such as schools.

BURRILLVILLE – Members of the Town Council voted unanimously to approve a bond of up to $6.4 million to finance repairs to school facilities, including a costly but urgent boiler replacement for Steere Farm Elementary School.
“It needs to be done sooner rather than later,” explained Finance Director Leslie McGovern at a meeting with the council on Wednesday, Feb. 28.
To finance the project, McGovern told councilors they could wait until November to seek voter approval, or approve it under their own authority under state law. Rhode Island General Law and the Town Charter allow the council to borrow up to 3 percent of the total assessed value of the tax base without putting the issue on a ballot.
“You can put it to the voters, but you’ll be waiting for that vote to take place in November,” McGovern said.
McGovern noted that for the last bond for a school construction projects in Burrillville, a $7 million referendum was approved by voters in 2020. But if the council were to wait this time, funds would not be available until March of 2025 and interest rates, which are now low, would be subject to change, she said.
 

In Idaho, 60 percent of school district leaders reported “poor” or “fair” conditions in their schools, often comprised of older buildings, reported the Idaho Capital Sun in January. Gov. Brad Little said during his State of the State address that he personally saw sewage leaking under a school cafeteria. “Folks, we can do better,” he said. “The can we are kicking is getting heavier, and we are running out of road.”

Idaho schools aren’t alone in dealing with aging infrastructure. The National Center for Education Statistics released survey results last month that put the average age of K-12 public school buildings in the United States at 49 years. Many students attend older schools that often face infrastructure issues such as poor ventilation, neglected repairs, and mold, which can need thousands of dollars in repair costs.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides guidelines for healthy schools, including maintaining proper heating, ventilating, and air conditioning systems and replacing air filters. But in 2020, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that about 41 percent of U.S. public school districts required changes to their heating, ventilation, or air conditioning. About half of the schools the GAO visited were troubled by HVAC system problems such as leaks, which can result in mold or damage to floor tiles.

PASSAIC — Plans for a new city high school that will cost $328 million are moving forward and will be paid for with funds from the New Jersey Schools Development Authority, the district's school board announced.

The announcement comes two years after the SDA gave its approval for the project in April 2022.

In a Feb. 7 memo, the SDA estimated the cost to demolish the current high school at 170 Paulison Ave. and build a new one at $328.1 million, which includes the cost of housing the students during the construction.

"This achievement underscores our unwavering commitment to providing our students with state-of-the-art facilities conducive to learning and growth," said Passaic Board of Education President L. Daniel Rodriguez. "I extend heartfelt gratitude to the SDA, Gov. [Phil] Murphy, Assemblyman [Gary] Schaer and Mayor [Hector] Lora for their invaluable support and advocacy in securing this opportunity for our community."

WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) – After the Wichita Public Schools board voted to close six schools, parents are petitioning to have the decision reviewed on the state level.

Parents KSN News has spoken to are upset, and you can see it. In the video above, you can see signs dotting a lawn, protesting the BOE decision and encouraging parents to get involved.

On Tuesday, parents started going door to door to get a petition signed trying to stop these closures. Parents say closing the six schools was a decision they don’t feel they had a say in.

“I think it’s pretty evident that most of us already felt like the decision was made when we walked in the building,” said Thomas Montiel, a parent at Cleaveland Traditional Magnet Elementary School.

“We found out the same day the staff members found out and the staff members only got notified I think an hour or two before the news stations published their articles so we all were in shock together,” said Ruth Lehman, a parent at Cleaveland Traditional Magnet Elementary School.

The district says no one likes to close schools and that their hands were tied.

The county’s recent school facilities assessment recommends spending at least $94 million dollars on construction projects in the next 10 years on all structures owned by the Board of Education.

That proposed price tag, which is expected to increase to $121 million once all design fees, permits, insurance and professional fees are factored in, was presented to members of the Board of Education and the Transylvania County Board of Commissioners at a special joint meeting of the two boards Monday afternoon.

Last year both boards established a special education capital work group composed of Transylvania County Manager Jaime Laughter, School Superintendent Lisa Fletcher, retired Henderson County Manager Steve Wyatt, retired Henderson County Schools Superintendent Bo Caldwell and representatives from the Axias consulting firm to assess all school buildings and identify repairs that need to be made throughout the school system within the next decade.

“Our recommendation is that you take the reality of where you are and you make the best decisions that you can make,” Wyatt said to the gathering of the two groups Monday. “Those decisions lead to investments because time is money and you’ll get more bang for your buck the sooner you can make decisions and move forward.”

“Now is the opportunity to fix things and fix them right,” added Caldwell. “Here you have an opportunity as county commissioners and the school board to work as a group to provide the facilities that these children can learn in for the next several years.”

The Georgia Senate approved a measure last week that will allow school systems to assess impact fees for development when the development alters the educational infrastructure needed.
Last week, the Georgia State Senate approved Senate Bill 208 and Senate Resolution 189, both measures sponsored by Sen. Greg Dolezal, a Republican from Cumming.
SB 208 introduces development impact fees for education, as the current law only allows impact fees to be imposed by county governments and municipalities. Specifically, the bill would require that a school system be considered ‘high growth’ in that it expects:
a total increase in system wide student enrollment of 20 percent or more during the immediately preceding ten-year period; AND
total expenditures of $250 million or more on the construction of new educational facilities during the immediately preceding ten-year period.
 

HONOLULU (KHON2) — With a growing population in Central Maui, the Legislature already approved designing a new Maui middle and a new elementary school in the area before the Maui wildfires. Following the disaster, the School Facilities Authority, a state agency tasked with building new schools, said this is needed more than ever.
“A significant portion of the population has moved to both central and south Maui because there’s just no housing and more will come right as people get placed in long-term housing,” said Ricki Fujitani, School Facilities Authority Interim Executive Director.
The School Facilities Authority said the projects need to be completed within the next four years. Its statistics already show Paia Elementary School is at 164 percent capacity, Iao Intermediate is at 120 percent, and Maui High School is at 116 percent.
 

Hawaii's legislature is considering measures to boost home building for teachers who struggle to meet mounting living costs and cannot afford to work in the profession.
Lawmakers believe exorbitant rents in particular are making it difficult to retain educators.

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Hawaii's legislature is considering measures to boost home building for teachers who struggle to meet mounting living costs and cannot afford to work in the profession.
Lawmakers believe exorbitant rents in particular are making it difficult to retain educators.
Home prices in Hawaii, like the rest of the country, have skyrocketed since the pandemic. The median price was $627,000 in April 2020, and as of January 2024, prices have leapt to about $851,000. Meanwhile, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Honolulu has shot up by 188 percent to nearly $4,000 a month, compared to a year ago.
The average entry level pay for a teacher in Hawaii is about $67,000 per year as of February 26, 2024, according to salary.com, though the range can vary between an estimated $56,000 and $82,000.
"The legislature finds that Hawaii continues to suffer from a shortage of licensed teachers, with over one thousand vacancies each year," according to a bill in Hawaii's House of Representatives. "Housing costs constitute a big portion of each teacher's paycheck."
 

Delegates reviewed a $150 million allocation for school construction and maintenance, and they were a little puzzled. It was just that the list was so… expansive.
Delegate Clay Riley, R-Harrison, asked if the allocation would take care of everything proposed but not already funded by the School Building Authority. “So this wipes the backlog completely clean?” he asked at a House Finance Committee meeting last Thursday.
Delegate Marty Gearheart, R-Mercer, had a similar reaction.
“Every application is on this list. When was the last time the School Building Authority funded every single application?” Gearheart said. Then he responded to his own question. “I can answer that. I think it’s never.”
These are unusual times with an unusual, big pressure.
West Virginia is under pressure from the federal government to make good on the terms for hundreds of millions of dollars from covid relief meant to support education. The main requirement is known as maintenance of effort, which means the state had to keep the same proportional level of funding for schools as it had before the pandemic.
The state fell short, as a matter of percentage, in 2023 and now is negotiating to try to get a waiver and avoid a clawback of about $465 million.
 

Bayfield School District officials look to put together a “Master Facilities Plan” to address long-term maintenance needs for multiple, decades-old school buildings.

The district’s Board of Education on Feb. 27 authorized Assistant Superintendent Bill Hesford to issue a Request for Qualifications proposal to launch the plan, which partially stems from the Bayfield Middle School building – which was built in 1977 – having various maintenance issues like a leaking roof, according to a news release on the district’s website.

“The master plan should explore a variety of options, based on a thorough assessment of the facilities, to develop a strategic implementation plan for the long term facility needs,” the proposal document says.

The district is in the process of searching for a company that will put together a plan about what to do with the buildings. Prospective planners interested in responding to the proposal are invited to attend an optional site visit on Thursday.

The deadline for applicants to submit their proposals is March 28.

Finalists will be interviewed on April 8, and the committee will decide on the top candidate that same day.

Students at the Children's Workshop School in the East Village recently got a lesson in the power of protest.
The school’s playground had been shut for nearly two months, after a neighboring building’s facade began crumbling on Jan. 7. Construction on the wall wrapped up nearly six weeks ago, but the playground remained closed, in need of a sign-off from the city's Department of Buildings.
So students planned a protest for Friday afternoon. Even before it happened, they got action.
“The word got out. And the Department of Buildings and the Department of Education heard the students' voices, and they came, and it happened right away,” Maria Velez-Clarke, the school’s principal, said.
Overnight Thursday, the Department of Education built a fence, which led the Department of Buildings to approve opening the schoolyard. Students got the news at their weekly Friday assembly, bursting into applause.
“In some ways, my kids were surprised. Like, ‘Wait, we didn't even have our protest yet! And the problem got fixed, like I want to protest,’” third grade teacher Miriam Sicherman said.
Sicherman helped the students organize their protest, which ultimately turned into a celebration.
 

Like many large buildings, schools suck lots of energy from the grid to keep lights on, halls warm and students comfortable, translating to high bills for school districts. However, a case study using a school in Quebec aims to challenge that status quo.

Researchers from Concordia University studied a school that runs off electricity sourced from geothermal heat pumps that rely on energy from Quebec’s grid, which is almost all hydropower.

They found that schools heated with electricity can use less energy and still keep students warm if they understand and adapt to the energy needs of each building. Researchers analyzed data from existing sensors in the school. Then, they combined it with weather predictions for the next day and other information to reduce power use at peak demand times when energy is most expensive. They tested the system in a few classrooms, where they reduced peak power consumption by up to 100 per cent. Their scenario found the school’s energy bill could be cut by up to 50 per cent if their approach was adopted school-wide because of cost savings from reduced power use during peak times.

GRAND FORKS — North Dakota’s K-12 schools are getting old. Some state lawmakers say many buildings need major infrastructure updates or entirely new construction to educate children safely.
But many small districts can’t afford to pay for replacements if a critical system breaks. Just ask Anna Sell, superintendent of Oakes Public School District. Her district’s high school turned 100 last year and the elementary school was built 63 years ago. The district is home to nearly 500 students.
“We actually had a terminal breakdown of our chiller (last year). We spent months and months trying to figure out a way to replace it but the system is so old, about 50 years old, that to retrofit it would cost around $400,000-$500,000. We don’t have that kind of money,” she said. “We’ve been asked, ‘What’s plan B?’ We don’t have a plan B because we don’t have enough money for a plan B.”
 

When Jefferson Parish School Board shuttered six schools at the end of last year, they agreed to build two new state-of-the-art facilities for students, one at Bunche Elementary in Metairie and one at St. Ville Elementary in Harvey. 
The new school on the east bank would serve students from the newly combined Washington Elementary and Bunche Elementary. Students from St. Ville were temporarily sent to Woodmere Elementary while the district completes the school.
But district officials say the footprint of the St. Ville school is too small for their designs, leaving its future location up in the air.
Where could it go?
Officials have considered several sites for the school, including the Martin Luther King playground site, at 2400 Leicester Street, and the Helen Cox High School site, at 2200 Lapalco Blvd. Helen Cox is slated for demolition soon.  
David Lachin, of Lachin Architects, told the school board facilities committee this week that building the school on the playground site would require about significant prep work. 
They would have to move municipal utilities that run through the site, a project that would cost around $1.5 million and would include moving 30-inch lines buried between six and ten feet under the ground, Lachin said. 
The footprint of the building would also be limited to 90,000 square feet based on the size of the property and would need to go up two stories, he said. 
 

Students in Puerto Rico tired of attending classes in dilapidated public schools have used TikTok to expose the poor conditions in their buildings, putting education officials on the defensive amid renewed attention on a long-standing issue.

Alaisha Torres Soto, the senior class president at Luis Felipe Crespo High School in Camuy, said she was compelled to use TikTok to report the "poor conditions" of the bathrooms at her school earlier this month after not seeing any improvements.

One TikTok video shows a bathroom in such bad shape that it was locked and had an “entrance prohibited” sign, forcing students to leave school to go to a bathroom or wait until they get home when classes are over.

Torres Soto’s TikTok post about one run-down bathroom at her school resonated with students at other schools. Videos from students across the public school system posted and shared widely on social media showed abandoned school areas and bathrooms without soap or toilet paper, sinks draining straight to the floor, and dangling bathroom stall doors.

Tension was high and questions were raised at the Middletown Town Council meeting on Feb. 20 over the cost and size of the new middle-high school building. Town administrator Shawn Brown passionately defended the recently approved Stage II appli­cation for the Middletown new school building after saying he received numerous concerning emails. One of the main concerns, he said, was the $20 million in capital reserves that fall outside of the narrow­ly approved $190 million bond. According to Brown, the money is part of the capital improvement program requirement of the ap­plication and is meant to address future needs of the new buildings, while being eligible for reimburse­ment from the Rhode Island De­partment of Education.

“Quite frankly, it’s irresponsible to continue to defer maintenance,” he said. “What would be negligent is if we don’t spend the money when repairs need to be made and we don’t take advantage of the re­imbursement.”

Brown said the potential repairs are eligible to be reimbursed by 55 percent over the next five years. Uti­lizing capital reserves, he said, is not uncommon with such projects and the town has done so in the past.

The state’s Board of Education and Early Development approved a priority list for half a billion dollars in construction and upkeep for schools at its regularly scheduled meeting in Juneau on Wednesday.

The list will go to the governor and the Legislature to be considered for funding.

Typically, only projects from among the top 10 funding requests are granted. This year the governor’s proposed budget includes funding for only the No. 1 school construction priority and top two maintenance projects, totaling less than $9 million.

The construction priority is $4 million towards a project to relocate and replace the Newtok K-12 school. The school was partially destroyed in a fire last year and was threatened by erosion from the Ninglick River.

Major maintenance would include a nearly $4 million rehabilitation at the elementary and middle schools in Craig and nearly $300,000 copper pipe replacement project in the Allakaket School.

State School Finance and Facilities Manager Lori Weed said that in the last 10 years, due to fiscal constraints, the state has funded fewer projects for school construction and maintenance projects. Between the fiscal years from 2015 to 2025, the state has funded anywhere from roughly 1-35% of the grant requests.

In fall 2023, the leaders of the Milton Town School District unveiled the design for its new elementary and middle school (pre-K-8) at a cost of $200 million, which gave the community pause, but it was the challenges of the current annual budget cycle that ultimately led the district to table the much-needed project this year. 

Initial projections that indicated that property taxes could increase statewide by an average of 20% have the state and district school boards scrambling. 

Some are also pointing fingers at Act 127, a new law taking effect this budget season that changes the way statewide education funding is distributed. Its purpose is, in short, to direct more funding to schools with pupils who are more expensive to teach, such as English language learners, rural students and students living in poverty. Coupled with the sharp rise in property values statewide over the last three years — which is reflected in a town-by-town tax rate adjustment called the Common Level of Appraisal, or CLA — many district boards are bracing for the public’s reaction to eye-popping tax increases.

“To me it’s just the perfect mess,” said Amy Rex, superintendent of the Milton district. 

“I mean with Act 127 and the CLA mess that exists right now and, you know, 20- to 40-cent increases on homestead tax rates, people don’t even want to hear the word ‘bond’ — especially in this community,” she said. “And I get that. I get it.”