Poor air quality makes risk of spread of COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses 'much higher,' says expert.
More than two weeks into the school year, New Brunswick has released the school air quality test results from 2022-23.
Twenty-nine of the 35 public schools tested last winter had peak carbon dioxide levels above the Department of Education's threshold of 1,500 parts per million (ppm), shown in results posted online and included at the end of this story.
Two of the schools had levels more than double that, including Anglophone West School District's George Street Middle School in Fredericton, which had the highest peak reading in the province at 3,418 ppm, as well as the highest average reading, at 1,709 ppm.
Carbon dioxide, or CO2, is an odourless, colourless, non-flammable gas commonly created indoors when people exhale.
It's used as a proxy to measure air quality and the rate at which air is being renewed, which can also serve as a warning sign about the risk of spread of COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses, according to experts.
 

BIBB COUNTY, Ga. (WGXA) - The Bibb County Board of Education approved funding at its meeting Thursday for renovations and upgrades at several District schools.

The Board voted to seek state capital funds for renovations at Howard Middle and Howard High Schools. The aging schools are part of the District's long-term facilities improvement plan. Additional funding will come from a sales tax approved by voters in 2019.

Approval was also granted to revise capital funding applications for completed renovations at Heritage Elementary, Ingram-Pye Elementary, and Lane Elementary. The changes reflect shifts in project scopes during the planning process.

Heritage's application was revised as roof, serving line, dishwasher, and HVAC upgrades were ultimately not completed. At Ingram-Pye, a similar shift occurred. At Lane Elementary, planned bus and car rider canopies were not finished.

OMAHA, Neb. —
Omaha Public Schools made renovations and upgrades through a bond program passed by voters.
The bond program happened in two phases, first in 2014 when voters approved $421 million and again in 2018 with another $409 million.
Friday, the district showed off some of the new renovations at Spring Lake Elementary and Lewis and Clark Middle School.
One big change done to Lewis and Clark is moving the entrance to the former back of the building.
Walking inside its halls is like walking through time, you can see how the school looked when it first opened in the 60s and where the updates begin.
The renovations include larger classrooms, easily moveable furniture and storm-safe doors.
Chief Operations and Talent Officer Charles Wakefield said changes focused a lot on the guts of the older buildings, like replacing boilers and plumbing.

Park Middle School was one of 17 K-12 schools across the nation to be recognized by the U.S. Department of Energy for its efforts to conserve energy and create a healthier and more sustainable building.
Park, with money from a 2020 Lincoln Public Schools bond issue, completed a $20 million project to improve the building’s energy efficiency and indoor air quality. As a result, it was one of the first schools to be recognized by the department’s Efficient and Healthy Schools campaign.
The campaign was created in 2021 to aid schools across the country in implementing green practices to limit facilities’ energy use and carbon emissions and cut utility bills. This was the first year the campaign honored schools for their efforts.
Park’s project — which took around two and a half years to complete — is part of a much bigger plan for schools across the district. LPS has been working for years to convert schools from a boiler chiller system to a more environmentally friendly geothermal one.
 

The Capital Improvement Program for the 2025 fiscal year was approved by the Worcester County Board of Education at their meeting Tuesday.

Facilities Planner Joe Price presented the program outline to the board, stating that every year they are required to submit a CIP to the State of Maryland Interagency Commission on School Construction. The six-year plan allows the commission to identify public school construction needs so they can move establish a reasonable schedule for funding and implementation.

The program for the 2025 fiscal year included a summary of previously approved projects as well as requests for state construction funding for ongoing projects, including Snow Hill Middle School/Cedar Chapel Special School roof replacement project, and design funding for the Pocomoke Elementary School roof replacement project.

Cumberland County Schools are watching the delivery date for three HVAC units, hoping they can arrive before Sept. 30.

That’s the cutoff to obligate funds for the second round of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, or ESSER.

“We have four rooftop units that have yet to ship,” Kim Chamberlin with Upland Design told the school board’s building and grounds committee Sept. 11. “One of those is supposed to be coming fairly quickly. The other three are not shipping until the end of October.”

Cumberland County budgeted $2.3 million for replacement of HVAC units and controls across the county’s school facilities.

All ESSER 2.0 funds are to be obligated by Sept. 30, 2023, and spent by Dec. 15, 2023, as recommended by the Tennessee Department of Education to allow time for grants to be closed. Funds are considered obligated when the school system commits the money to a specific purpose, such as contracts, services, materials or subscriptions. Liquidation is when a purchased item or service has occurred and payment has been made.

Chamberlin said he has been asking all contractors on projects to keep records of when items are ordered to document supply chain challenges on the federal projects.

GREENWICH — In its first public view, the draft of the 2025 capital budget is more than $118 million and covers school renovation projects, HVAC upgrades and more. 
The Greenwich Board of Education reviewed the document for the first time last week. Blaize Levitan, the district’s chief operating officer, said the starting point for the 2025 capital budget is what the Representative Town Meeting and Board of Estimate and Taxation appropriated for the 2024 budget.
“This will be the first draft and there’s going to be some items that are still very fluid on here,” Levitan said. Schools Superintendent Toni Jones "mentioned that we are really doing a lot of studying and understanding where some of our infrastructure is standing now.”
 

CORDOVA, Ala. (WIAT) — Some parents in Cordova are raising concerns about the Walker County Board of Education’s recent proposal to combine Cordova Elementary School and Bankhead Middle School.
The elementary school was set to be rebuilt, but now parents said this new plan is an easy fix to save money.
“To me, it feels like a band aid on a broken bone,” Scott Murphy said.
Murphy’s kids attend both schools. He said he was upset when he got wind of the changes.
“Within the last two weeks it’s been made a little more public,” Murphy said. “But before that, it was super hush-hush.”
According to Cordova Mayor Jeremy Pate, Cordova Elementary School was approved for a new school building in the board of education’s capital plan back in 2019. Now, the school board is proposing a new plan.
“They’ve been waiting for 10 years, and now they’ve come up with a plan that’s not a new school,” Pate said. “It’s just adding their school on to a 40-year-old building.”
 

Thirteen Poway Unified campuses are getting solar panel structures, which are projected to save the district around $33.7 million over the next 20 years in electricity payments, according to officials.

The installations began over the summer, with some projects completed and others scheduled through early next year. The solar panels will be turned on in May or June 2024, said Ruben Arras, the district’s director of facilities, maintenance and operations.

The project is possible through a power purchase agreement among ForeFront Power, a company that owns and installs the panels; San Diego Gas & Electric and Poway Unified. The district will be leasing the panels from ForeFront, which will sell the electricity generated to SDG&E. In exchange, the district will have a guaranteed flat kilowatt charge for the next two decades, Arras said, which will protect it from increasing electricity costs.

Three numbers tell the story of school infrastructure in Memphis: 32, 40, 64.
The average age of school buildings in Shelby County municipal school districts is 32 years old.
Nationally, the recommended life span of a school building is 40 years.
The average age of school buildings in Memphis-Shelby County Schools is 64 years old.
MSCS students attend classes in buildings that are, on average, 24 years past the functional recommendation, and twice as old as their peers in the suburbs. This disparity is inherently separate and unequal.
A statewide assessment of school infrastructure is a needed first step to identify and address the inequitable education landscape across Tennessee. A child’s ZIP code should not determine if their school is updated or outdated.
 

Nearly every state’s constitution includes a right to a free, basic education for all children. But what exactly do states owe every student?
That question is far from settled. Case in point: A school district in rural Washington state recently argued before the state’s highest court that a constitutional commitment to education includes adequate funding from the state for school building improvements. The court didn’t quite agree.
This case might seem like a one-off local example of confusing technicalities in school finance. But it’s part of a longstanding and ongoing tradition of using the byzantine American judicial system to shape school funding. And the verdict has implications that could reverberate well beyond Washington state.
The 400-student Wahkiakum school district on the state’s southwestern tip sued the state in 2021, arguing that it owes local school districts in low-wealth areas more financial support to keep their buildings safe and modern. But on Sept. 7, the Washington Supreme Court issued a unanimous verdict that sidestepped the district’s question. The court simply rejected the notion that the state bears sole responsibility for school facilities improvements.
The verdict was disappointing for Tom Ahearne, the lead lawyer representing the school district. He believes judges ignored the plaintiff’s argument that the state bears some responsibility for school facilities funding, not necessarily all of it.
“What all nine of them agreed to do is not answer the question that was asked, answer a different question, and then let the legislature do something,” Ahearne told Education Week.
 

GILLETTE — State legislators expect that in upcoming years they’ll need to fork out about $500 million for multiple high schools they say need replacement throughout the state. That number doesn’t take into account any other money needed for school facilities across Wyoming.

“We’ve got a looming issue with schools in our state,” said Rep. Landon Brown, R-Cheyenne, chair of the Select Committee on School Facilities, which met Thursday in Casper. “We’ve got at least three high schools that are sitting out there as it stands right now that need to be replaced. Each high school’s probably going to be $130 (million) to $150 million. Cumulatively, we’re talking about half a billion dollars just for three schools.”

Brown said it’s not realistic to “eat an elephant all in one bite,” but he wanted committee members to think about a few ideas before their next meeting.

The Alamance County board of commissioners voted unanimously to hire engineers and assess heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems within both the Alamance-Burlington schools and Alamance County facilities.

The board in a 3-2 vote Sept. 18 approved fund requests totaling $301,980 for the Alamance-Burlington School District so that the district can fund roofing repairs at B. Everett Jordan Elementary, Western High and Western Middle Schools. 

Since ABSS has no taxing authority, all funds for the school district go through the County Commissioners, who then give money to ABSS

According to the board of commissioners, Western Alamance High School has significant leaks throughout the building. Graham Middle School is also on the board’s radar for having roofing issues, according to ABSS. 

In the wake of the discovery of mold in August, Builder Services Inc. of North Carolina was hired to conduct remediation services inside ABSS facilities. Ben Bass, the executive vice president of Builder Services spoke before the county commissioners about the mold remediation roof leaks. 

LYNN, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — Officials in Lynn are asking the state for help to give its school buildings a long overdue update.
Lynn Mayor Jared Nicholson and school officials urged members of the Joint Committee on Education on Monday to support bills that would overhaul the funding model for the Massachusetts School Building Authority with the goal of getting major upgrades to school buildings.
The bills, called Acts Modernizing School Construction, are set to change the way schools are funded. The reforms would alter the state's school construction formula giving low-income students equitable access to modern buildings and double the money dedicated to school construction projects.
Lynn School Superintendent Evonne Alvarez said 41% of Lynn's school buildings are over a hundred years old. Another 26% of the buildings are between 71 and 100 years old.
"Those outdated infrastructures of our school buildings hinder the ability to provide 21st-century education," Alvarez said. "It sends a clear message to our students and community that equity is often mentioned but not taken seriously by a system that should be funding equitable access to education."
She told the committee that the schools are in dire need of an upgrade as the decades-old buildings are negatively impacting students' education.
 

SAN ANTONIO — San Antonio ISD is considering closing 19 schools – the majority of them next year – as part of a "rightsizing" plan put into motion amid declining enrollment for one of the city's biggest districts. 

Fourteen of the schools are elementary facilities, four others are early childhood education centers and the 19th is Lowell Middle School, located on the near west side. The move would represent a massive operational downsizing and consolidation for SAISD, which currently operates 42 elementary schools. 

Park City School District did not comply with environmental laws and local ordinances when it came to contaminated soil discovered behind one of its junior high schools last month, according to findings released by state auditors Monday.
The district also lacked compliance with school construction regulations, auditors found — such as not having the proper local permits.
The findings come as the district looks at an estimated $3 million soil cleanup behind Treasure Mountain Junior High School, which serves eighth and ninth graders. The audit itself began in December 2022 after the district was selected by the state’s Office of the Legislative Auditor General to partake.
Auditors found five areas where it recommended the district make improvements: compliance with environmental regulations; compliance with school construction regulations; helping “bolster” its underperforming student groups; its strategic plans to help it make “informed decisions and set meaningful goals”; and better utilizing its student analytics tool.
The district, along with the Park City Board of Education, “appreciates the opportunity to further study the report and to implement actions that increase compliance, efficiency and accountability,” district spokesperson Heidi Matthews wrote in a statement Monday.
 

PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, Md. (7News) — Leaders in Prince George's County, Maryland commemorated the opening of five new state-of-the-art middle schools built as part of a unique partnership program.

On Monday, county officials, along with state, city, and community leaders celebrated a first-of-its-kind program, allowing Prince George's County Public Schools (PGCPS) to build multiple schools at the same time through a public-private partnership.

These schools, Hyattsville Middle School, Drew-Freeman Middle School, Sonia Sotomayor Middle School at Adelphi, Kenmoor Middle School, Walker Mill Middle School, and the soon-to-be-completed Colin Powell K-8 Academy, were built in less than 3 years and cost roughly $486 million according to officials.

During its meeting on Thursday, the Sonoma Valley Unified School District board reviewed three options to address seismic deficiencies in nine buildings at Altimira Middle School, including a full retrofit that would cost an estimated $9.3 million.
“The issue is not an emergency,” said Josh Jackson said, a senior associate who presented the options for the consulting firm Perkins Eastman. “The buildings are not at risk of imminent collapse, but there is some urgency to this.”
While preparing the school district’s Facilities Master Plan, Perkins Eastman stated in January 2023 that several of Altimira’s buildings do not meet earthquake safety standards. The district is advised to either retrofit or demolish the buildings.
“It could be a high priority for the district to address in the coming years. I don’t think actions need to be taken this week, but this is the next thing the district should spend capital investments on,” Jackson said.
Trustee Celeste Winders said that it was a relief to hear that the buildings are safe right now, but that the situation is serious.
 

WOODSTOCK — Fundraising efforts for a new Woodstock Union Middle and High School building have crested the $3 million mark, according to Mountain Views Supervisory Union officials.
Voters in the supervisory union — which includes the towns of Woodstock, Barnard, Bridgewater, Pomfret, Reading, Killington and Plymouth — will be asked in March 2024 to approve an $85 million bond to fund construction of the new building, said Ben Ford, the School Board’s vice chairman.
Meanwhile, the supervisory union’s buildings and grounds crew is working overtime to brace the school’s existing 60-year-old structure for the upcoming heating season.
Last March, the supervisory union’s voters gave approval to replace the aging steam system with a $1.3 million hot water heating alternative. The high school portion of the building weathered “multiple failures” last winter in its steam heating system, said Joe Rigoli, buildings and grounds director.
The 2021-2022 school year saw upwards of $150,000 in heating and cooling repairs, Rigoli said.
 

The first weeks of the new school year in D.C. have brought reunions, excitement — and complaints of leaks, rodents, and broken elevators and air conditioners.
As temperatures soared during a stretch of sweltering heat last week, parents at Whittier Elementary School in Northwest Washington complained of a lack of air conditioning and wrote on social media: “We can’t breathe!”
Temperatures that pushed HVAC systems across the city past their limits have since cooled, but other issues — including out-of-service elevators and faulty public address systems — continue to vex teachers, students and their families.
The problems span the city. Among the more than 80 outstanding work orders are requests for pest control at Deal Middle School in Northwest and to repair leaks on the Langdon Education Campus in Northeast, according to a city-run database of repair needs. The ongoing problems continue to frustrate families and city leaders, who had hoped these issues would have been resolved by the first day of school.