The 88th Texas Legislature is dealing with an unprecedented budget surplus, and the number of people fighting for a piece of the $12.5 billion approved spending budget is quickly increasing.

However, billions of dollars worth of that surplus is money from within the Foundation School Program that was appropriated but never spent. We believe that money, which was designated for education, should stay in education. And some simple budgetary changes within the FSP could have lasting benefits for Texas school children.

The program is the primary source of state funding for schools and includes two programs to fund school facilities: the instructional facilities allotment (IFA) and the existing debt allotment (EDA). Unlike the basic allotment, which funds maintenance and operations for school districts, the instructional facilities and debt allotments provide state support toward voter-approved bonds, which primarily go towards funding facilities. Increasing the per-student amounts under those two allotments could help solve many ongoing issues that Texas public schools are struggling with.

The Town Council, the School Committee, the School Building Committee and a robust retinue of consultants met to drive toward a decision about funding the future of Middletown’s public schools in the wake of a failed attempt at regionalization with Newport.

Middletown’s latest proposal calls for the issuance of $190 million in bonds to construct a combined middle-high school on the multi-use fields adjacent to Gaudet Middle School, of which the town estimates about $83 million would ultimately be reimbursed by the state.

Operating on a very tight timeline due to the impending expiration of some elevated RIDE reimbursement rates – which are still far lower than the 82% reimbursement RIDE was offering for the construction of a regionalized high school – the Town Council after hearing a presentation on both the preliminary design and the financials of the project instructed the consulting team and the School Building Committee to stay the course and continue developing the proposal.

In the coming months, Tayla McCray, a fifth-grade student who attends Furley Elementary School in Baltimore City, will watch her soon-to-be old school transform into a new place. But McCray said she wants to remember the ‘great times’, like when she and her dad dressed up for the father-daughter dance.

She’s excited for her peers because she’s already continuing her educational journey by attending middle school next year.

“I hope all of the future Furley Foxes [the school’s mascot], have the same rich experience,” she said.

Baltimore City officials, public school leaders, and community members gathered in the Frankford neighborhood to celebrate the start of the construction of Furley Elementary School on Monday morning.

Trees shaded the small lane, casting shadows on the dust and gravel I was traversing. Miles from anywhere and traveling on a four-wheeler, I came to a fork in the road bisected in the middle by a solitary building; the old deserted Mount Salem School. Built in 1909 to replace an older school, the building is representative of the many older educational facilities that now stand abandoned across the state. Once surrounded by a vibrant community of farmers, the one-room school served as a church, a community meeting place and the local school. For most of its existence as a school, it had one teacher for all grades and was primarily supported by the people of the community.

In 1900, education was on the back burner for a rustic, backward state with an economy centered on agriculture. The state of Arkansas saw little reason to invest in education, primarily leaving that up to the churches and to the families. Wealthy families would place their children in academies and then send their children out of state if they desired extensive education or finishing. Poorer and middle-class families scrambled to provide the basic three Rs of an education that often terminated at the middle school level.

According to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, in 1920 only two-thirds of the state's students were enrolled in school, and less than 25% attended regularly. In rural areas, students attended a split term, coming during the winter months and during July and August when the crops were "laid by." Seventeen counties did not have a high school, and in no county were high schools available to all students.

Tennessee needs to invest more than $9 billion in its K-12 education infrastructure over five years, an increase of nearly 9% from an assessment done a year earlier, a new state report says.

Of that amount, about $5.4 billion is needed for renovations and technology improvements, while nearly $3.6 billion is needed to build additions and new schools, according to the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations.

The report, approved Thursday by the commission, comes as local and state officials grapple with how to cover the soaring costs of school construction, which have doubled in the past decade due to rising material and labor costs.

Meanwhile, years of research show that fixing school buildings can improve student learning, health and behavior. One study in Tennessee shows a direct connection between student achievement and the condition of school buildings. Another study from New York found that poor building conditions can lead to higher rates of chronic absenteeism.

In Tennessee, cities and counties pay for most of their school facility needs with property and sales tax revenues. But some state lawmakers are looking for ways to ease that burden.

Do states provide adequate funding to ensure all students can access a high-quality education? Do local taxpayers shoulder an unfair burden to provide money to schools? Are schools able to maintain operations as the cost of goods and services inevitably rises with inflation?
These are among the key questions driving ongoing lawsuits that could reshape how schools are funded in the states where they’re playing out, and reverberate elsewhere.
Far removed from the annual budgeting process, these funding lawsuits challenge the underlying mechanisms that provide districts with those dollars.
They have proved an essential tool for public school advocates—including education lawyers, teachers unions, district leaders, and even parents—aiming to hold states accountable to their constitutional obligations to provide an adequate education for all. Courts that rule in the plaintiffs’ favor can pressure lawmakers to allocate resources they might otherwise fail to supply.
These cases often take years to resolve and play out behind the scenes of day-to-day school operations. But the litigation often represents a key turning point in the political fight for more equitable education funding, said David Sciarra, who’s set to retire this month after 26 years as executive director of the nonprofit Education Law Center. He’s been at the center of numerous school funding lawsuits, including the landmark Abbott rulings in New Jersey that set the stage for sweeping change across the state in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
 

Students and families at several West Hawaiʻi Island schools can now access on-campus health centers.

The Hawaiʻi Island Community Health Center opened the school-based centers at Hōnaunau Elementary, and Kealakehe Elementary and Intermediate schools.

Students at those schools can get exams, dental services and behavioral health care with a signed consent form.

"What we really hope for kids to get from school-based health care is, first and foremost the care that they need, meeting their needs, making sure that when they're in school, they have everything they need to learn," said Cecilia Royale with the Hawaiʻi Island Community Center.

"Because as a whole person, it's not just about coming to school, you have to make sure all the needs are met to make sure that they can learn and the second is to help them become advocates for their own health, and learn how to navigate the health system," she added.

Gov. Phil Murphy announced Jan. 26 a $350 million pot of money will soon be available for high-priority school construction projects throughout the Garden State.

The funding comes from Senate Bill 2944, which was signed during the budget process last summer and allocated $5.2 billion in surplus money for the newly created New Jersey Debt Defeasance and Prevention Fund. The legislation calls for $350 million of that tranche to be appropriated for school facilities projects, emergent needs and capital maintenance in Regular Operating Districts (ROD).

Beginning Jan. 30, according to a statement from Murphy’s office, more than 550 RODs will be eligible to apply for grants. School districts will be eligible to receive at least 40% of eligible project costs.

“From day one, my administration has made it a priority to support and improve our public school system – and helping our schools implement critical facility projects is an important component of those efforts,” said Murphy. “This funding demonstrates our commitment to strengthening our schools and cementing our legacy as a state that is dedicated providing every student with a high-quality learning environment.”

A 51 page closing brief for Wahkiakum School District’s suit against the State of Washington has been submitted to the Supreme Court in preparation for their court date before the Washington State Supreme Court on March 14.

The school district, which is represented by Thomas Ahearne, the winning litigator in the landmark McCleary case, first filed the lawsuit in Wahkiakum Superior Court in December of 2021, after the community voted against a 22 year $28.75 million bond in 2020 for renovations. The suit was dismissed with prejudice by Superior Court Judge Donald Richter on June 24, 2022, and the district quickly appealed, requesting a direct review from the state supreme court, which was eventually granted.

HVAC issues continue to plague the district, as does a leaky roof, and an outdated electrical system. There is no sprinkler system in the event of a fire, and a host of issues in the science classroom has students taking their experiments outside for safety sake, which isn’t convenient in a Northwest climate.

In 2023, the District of Columbia will review address-based student assignments – known as boundary assignments – to determine which District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) students are entitled by-right to attend based on their residential address.
This report examines where students are more likely to attend their by-right school, which by-right schools are most representative of all public school students, and how enrollment compares to capacity at by-right school facilities. It also highlights the areas of the city where changes to student assignment policies could impact the largest number of students.
1. Introduction
In 2023, the District of Columbia will review address-based student assignments – known as boundary assignments – to determine which District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) schools are students entitled to attend by-right, based on their residential address. This is only the second time since 1968 that the city will undertake such a review. (The other was in 2014.)
The 2023 student assignment and boundary review will:
Examine student assignments to schools by-right based on DCPS boundaries and feeder patterns,
Evaluate if there is adequate capacity in by-right DCPS facilities, including at each  grade band, and
Look for opportunities to create equitable access to high-quality DCPS schools.
D.C. has much racial and economic residential segregation, and much public school choice. Citywide, just 28 percent of students attend their by-right school — but the share of students attending their by-right school varies greatly across different parts of the city. Students in more affluent areas are more likely to opt into their by-right school. These factors make D.C.’s review of student assignments a unique process and require a robust fact base.
 

WESTERLY — The cleanup of asbestos found in an old boiler room at the former Bradford Elementary School has added about four to six weeks and $108,000 to the cost of the building’s demolition.
Part of the demolition as originally planned last fall included asbestos removal from glue underneath the floor tiles in the building, Town Manager Shawn Lacey said. No other asbestos was found in the building, he said.
“We didn’t anticipate any, because the majority of the main structure was rebuilt in 1987-88, when all the asbestos would have been removed,” he said.
The cost of the remediation was $98,646 in addition to the town’s $220,950 demolition contract with contractor Billray.
However Lacey said about three weeks ago, contractors doing excavation at the site found a boiler room that was not remediated during the 1980s project.
“Basically it was just capped off with concrete,” Lacey said.
Three boilers, a water tank, duct work and about three feet of asbestos on the floor, according to the town manager.
“That was basically pulled off of pipes and everything else, and they must have just piled it in this room and just capped it off,” he said. “That was not supposed to be part of the remediation plan back in 87-88. It was supposed to be completely filled in.”
The state Department of Health visited the site and issued a cease and desist order so that a remediation plan
could be developed, Lacey said. The state approved the plan Jan. 20 and work was expected to start this week.
 

LOUISVILLE, Ky. —
An ambitious plan to rebuild or renovate more than a dozen Jefferson County Public School buildings is taking another step forward.
The Kentucky Department of Education signed off on the first draft of the four-year plan that district leaders say is long overdue. The district's facilities committee voted Wednesday to send the amended plan to the full school board.
The current estimated cost of facility needs across JCPS is more than $1.3 billion, according to the district's current District Facilities Plan.
"If you look at the facility condition indices, there's a deficit there that has just kind of grown exponentially because of deferred maintenance over the last several decades," said JCPS Chief Operations Officer Chris Perkins.
Perkins says the district is now able to do something about that thanks to a 2020 tax rate hike.
 

The Jeff Davis Parish School Board will spend more than $5 million to repair and replace aging, leaky and damaged roofs at various school sites this year.  The first phase of a three phase plan to address aging and leaky roofs is currently moving forward at Welsh High School, Lake Arthur High School, Lake Arthur Elementary School and Fenton Elementary School. The projects are expected to be completed by the summer.  “About 15 years ago, the School Board found roofs were so expensive for schools to repair using their own maintenance money, so the School Board took over the projects to ease the burden of the (individual) school maintenance funds,” Superintendent John Hall said.
The School Board agreed to fund the projects with revenue from the general fund, insurance and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) based on a priority plan with the worst roofs being addressed first, he said.  “The architect and roof contractor aged the roofs and rated which ones go first in priority for the first stage,” Hall said.  Many of the priorities have changed due to cost and unforeseen problems, including finding other roofs in worse condition.

For the first time in 30 years, Durham Public Schools is undergoing district-wide changes to the school boundary lines that determine where students will go to school.

School board members and district leaders say this is part of a strategic effort to give students more equitable access to education programs and to ensure school and classroom sizes will be more sustainable as the population continues to grow in parts of the county.

Last week, the Durham School Board approved plans for elementary school assignments. Later, the school board will turn its attention to middle and high school boundaries, to propose and vote on those changes later this spring.

All changes will take effect in Fall 2024.

Will the elementary school designated for my home change in 2024?
You can search the elementary school designated to your home address for the 2024-2025 school year here.

If you don’t know your current 2023 elementary school assignment – maybe you have a toddler or you recently moved – you can find that here.

Dive Brief:
As COVID-19 raised concerns around the airborne spread of viruses in schools, proposed legislation in New Mexico would require all school districts to test their ventilation systems at least every five years.
Each report must be completed by a certified technician or mechanical engineer and would include appropriate recommendations for the heating, ventilation and air conditioning infrastructure. Such measures may consider installing filters and carbon dioxide sensors, upgrading equipment, and making necessary replacements.
Districts would be required to follow through on these recommendations, the legislation states. Other possible actions that schools might have to complete after these ventilation tests are general maintenance, reading and adjustment of ventilation rates, and filter replacements to meet a minimum efficiency reporting.

Because of a delay in repairs to a library ceiling that collapsed in August, students at Cummings K-8 Optional School will finish out the school year at nearby LaRose Elementary School in South Memphis.

While the repairs could still be done as early as this spring, Memphis-Shelby County Schools said in a news release, officials decided the Cummings students should remain at LaRose to avoid any disruptions during Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program testing.

The 40-year-old drop ceiling collapsed on Aug. 15, just a week after the school year started. No students were in the library at the time, but three staffers were injured, The Commercial Appeal reported. The collapse prompted MSCS to order reviews of buildings older than 70 years with drop ceilings, and called new attention to the issue of deferred maintenance in the schools. 

Over 33 of MSCS’ schools were built before 1950, meaning they are more than 70 years old. A study done eight years ago found that the district’s older buildings and equipment were deteriorating rapidly, Fox 13 News reported in August.

State officials released a highly anticipated audit into Connecticut’s school construction office late last week, but it is unlikely to alleviate all of the concerns about the multibillion-dollar construction program, which became the focus of a federal investigation last year.
The 23-page report that was produced by Marcum LLP, an independent auditing firm, included an analysis of more than 111 school construction projects that were undertaken in Connecticut between 2018 and 2021.
But some lawmakers are more concerned about what is missing from the audit: namely, a review of interactions between local school officials and the state Office of School Construction Grants & Review.
“This audit is a start but it is by no means a conclusion,” said Senate Minority Leader Kevin Kelly, R-Stratford. “The concern certainly of the federal investigation has always been on the purported influence on municipalities, and that wasn’t even looked at here at all.’
State officials hired Marcum last March in an effort to restore public trust in the school construction program, which was directed for more than six years by Konstantinos Diamantis.
Diamantis, who stepped down from that position in late 2021, was named in several grand jury subpoenas that were issued to the state and several municipalities.
 

RICHMOND, VA – Today, the Senate of Virginia passed Sen. Jennifer McClellan’s (D-Richmond) bill (SB 1408) with Sen. Jeremy McPike (D-Prince William) to allow any Virginia locality to fund school construction and renovation through an up to 1% increase in sales tax passed in a local referendum. The bill passed on a 26-10 vote with bipartisan support.

The bill is a recommendation of the bipartisan Commission on School Construction and Modernization, which McClellan chairs. Del. Jeffrey Bourne (D-Richmond) is the chief patron of companion House legislation (HB 2316).

Under current Virginia law, only 9 localities have the ability to propose referenda for local sales and use taxes for school construction: Charlotte, Gloucester, Halifax, Henry, Mecklenburg, Northampton, Patrick, and Pittsylvania Counties and the City of Danville. McClellan’s bill would enable any locality to propose a local sales tax referendum for the sole purpose of school construction. A similar bill (SB 1287) from Senator Creigh Deeds (D-Charlottesville) adding the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County to the list also passed the Senate on a 27-10 vote.

“SB 1408 will provide a critical tool for localities to fund school construction and modernization,” McClellan said. “We must provide new funding options for local school divisions to address Virginia’s crisis of crumbling schools. I’m pleased to see this bill pass the Senate with strong bipartisan support, and I urge House leaders to allow a full House vote on this bill from the bipartisan School Construction and Modernization Commission.”

More than 1,000 schools — more than half of K-12 school buildings in Virginia — are more than 50 years old, according to the Commission on School Construction and Modernization. The Commission estimates that the amount of funding needed to replace these buildings is $24.8 billion. Many localities face significant challenges in raising sufficient funds to undertake these projects.

The Philadelphia School District on Friday filed a lawsuit against the city over legislation officials said could jeopardize the opening of some school buildings this fall.

The unprecedented move comes months after City Council passed a law designed to strengthen environmental conditions in the district by forming a public oversight board to determine standards and judge whether school buildings can safely house staff and students.

It also creates a public fissure between the school board and the city officials who established the board just five years ago after 17 years of state oversight. School board members are selected by the mayor and confirmed by City Council.

School board president Reginald Streater, who said he believed the litigation is the “culmination of decades of chronic underfunding,” noted that the district alone is authorized by state law to determine whether schools open or close, and that children struggle academically and socially when unable to access face-to-face learning.

The Forsyth County Board of Education recognized facilities and maintenance staff members at its latest meeting for their response to water damage at schools over the winter break.
Mostly occurring over the Dec. 24-25 weekend, Chief Facilities Officer Matt Wark said, 15 of the school district’s 42 schools were affected by water damage due to record-breaking temperatures.
Although many staff members were on Christmas vacation at the time, Wark said his team stepped up.
“To give you a scope of how many hours many of these individuals put in, they spent 36 hours on just Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in schools,” Wark said. “And these individuals and myself, these guys were on vacation. We did not see the families …. But these individuals never said no.”
Wark and his team spent the next week fixing damage so schools ready when teachers returned on Jan. 3.
“This type of dedication, I’m glad to have community members see,” Wark said. “These are the people who take care of your buildings every day for your kids.”
Superintendent Jeff Bearden thanked Wark and the team for their efforts.
"Because of this team, all of our children could return to school after winter break," Bearden said. “Thank you is not nearly sufficient, but I hope you know how much you are all appreciated, respected and valued."