WEST WARWICK, R.I. (WPRI) — Additional funding is on the way for school districts across Rhode Island to help them reduce energy costs.

State leaders announced Friday another $10 million has been secured for the Public School Energy Equity Program, bringing the total budget to $20 million.

Officials said the funding will allow schools to install building automation systems and upgrade their lighting, ventilation, heating and air conditioning systems.

Gov. Dan McKee said the money will help give students and teachers a better learning environment.

“Studies show that more comfortable classrooms lead to higher test scores,” he said.

The Rhode Island Department of Education also found in a 2017 study that by reducing energy consumption in schools, nearly $34 million could be saved statewide each year.

FEMA Public Assistance has approved two grants of more than $14 million to reimburse the Lee County School District and Lee County Sheriff for emergency costs responding to Hurricane Ian.

The school district was approved for a grant of $10,069,446. After the Sept. 28, 2022, storm, the school district conducted emergency repairs, mold remediation, debris removal, water removal, safety inspections and installation of temporary generators.

The long-delayed Northeastern High School renovations hit a new snag as district officials noted that a thermal scan of the building showed that insulation was "not staying in place or missing completely."
Board President Mike Redding said the scan was requested following an incident in which a burst pipe flooded the high school's common area this winter. As it turned out, the scan turned up more significant issues.
“These folks need to be held accountable for the less than high-quality work that they were paid to do,” Redding said, at a school board meeting Monday. 
Brian Geller, the district's director of operations, said the project's contractor of the Dillsburg-based Lobar Inc., has not been responsive.
"This is something that needs to be paid for by the contracts, not the district,” Geller said.
Messages left with Lobar from The York Dispatch were not returned Thursday.
 

Three bills related to addressing sanitation and facilities issues at Guam Department of Education schools were passed unanimously by the Guam Legislature on Tuesday night. 
Fourteen senators were present and voted. Vice Speaker Tina Muña Barnes was absent and excused from voting.
Lawmakers passed the following measures:
• Bill 29-37, which makes corrections and amendments to administrative rules and regulations related to updating sanitation regulations to promote the health and safety of schools.
• Bill 46-37, which provides temporary, expedited procurement protest procedures for acquisitions funded with American Rescue Plan funds allotted to GDOE.
• Bill 32-37, which appropriates $30 million to GDOE for school infrastructure, repair and maintenance.
The three measures were the subject of an emergency session that began Monday.
Voting passed by quickly Tuesday night, but some senators had much to say about the events that transpired over the prior two days.
The emergency session coincided with a special session called by Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero to debate pay raises for government of Guam employees under the General Pay Plan. 
A majority of lawmakers have repeatedly put the special session on hold in favor of pushing through with bills in the emergency session, despite multiple calls for special session by the governor.
 

WHEELING – Energy savings improvements implemented as part of overall upgrades on Ohio County Schools properties have saved the district more than $2.3 million over the last three years – nearly $1 million above what was expected during that time, according to engineers from CMTA Energy Solutions.
Jonathan Gasser and Presley Dean, engineers with CMTA, recently provided an update to Ohio County Board of Education members on the success of energy savings promised by the company as part of its contract with Ohio County Schools.
They provided numbers showing the total amount of energy savings in the school district over the past three years at $2,320,095.
CMTA had guaranteed Ohio County Schools a savings of $1,347,534 over the first three years of the contract, and this sets the savings beyond expectations at $972,561 to date. CMTA had guaranteed Ohio County Schools a savings on its utility costs of $7 million over the next 15 years, or over the term of the 15-year school improvement bond passed by voters in 2018.
 

KETTERING — The Kettering school district will seek state funding for long-term improvements to buildings and facilities.
The district wants to apply for an Ohio Facilities Construction Commission program to help with long-range planning, citing a higher percentage in state funding assistance than in previous years, said Kettering Business Services Director Jeff Johnson.
If the district is eligible for state money, the OFCC would assess its buildings at no charge and develop an agreement allowing Kettering “discretionary” decisions on projects, he said.
Kettering has not previously participated in the OFCC new building funding program, which has helped many area districts — including Xenia, Fairborn, West Carrollton and Valley View currently — to construct new schools.
 

The process of changing school boundaries for DC Public Schools (DCPS) is about to begin.

On March 21 the Mayor’s office announced the launch of the Boundary and Student Assignment Study 2023, or Boundary Study, through the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education (DME). The study will review boundaries and feeder patterns and District-wide public school student assignment policies.

It’s the first update to the Boundary Study since 2013-2014, when DC undertook its first comprehensive review of boundaries in 40 years. DME is running a Master Facilities Plan study at the same time and both studies will share foundational information. Any potential boundary modifications and feeder recommendations would take effect no sooner than School Year 2025-26, i.e. August of 2025.

“We are embarking on a city-wide planning process that will provide strategic, data-informed recommendations to ensure more students have access to great schools and facilities that meet their needs,” Deputy Mayor for Education Paul Kihn.

The process will be essential toward the ongoing work to not only recover from the pandemic, but to continue efforts to close the opportunity gap, Kihn added. “We know that residents will have strong thoughts and feedback, and we look forward to engaging directly with families, educators, and stakeholders over the coming weeks and months,” he said.

For nearly three years, Cassie Armstrong has lived in a cozy two-bedroom apartment that she shares on Hawaii island.
The pre-K teacher and her roommate split their monthly rent of $1,150. Travel to her job at Kohala Elementary School is a convenient nine-minute drive. 
Armstrong said living in teacher housing is an upgrade from where she was previously — in a garage with an outdoor shower, no paved walls or floors and no stove. 
“Moving into teacher housing was great,” Armstrong said. “It feels like I was coming into an actual home.” 
But her housing situation is coming to an end as Armstrong was only allowed to stay for three years.
Now she has until the end of May to find a new place.
With limited housing options in her area, Armstrong said her worst-case scenario is moving back home to Illinois. 
Currently the Hawaii Department of Education’s teacher housing is only intended to provide teachers with temporary housing in rural areas with limited affordable housing. 
The DOE allows teachers to live in cottage-style housing for three years in Kohala, Honokaa, Kau, Waimea and Molokai. It’s five years in Hana and Lanai, but housing is not guaranteed year-to-year, according DOE documents obtained by Civil Beat.
However, there’s no teacher housing on Oahu and Kauai.
There are currently 51 rentable teacher housing units available statewide, the documents show.
They are between 20 and 50 years old, and several more are closed for major repair or demolition. Maintenance costs are paid out of the rental income generated.
 

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The state School Building Authority approved the extension of more time and funding for the construction of schools across the state during its meeting Monday in Charleston.

The SBA gave the okay to supplemental funding for schools in Wood, Mercer, McDowell and Hampshire counties.

The increasing construction costs attached to inflation have been the cause for delay in building new schools and providing updates to existing ones for a little over a year now.

Making adjustments on square footage allowances for the projects was a specific detail being discussed at the meeting, as the school board’s bids for the projects were being affected by inflation costs.

“That is a lot of the reason why these schools came back to talk to us today, because, when their bids came in they were higher than they thought, they were higher than the square footage allows for these projects, and so they have to look for some help,” SBA executive director, Andy Neptune told Metro News following Monday’s meeting.

Last year, voters approved over $60 million to Wood County Schools for the construction of three new schools along with making updates and expansions on others. The SBA additionally approved its $21 million commitment on Monday to go into Wood County School’s bond for the current projects.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -  

HPM, the consulting firm managing this process for SBCSC has created its facilities master plan and shared it with the public Monday night. 

An effort to “right-size” the South Bend Community School Corporation culminated Monday in a formal recommendation from consulting partners to the school board.  

“Just the overall community voice and number of meetings we’ve had, it’s been extensive throughout this process,” said Scott Leopold, director of planning services for the firm. 

Ultimately architecture firm Fanning Howey and consulting partner HPM recommended the closure of Clay High School.  

“If you choose to keep Clay open, it’s going to cost $16.17 million over the next 5 years,” Leopold said, “and that means there are other projects that don’t get done.” 

The news was much to the dismay of many in the crowd Monday.  

“Clay has been done a disservice for far too long. Find a better way than closing it down,” one person said in front of the school board.  

“You need a find a way to save Clay, these students have found a home here. Many 8th graders are already here, working on sports for next year. People want to go here,” said another person in attendance.  

Recommendations also include facilitating clear “feeder patterns” from primary to secondary schools in the district.  

NEW LONDON, Texas (KETK) – It’s known as the worst school tragedy in American history. A day in which one of East Texas’ proudest assets became its most deadly killing agent, leaving a tight-knit community with hundreds of dead to bury and several lifetimes worth of grief.

By 1932, the New London school in Rusk County was one of the richest rural school districts in the United States, a claim to fame brought on by boomtown prosperity. The steel-framed E-shaped school building was built for close to $1 million, holding up to 700 children and boasting a state-of-the-art manual training shop in its basement.

MARCH 18, 1937
March 18, 1937 was a Friday. Students were preparing for an interscholastic meet to be held the next day in Henderson. Inside the New London gymnasium, which was separate from the main school building, the local PTA was holding a meeting.

Less than 15 minutes before classes were to be dismissed for the weekend, roughly 300 lives were lost in a tragedy that would echo across the nation for decades.

An explosion ripped through the school, causing the roof to fall in and bury students and teachers in a mass of brick, steel and concrete debris. Walls collapsed, and the blast was felt up to 40 miles away. A two-ton slab of concrete was reportedly hurled 200 feet from the school.

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — Some local high school students used their voices to get some much-needed repairs done to their school which was built nearly 100 years ago.
Almost a year ago, they made a video of what they were dealing with at Druid Hills High School and after it went viral they got school officials to take action.
Channel 2′s Tyisha Fernandes got an exclusive tour of what the school looks like now that renovations have been done.
“They deserve to have a building they feel comfortable in everyday
Dr. Vasanne Tinsley heard students loud and clear and as soon as she was named interim superintendent of DeKalb County Schools, she put several schools on a priority list to get repairs done.
Druid Hills High got work done first.
 

HOUSTON - A FOX 26 investigation reveals levels of carbon dioxide considered "above air quality guidelines" at a Houston Independent School District (HISD) elementary school.
According to documents obtained by FOX 26, high levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) were recently discovered in at least two classrooms at Kelso Elementary School.
"I’ve been to 3 different doctors, one doctor told me to take FMLA and not to return to that school," said one anonymous teacher from Kelso Elementary.
The teacher wants to hide their identity out of fear of retaliation. However, the teacher says the air quality is affecting the health of staff members and students.
 

The drains inside the boys' locker room showers at Poway High School don’t drain. The clay pipes, installed when the school was built in 1961, aren’t just clogged, they’re busted beyond repair. 

Ruben Arras, the director of facilities for Poway Unified, said a true repair would mean ripping up the floor not only of the shower room but the entire wooden floor of the gymnasium as well. The projected cost is $20 million. The district says it doesn’t have the money unless it comes at the cost of cutting student programs. So for now, there’s only one solution.

“We vacuum it out daily,” Arras said. “We remove the water.”

Outside the showers are rows of broken lockers. Some are so rusted that they no longer open or close. Students just leave their backpacks out in the open.

To the untrained eye, the gymnasium itself may look normal, but a closer inspection reveals sunlight peeking through the roof. Poway High Principal Richard Nash is very familiar with what happens when it rains.

“A couple times we’ve had to cancel a game in the middle of the game because the water is coming through the roof,” Nash said.

If you could build a new, improved home on a lot for less money than it would take to renovate it, what would you do?

In most cases, you would have a new home.

That decision, when it comes to public schools, is not so easy for school districts.

Take Tara Elementary School, for instance, which found it would be cheaper to take down the old school and build a new one than to renovate all the buildings on campus.

That didn't matter to the state's Department of Education.

The School District of Manatee County spent nine months working on and submitting a Castaldi Analysis to FDOE to let it know that building a new school would be cheaper than renovating the 31-year-old elementary school.

A Castaldi Analysis allows the district to determine whether it’s more efficient to replace or remodel a school.

FDOE ruled that the district must renovate Tara Elementary. Therefore the district is working on plan now to renovate the school.

Mike Pendley, an executive planner for the school district, said the district’s standard protocol is to conduct a Castaldi Analysis on every school unless the district already has determined a renovation of the school is sufficient. 

“You have to look at, does the facility lend itself to success in the current educational program because the way we teach has changed,” Pendley said. “We’re always trying to be good stewards of the (taxpayers') money. There’s only so much to go around. We have more than 8 million square feet under our roofs, and you only have so much money. You’d have to look at the schools that need it the most.”

BELLEVUE, Wash. — Weeks of anxiety, stress, and pleading with the Bellevue School District to keep all elementary schools open-ended, with the school board voting to close Wilburton and Eastgate Elementary schools at the end of this school year. Minutes later, the board's meeting room sounded as if a fight would break out, with some parents yelling at some of the school board members.

Directors Carolyn Watson, Joyce Shui, and Sima Sarrafan, voted yes to closing those schools, while directors Christine Chew and Jane Aras abstained. Aras was very emotional during her pre-vote discussion, saying that she just felt as though they should take another year before making this decision. Even though Sarrafan was in favor of the recommendation, at one point, she said, "transparency could have been better" throughout this process. She also said she felt they fell short during the pandemic.

Ardmore Elementary School was taken off the closure list a week earlier, but the future of Eastgate and Wilburton elementary schools hung in the balance until that vote was taken.

A new group of parents just joined the fight in the last week to keep Eastgate open. Chinese immigrants, with young children in the Eastgate neighborhood, said they've been left out of communications from the district.

EAST LONGMEADOW, MA. (WGGB/WSHM) - East Longmeadow High School officials met with parents and members of the public to discuss a possible plan moving forward after years of leaky ceilings and other damages.
The school building committee is looking towards building a new high school, a move many support after weighing their options.
“You had a slide up there that said, ‘what if we do nothing,’” said one parent. “So as a community, for some horrible reason decide to do nothing, how much longer can we really kick the can down the road with this existing building?”
Dozens of East Longmeadow parents voiced their concerns on Thursday about the current shape of the high school.
Members of the school building committee walked attendees through four options moving forward, including building a new school, renovating the current building and only completely base repairs.
The meeting took place after a brief tour of the school where parents and community members saw first-hand the damage inside the high school.
During the meeting, the committee presented details on the option they feel is best, building a new school.
“The school building committee elected to proceed with the option we are calling 3C,” said a school building committee member. “We were surprised to see the add/reno was so close to the all-new option in terms of cost. A lot of that had to do with the age of the building and bringing it up to code.”
 

The city’s School Board reviewed the condition of Suffolk Public Schools’ facilities during its Thursday, March 9 meeting.  SPS Director of Facilities and Planning Terry Napier provided the facilities condition assessment, with the help of Chief Financial Officer Wendy Forsman and Jeff Harris of RRMM Architects.  “In 2021, it’s a joint project with the city, we did a facilities study to basically take a review of the actual facility conditions of all of our buildings,” Superintendent Dr. John B. Gordon III said. “The facilities study not only had recommendations for building new schools, but it also had recommendations for preventative maintenance, student enrollment projections as well as any other major projects that needed to occur over the next five to 10 years. Both the City of Suffolk and the School Board agree that this is going to be our facility bible, so to speak, moving forward.”
The presentation provided the facilities study timeline being commissioned by City Council with the School Board’s agreement in fall 2018. In 2019, a contract was awarded to RRMM Architects, which worked with Cooperative Strategies to provide SPS with a final report in April 2021.   The document covers 18 schools and is 3,628 pages with the three major components — assessment executive summary, the executive summary appendix and the school facility condition assessment on individual schools. The appendix detailed information that was presented in public meetings such as the Joint Task Force Meeting Feb 25, 2020 and the joint City Council and School Board presentation Feb 23, 2021.
 

PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — In response to a dozen elected officials, urging the school district to produce a plan for repairing its long-neglected buildings, the Board of Education says they are committed to making sure a facilities master plan is developed, aligned with a separate strategic plan.
In the wake of the closures of Gratz High School and Building 21 over concerns relating to damaged asbestos, state and city elected officials from Philadelphia are sensing an opportunity to move the repair process along, thanks to a large state budget surplus.
“I’m angry. I’m upset,” said City Councilmember Jim Harrity — and tired of waiting for building repairs that have been needed “for decades. They owe our children the money.”
 

A large percentage of educators and administrators nationwide aren’t satisfied with the buildings where they are tasked with facilitating learning—they’re too small, outdated, toxic, unconducive to instruction, and often ill-equipped for students’ rapidly evolving and growing needs, they say.

And many district leaders say they need more qualified workers to help make urgently needed improvements.

These are among the findings from a nationally representative survey of 296 district officials, 284 principals, and 478 teachers conducted in late January and early February by the EdWeek Research Center. They build on existing evidence of widespread challenges with the physical structures that support student learning and well-being. And they come as advocates continue to call for nationwide efforts to repair existing schools, build new ones, and rethink school infrastructure for a wildly unpredictable future.

Forty-five percent of teachers, principals, and district leaders gave their buildings a “C” grade or lower in the survey, roughly equivalent to the 42 percent who assigned a “B” grade to their building or buildings.

Only 14 percent gave their building the highest marks.