MONMOUTH JUNCTION, NJ — The state will make $120 million in grants available to expand preschool facilities, which Gov. Phil Murphy says will bring New Jersey closer to his administration's goal of universal Pre-K.

The funding will come from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 — a federal COVID-19 stimulus package. The New Jersey Department of Education will accept grant applications from regular operating districts (RODs) from March 1 to May 31. The number of awardees will depend on the applications received, according to a department spokesperson.

Since first campaigning for governor, Murphy has stated a goal to guarantee full-day, "high-quality" preschool education to all 3- and 4-year-olds in the state. The governor has shifted his administration's target date for universal pre-K during his time in office, but Murphy said in late 2021 that New Jersey would reach the goal in "2030 (at) the latest. I hope sooner than that."

Severe weather can force students at To’Hajiilee Community School to evacuate and lose an entire day’s worth of learning because the building is in such disrepair that it’s dangerous for people to be inside.

“Whenever it rains, it leaks through our roofs and floods our school. It becomes really muddy, and the dirt becomes like clay,” sophomore Nataliah Sandoval said.

The tribally run school serves more than 300 Navajo students and is one of the top employers in the community located more than 30 miles west of Albuquerque.

So when schools are shut down because rain falls onto student’s desks and causes flooding in hallways, the impact is widespread across the only Navajo Nation community located in Bernalillo County.

Sandoval’s mother, Pamela Arviso, said she has to leave work anytime the school closes.

“It’s hard to get off from work and pick up my daughter when there’s flooding or electrical problems. But I think it’s going to get easier because they’re facing these challenges,” she said.

The challenges of rebuilding a new school will be taken on in part by a $90.4 million appropriation Congress included in the omnibus spending bill approved last December.

U.S. Representative Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) said she saw the need for her constituents in To’Hajiilee and secured the money so a new school can be built in a safer and higher location where water does not concentrate and flood.

“For me, the story and history and just the beauty and resilience of this community in the school is what has driven me every day,” said Stansbury at a celebration in the school’s gym on Friday. 

The celebration was hosted by Sandoval, the sophomore that has had water drip on her head from the leaky school roof.

The Arkansas House approved a bill Monday that would allow school districts to use state funding to aid in the construction of "safe rooms" and early childhood education facilities.
House Bill 1337, by Rep. Julie Mayberry, R-Hensley, received a vote of 53-15 with 15 lawmakers voting present. The bill moves to the Senate for further action.
Under current law, school districts may not use funds allocated through the Arkansas Public School Academic Facilities Fund Act to build "safe rooms" or prekindergarten facilities. A "safe room," as defined by the bill, is a building, space or other area designed to protect occupants from "a natural or manmade intrusion."
The Arkansas Public School Academic Facilities Fund Act establishes a partnership program under which the state is required to provide cash payments to school districts for eligible new construction projects based on a district's academic facilities wealth index.
Rather than relying on this state aid to build "safe rooms" and prekindergarten facilities, districts have to turn to grants, private donations or their budgets, said Mayberry.
Since schools are required to build "safe rooms," Mayberry said it is a "no-brainer" to allow districts to use money from the state's partnership funding program for their construction.
 

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - A bill allowing voters to increase local sales taxes in order to fund school construction projects was shot down in the General Assembly, but Albemarle County Public Schools is hopeful the bill will get another try in the coming years.

“In Albemarle County Public Schools, we very much support giving localities taxing authority. This bill is particularly effective because the community the ability to choose,” ACPS Public Affairs Officer Helen Dunn said.

The bill would’ve allowed localities to add an up to 1% state tax surcharge.

“Anytime we know that our community has bought into something like this, we are in support of it because we feel the community is one of our partners. When the community is doing well, the schools are doing well and vice versa, so we were very hopeful that this bill would pass,” Dunn said.

Solar power systems will be installed by Secure Solar Futures on the rooftops of buildings at 12 school sites across Prince William County. They include three high schools: Battlefield High School, Freedom High School and Gainesville High School. In addition, solar panels will go to two middle schools, Beville Middle School and Potomac Shores Middle School, and seven elementary schools: Chris Yung Elementary School, Covington-Harper Elementary School, Jenkins Elementary School, Kilby Elementary School, Kyle Wilson Elementary School, Leesylvania Elementary School, and Minnieville Elementary School.

“One of the largest school districts in the country going solar makes Prince William County Schools a national leader on clean energy and sustainability,” said Ryan McAllister, CEO of Secure Solar Futures. “The schools will showcase solar power systems right on location. That will send a powerful message to students that they don’t have to wait for the clean energy economy to arrive in the future. It’s already here.”

With a capacity of 7.9 megawatts total, the combined solar arrays will save the district more than $16 million in energy costs over the next 25 years.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The air-conditioning gave out as students returned from summer break last year to Jim Hill High School in Jackson, Mississippi, forcing them to learn in sweltering heat. By Thanksgiving, students were huddling under blankets because the heat wasn’t working.

Along the way students dealt with broken showers in locker rooms, plumbing issues and a litany of other problems in the nearly 60-year-old school building.

“There’s been times we’ve been cold, there’s been times we’ve been hot,” said Mentia Trippeter, a 17-year-old senior. “There’s been times where it rained and it poured, we’ve been drowning. We go through it — we go through it, man.”

Like other schools serving low-income communities across the country, Jim Hill has long dealt with neglected infrastructure that has made it harder for students to learn. So when Jackson Public Schools received tens of millions of dollars in federal COVID relief money, it decided to put much of the windfall toward repairing heating and plumbing problems, some of which temporarily caused the school to switch to remote learning.

SAN ANTONIO — Building new schools in Texas could get even more expensive.
The Texas Permanent School Fund's Bond Guarantee Program has a $117 billion cap. At the end of December, the state was just $26 million away from reaching it.
This comes after dozens of districts passed bonds in November that included plans to build or renovate schools.
Bonds issued under this program allow school districts to borrow at a lower cost.
If the cap is reached, districts will have to pay more in interest for lower renovation funds.
That could lead to big problems for your school district and your wallet.
"The estimate is that for all school districts in Texas, it would be about 425 million—almost half a billion dollars per year—in added cost if we can't get this problem corrected," said U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin.
Congressman Doggett has filed a federal bill that would do away with the cap on the Permanent School Fund. Districts would still need insurance on their bonds.
"We need to see that every dollar we can get goes into necessary construction," Doggett said.
 

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (FLV) – A Florida House subcommittee unanimously passed a bill that would provide exemptions for upgrades at education facilities that are used as emergency shelters during storms.

The bill will exempt any costs that is less than $2 million for upgrades that improve the capability of education facilities that serve as an emergency shelter from the Cost Per Student Station.

Since 1997, Florida has used the CPSS analysis to quantify construction costs related to traditional kindergarten through grade 12 school facilities, according to the Florida Department of Education.

Eligible upgrades are limited to those “necessary for an area to be designated as an enhanced hurricane protection area.”

These upgrades include electrical and standby emergency power systems, renewable energy source devices, and energy storage devices.

The bill’s co-sponsors, Rep. Joe Casello, D-Boynton Beach, and Rep. Lindsay Cross, D-St. Petersburg, introduced the bill in the PreK-12 Appropriations Subcommittee. The bill passed with a vote of 15-0.

WASHINGTON — A D.C. rec center playground used by a nearby elementary school was closed Thursday after elevated levels of lead were discovered. 
In an email, DC Public Schools alerted parents that one of the playgrounds at Parkview Rec Center tested high for lead and it had been closed. The playground, attached to Bruce-Monroe Elementary School, sits on rubber mats.
Lead can result in health and growth problems if ingested by children. The District said it will power-wash the contamination away, but scientists WUSA9 talked with say that is not enough.
DCPS said it found the lead by washing off the playground and testing the runoff water during a routine test. Lead levels were 470 parts per million, above the federally “allowed minimum” of 400 parts per million. 
"It would be nice if they put in materials in the first place that didn’t have lead, that they used safe building materials," said Teresa Ellis who was picking up her child at Bruce-Monroe Elementary. "We want safe playgrounds for our children, for all the children in D.C. and all the different parts of D.C."
DCPS has consistently blamed the source of the lead on what it calls “the surrounding environment,” including cars and construction. That playground is on a higher grade than the surrounding road.
 

Baldwin County Schools is close to completing $341.4 million in new construction projects in an astonishing reversal of fortunes nearly eight years after a previous school construction program was overwhelmingly rejected by voters.
The current program, called “Pay As You Go,” will finance an additional $94 million in projects that could be under construction by fall.
It’s a program paid for largely with cash and without long-term bonding and no new taxes. It has added around 1.5 million new square feet in school construction, also a remarkable feat when considering no new construction occurred within the county school system between 2009-2015.
The program was praised on Tuesday during a school board meeting while the newest slate of projects was unveiled. The school system is expected, by later this spring, to unveil a separate list of projects that include new athletic fields and fine arts venues.
“I don’t think people really understand how blessed this system is,” said Eddie Tyler, the superintendent of the Baldwin County School System that is Alabama’s 3rd largest school district behind Mobile and Jefferson County schools.
 

This year, DC will review the school boundaries that determine where students get a guaranteed seat, and make recommendations on whether assignment policies should change based on a variety of equity measures.

The District will look at factors such as overcrowding, the number of spaces for at-risk students and out-of-boundary students at highly sought-after schools, access to specialized programming, and whether students can get to their desired school safely and affordably. This year’s assessment is the first in a decade and only the second since 1968; they’re now slated to happen every ten years.

The previous review process in 2014 was a complicated one, as it had to contend with dramatic changes to public education following the closure of over one in 10 DC public schools — mostly in low-income neighborhoods — and the large-scale introduction of charter schools. Experts say the mass closures of under-enrolled schools disrupted feeder patterns (the path a student takes from elementary to high school) and provoked anxiety about uncertain school assignments.

With this work in the rearview mirror, advocates hope equity has a chance to take a front seat.

The Kingston City School District (KCSD) is reassessing its facilities needs after learning that the cost of a five-year capital plan has risen from an estimated $107.1 million in 2020 to around $162.1 million today. 

The KCSD Board of Education heard a presentation earlier this month, led by Armand Quadrini, managing principal of KSQ Design, the New York City and Tulsa, Oklahoma-based architecture firm that’s had a decades-long relationship with the district. Much of those plans were centered on air-conditioning and other ventilation upgrades, and Quadrini explained that due to a variety of reasons, the estimates in the original five-year plan had risen by around $55 million once costs were adjusted to reflect 2023 market conditions. 

“A lot of the cost increases occurred in the mechanical and electrical areas,” Quadrini said. “It’s been super difficult to get air handling units and equipment associated with mechanical systems. Not only is the pricing going up but it takes a long time to get that equipment, so that expanded construction schedules.”

The plans cover both of the district’s middle schools and all seven of its elementary schools, but does not include Kingston High School, or the former Meagher and Anna Devine elementary schools. Kingston High underwent a recently completed comprehensive renovation that came in around $16.5 million under its $137.5 million budget. Meagher was also thoroughly spruced up recently when it was converted into a pre-kindergarten hub and district headquarters, and Anna Devine is currently being leased to BOCES for use in its Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning program for special education students. 

New Jersey has some of the most solar powered schools in the U.S., according to data from Generation 180, a nonprofit organization that compiles data on clean energy
At least 662 New Jersey schools have installed solar panels as of 2022, the data showed. Only California, with 2,819 schools with solar had more.
“California and New Jersey together account for more than HALF of the solar capacity installed on nationwide K-12 schools,” Tish Tablan, program director at Generation 180 told NJ Advance Media in an email.
From 2018 to 2022, solar installations in New Jersey K-12 schools has grown by nearly 50 percent, Tablan said.
Of the schools who’ve chosen to add solar, 59 percent have a higher numbers of children from low-income families, Tablan said.
Newark Public School district started installing solar panels at some of its schools in 2021. At that time, the federal Infrastructure Recovery Act solar incentives were not yet available, according to Rodney Williams, director of sustainability for the district.

BILLINGS - Montana ranked in the top 10 in the nation for growth in 2022 adding 17,000 residents just last year.
With that in mind - a newly formed parent group is pitching the idea of a brand new high school - and it's gaining a lot of interest.
Board members and superintendents from four school districts met at Elysian school on Wednesday.
Survey results show good support, and they talked about the challenges and what it's going to take to move forward with the idea.
school
Billings school boards considering new high school
School survey.jpg
By: David JayPosted at 11:24 PM, Feb 15, 2023 and last updated 1:00 PM, Feb 16, 2023
BILLINGS - Montana ranked in the top 10 in the nation for growth in 2022 adding 17,000 residents just last year.
With that in mind - a newly formed parent group is pitching the idea of a brand new high school - and it's gaining a lot of interest.
Board members and superintendents from four school districts met at Elysian school on Wednesday.
Survey results show good support, and they talked about the challenges and what it's going to take to move forward with the idea.
Recent Stories from ktvq.com
Many parents like the small elementary and middle schools and want their children to have that closeness with their classmates to continue in high school.
"We like being the Ellder Grove Outlaws," said Michael Laird, a parent of Elder Grove students. "We love that community. We kind of have that identity for my wife and I that would be something we would be willing to give up and to work towards having that high school."
 

CHELSEA, Manhattan (PIX11) — An empty building in Chelsea is filled with history.
The structure on West 17th Street dates back to the mid-1850s and a time in New York City when schools were segregated. It was known as “Colored School Number 4,” and it was staffed by African American teachers.
Eric K. Washington is fighting to make sure the story is not forgotten. 
“Throughout most of the 19th Century, public schools in the city were segregated,” Washington said.
In 2018, he filed a formal request with the Landmarks Preservation Commission. He had been working on a book about someone who attended the school.
“There are woefully too few sites that document the African-American experience,” he said.
This is the last school building of its kind. New York City still owns it.
Washington was on a building tour with City Councilmember Erik Botcher in December. He said there was some water damage inside. The building has been remodeled, but many original details remain visible.
This week, the landmarks commission voted to begin the first step to landmarking the property. A public hearing will be scheduled next.
Washington hopes to see a museum and community center at the former schoolhouse.
 

When Taí Alex showed up at Burroughs Elementary School in Brookland earlier this month to drop off her four-year-old daughter, she got some bad news: A gas leak had closed the school for the day. The same happened the day after.

And it wasn’t the first time.

“There’s been a lot of emergency things that have affected the school’s ability to stay open,” says Alex, citing a burst pipe that flooded some classrooms, boiler issues that have impacted the building’s heating system, and other issues that have bedeviled the 101-year-old building.

“Burroughs is a fantastic school,” she says. “There’s a reason why parents are so engaged. It’s just the building maintenance issues we’re having.”

And it’s much the same situation at Whittier Elementary School in Takoma — built in 1926 — where for months parents, students, and staff have been contending with repeated maintenance issues that have shuttered the school and fixes that are often derided as mere Band-Aids. In November, they protested outside the school. In January, a sewage pump in a pre-kindergarten classroom broke; on the Facebook page of the school’s parent-teacher organization, one parent complained that it smelled like the “inside of a rectum.”

“I’ve been a parent there for almost about five years, and there’s not been a year where there hasn’t been something major going on,” says Alicia Bolton, the vice-president of the Whittier PTO and parent of two children at the school, in kindergarten and third grade. “For too long the school has been ignored.”

Yet there may be no satisfying and quick solution for either school.

When districts put bonds on the ballot in hopes of financing one or more new schools, the chances of voter approval in Idaho are 50/50: a coin toss. 

If districts lose, the problems that sparked the ballot initiative — overcrowding, outdated schools, safety concerns — don’t go away. 

So district leaders make do with their cracked foundations and outdoor food storage. They might seek creative but short-term solutions, like redrawn boundaries or modular classrooms. Hallways, principal’s offices and lunchrooms might become classrooms. 

Or leaders might hang their hopes on a new solution: a plant facilities levy. 

The plant facilities levy’s voter approval thresholds — which can be as low as 55% — make them attractive, but there are drawbacks. Districts might have to downsize their project list or eschew state financial help if they opt for this route. 

School leaders are already familiar with plant facilities levies; they’re often used for repairs, maintenance, or upgrades. But when it comes to new construction, these ballot measures are a relatively new option, one districts have historically been reluctant to pursue due to murky legality. But that changed when a 2015 Idaho Supreme Court decision upheld the practice. 

For some districts, it’s now the most enticing and likely path to new schools. 

CROMWELL — The Town Council voted to allow the Middle School Building Committee to proceed with the $58.6 million school project while expressing concerns about the budget being $21 million over what voters approved at referendum.
The committee’s website offers a breakdown: $17.2 million for construction and $3.8 million for other “soft” costs.
Council members will revisit the issue in April or May, when the next estimate is received.
The new middle school is “desperately needed,” Superintendent of Schools Enza Macri said Friday. “The current facility doesn’t have the educational space or layout to support a STEAM curriculum. This is significant when we think about preparing students adequately for high school and beyond.”
Voters passed the ballot measure June 14, 2022, by a vote of 970 to 231.
“I’m sure there’s nobody who wants to go back twice,” Mayor Steve Fortenbach said. If project costs exceed even $1 over $56 million, he added the question whether to spend more must again be put to voters.
 

Not far from the intersection of Routes 9 and 192 in Wesley, you’ll come to a winding dirt road that disappears into a dense forest. Follow it and you’ll find yourself in what might feel like an episode of Little House on the Prairie. Deep in the woods, surrounded by nothing except blue skies above the whining pines, is the town’s humble schoolhouse. One class. One teacher. Four students. 

Yet, remarkably, just like the TV episode when the fictional town of Walnut Grove was leveled and all that remained was its little one-room schoolhouse, Wesley’s little school is still standing — despite several contentious battles over the years to close its doors for good. 

“The school is all we have left,” said former student, parent, and resident Julie Smith. Choking back tears she added, “We wouldn’t have a community, we’d lose it.”

Last March, the three-member Wesley school board made the controversial decision to close the school after watching enrollment plummet from an historic high of about 25 students in its heyday. Once a thriving logging town of 5,000, all that remains is one school, a convenience store, a church, a museum, a Wyman’s storage facility and 114 residents. Nonetheless, the sharply divided community reversed the board’s decision at a public referendum in May, voting 39 to 24 in favor of saving the town’s only school, despite an enrollment at that time of merely eight students. 

So the school reopened in the fall — by then with only four students.

“You just don’t know what the magic number is enrollment-wise before they close it,” said the school principal, Mitchell Look.

Wesley isn’t the only town facing the tough choice of whether to close its struggling school and send students to neighboring schools. According to Maine Department of Education data released this week, of Washington County’s 34 schools, 20 have enrollments below 100 students, including two high schools. Ten schools have enrollments under 50. The number of low enrollment schools in both categories is up from the previous year.

DC Council Chair Phil Mendelson may have been right to persuade his colleagues to use the 2023 Budget Support Act to mandate a DC Public Schools (DCPS) boundary study — but not so much on his narrow perspective on its scope. The resulting document and recommendations must be delivered this year. 
“We need to address school boundaries. Some jurisdictions do it on a regular basis,” he told me during a telephone interview last week. A predictable schedule is a way to make the process less “traumatic” than it’s been in the past, he suggested.
DCPS operates chiefly through a system of neighborhood schools, most with specific geographic boundaries. Associated with those designations are “feeder patterns,” pathways that help direct the flow of students as they progress from elementary to middle school and then on to high school. By law, students have a right to attend any K-12 school within their boundary and feeder pathway. District charter schools are exempted from that law, however.
The DCPS boundary process was supposed to ensure adequate, predictable enrollment at each facility and yield an equitable public education system. It hasn’t, however.
Some schools are overcrowded; others are underpopulated, explained Mendelson, citing as an example Plummer Elementary in Ward 7. He said it has a “catchment of 1,300 but only has an enrollment of 300. Do we keep the boundaries?”