Proposed school closures and consolidations at Pittsburgh Public Schools gained the administration’s formal blessing in a feasibility report delivered Tuesday evening.

The report, presented by Superintendent Wayne Walters and other administrators, backs nearly all of the proposals recommended by consulting firm Education Resource Strategies [ERS] in a plan to realign the school’s resources that drew strong backlash in the fall. Key recommendations include changing the current school grade configurations to a traditional model of K-5, 6-8 and 9-12 grades and closing 14 schools, including 10 building closures. 

“Schools with low enrollment often struggle to sustain a broad and enriching experience, limited access to essential academic and extracurricular programs such as music, art, world, languages and career exposure,” said Walters. “And this disparity means that not all students are receiving the same high-quality education and opportunities simply because of the structure of their school.”

Voters in the Wichita school district have a big decision on Tuesday: whether to approve a $450 million bond issue to modernize schools. The bond issue would pay to rebuild seven elementary and middle schools, close four elementary schools, convert two elementary schools to K-8 buildings and consolidate alternative school programs, among a number of other items.
We asked Eagle readers what they wanted to know about the bond issue. Here are the most commonly asked questions and answers. What is proposed? The district would demolish and rebuild seven buildings, build a new early childhood center, new outdoor athletic fields at Northeast Magnet High School and a new Future Ready Center for Trades at East High School. Two elementary schools would be converted to K-8 schools, and four elementary schools would close. The elementary schools set to close as part of the plan are L’Ouverture, OK, Pleasant Valley and Woodland. Most of those students would be moved to newer schools that were built in the early 2010s or are being rebuilt as part of the bond proposals, according to documents from the school district.
The district is consolidating its alternative learning programs: Wells Alternative Middle School would be expanded to a 6-12 school that includes Sowers Alternative High School. Chester Lewis Academic Learning Center and the Gateway Alternative Program would close in their current buildings and move to the current Coleman Middle School building or other buildings.
 

AUBURN, Ala. (WRBL) – Auburn City Schools is launching 2025 with a massive investment in education infrastructure, highlighted by a second high school, a new middle school, and the reconstruction of two of the district’s oldest elementary schools.
In total, the ACS 2035 Facilities Master Plan includes an estimated $383 million in capital projects, all funded without the need for new taxes.
The most significant development is the $214 million second high school at Shug Jordan Parkway and North Donahue Drive, with an anticipated opening in fall 2028. Once complete, both high schools will serve students in grades 9-12, shifting away from the current model that separates freshmen.
School officials are working on branding the new high school, including selecting colors and a mascot. Auburn City Schools spokesperson Daniel Chesser emphasized the importance of public engagement in shaping the new school’s identity.
“In January, we opened a survey to gather input from students, teachers, and the public. The survey closed on January 27, and we are now analyzing the data to determine what stakeholders want to see in the new high school,” Chesser said.
Beyond relieving overcrowding at Auburn High School, the second campus will double student opportunities in athletics, fine arts, and extracurricular activities.
 

WASHINGTON — Power outages regularly disrupt school in Arizona’s White Mountain Apache Tribe, leading to spoiled food, limited access to technology and cold classrooms. School administrators sometimes heat buildings with kerosene. In some cases, they must close the school when carbon monoxide levels become too high.

“Our students need and deserve better, and I hope you will help us deliver on the tremendous promise these young people possess,” White Mountain Apache Tribal Chairman Kasey Velasquez told congressional leaders at a Feb. 12 oversight hearing.

During the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearing, tribal education leaders told congressional members that the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) schools face crumbling infrastructure, unsafe conditions and a massive backlog of deferred maintenance, while receiving less than half the per-student funding of other federally operated schools.  

The 183 schools run by BIE have collectively accumulated more than $1 billion in overdue repairs as of September 2022, according to testimony shared by Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ariz.) during the hearing. Many maintenance requests have remained unaddressed for years.

Government inspectors recently observed a crumbling foundation and an inoperable boiler at separate schools in the same Arizona town, despite work orders dating back to 2008. About 1,000 orders placed in 2000 remained unaddressed over two decades later, including requests for exit signs, fire alarm systems and replacements for asbestos floor tiles. 

EUREKA — The Eureka School District held a community meeting last month to discuss solutions for aging school facilities and safety concerns.
The school district has not passed a bond in more than 20 years and leaks, mold and crumbling walls continue to raise issues.
“We’ve failed at four bond attempts since that time, the last one being a year ago, but we still have a need to get those things done,” said Eureka School District Superintendent Joel Graves.
The core section of Eureka Middle School is more than 100 years old. Graves said the building is reaching its tipping point.
“Things that have deteriorated over the years from ground leakage and things like that, you know rotted floors, things that we’re always trying to maintain and address but it seems like they are just creeping up all the time," Graves told MTN.
Graves noted the middle school is completely out of compliance for ADA regulations.
 

Joseph Lenz, assistant superintendent of the Pine Bush Central School District, appeared at the Town of Crawford’s February 13 meeting with an important presentation: the district’s 2025 Capital Improvement Project, an initiative that could bring much-needed improvements to its seven schools in Pine Bush and Circleville if residents approve one or both of the plan’s propositions.

The PBCSD, after submitting its Building Condition Survey to the New York State Education Department, estimated that the entire school district needs $121,789,091 in construction work. Since completing the BCS, the district established the Five-Year Capital Facilities Plan and formed the Facilities Committee to determine the necessary short and long-term infrastructure repairs for its schools.

These efforts led to the creation of two propositions that residents can vote on in the next week-and-a-half. Proposition 1 would address the district’s immediate needs, including heating and cooling improvements, roof restorations, fire alarm upgrades, a new athletic complex in Circleville, and replacements to doors, windows, ceilings, and elevators. This proposition would cost $52,260,000, with no increase to residents’ taxes.

LITTLETON — Local school officials say plans are moving forward for a new school for a new Shaker Lane School.
In an announcement, school officials said the Shaker Lane Building Committee has made "notable progress" in collaboration with town and school leaders. The new school would house students in pre-kindergarten through grade 2.
School administrators met on Jan. 29 with the Massachusetts School Building Authority’s Facility Assessment Subcommittee to review the project’s status. According to the Littleton announcement, subcommittee members expressed strong support for Littleton’s presentation and the work completed by the Shaker Lane team.
The current Shaker Lane School, which opened in 1961, was last renovated in 1998. Local school officials say the building has surpassed its useful lifespan and has several issues related to safety, building systems and educational quality.
Littleton school officials have spent years assessing the building’s conditions to determine its ability to support modern educational needs for young students.
 

Last Monday, the Northfield School Board heard a presentation from Director of Finance Val Mertesdorf and Director of Buildings and Grounds Justin Raabolle about the school district’s Proposed operating capital and Long-Term Facilities maintenance budget. The two budgets are a restricted portion of the district general fund, and a series of several state and local formulas determine the amount of funding available. The fund pays for several items but focuses primarily on maintenance projects around the school. Here’s Mertesdorf at the school board meeting: 

“And then all of these are very restrictive. So there’s revenue that comes in and the state has a statute that says here’s what you can and cannot pay for with each of these funding streams. So they have their own fund balance codes. So the revenue that comes in has to be spent on those items and we can’t. Mix and mingle with the other general fund dollars.” – Val Mertesdorf, Director of Finance for the Northfield Public Schools, at the 2/11/2025 School Board Meeting

A Nevada district court has ruled that sections of a 2023 bill that essentially forced the Elko County Commission to earmark a portion of property tax proceeds for schools in exchange for funding to build a new Owyhee school are unconstitutional because they single out the county. 

Elko County Manager Amanda Osborne said in a Wednesday statement that the Feb. 7 ruling in Carson City District Court only strikes the sections of AB519 mandating Elko County levy a tax for school facilities, and otherwise doesn’t touch the Nevada Legislature’s $64.5 million appropriation for the construction of a new Owyhee school to replace the run-down original campus on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation near the Idaho-Nevada border.

“Our understanding is that the $64.5 million appropriated by the Legislature for the construction of the new Owyhee Combined School will still be provided to the Elko County School District as planned,” Osborne said. 

The school district recently approved a bid for the school, and expects it to be completed by the 2027-28 school year. 

Osborne added that Elko County commissioners don’t plan to revoke the 20-cent property tax levy that they approved last February to comply with the bill’s mandate, or oppose the funding that’s been collected to date. 

This May, the Mesquite Independent School District board of trustees will ask voters to approve a $600 million bond to address safety, security, and aging facilities and equipment.

The Mesquite ISD said the bond package was created through a monthslong community effort with the assistance of a Bond Facility Planning Committee of community members, district employees, teachers, parents, and students.

The package is presented as two propositions:

Proposition A is a $578.5 million proposal addressing security enhancements, growth, and aging facilities. The prop plans for security upgrades, storm shelters, the consolidation of two older elementary schools, a new pre-K center, bus replacements, campus improvements, and upgrades to the transportation center.
Proposition B is a $21.5 million proposal for district-wide technology replacements.

OLYMPIA, Wash. — State lawmakers are debating a bill that would amend the constitution to lower the threshold of votes school districts need to receive to pass bond measures to large construction projects.

For 80 years, Washington law has required districts to reach 60% voter approval to receive the authorization to get the loan that typically funds new buildings or large improvements and expansions to schools. Joint Resolution 8200 would lower the threshold to a simple majority of 50% plus one to pass, as it currently stands in 38 other states.

“This leaves schools underfunding, students underserved and schools unable to need critical infrastructure needs even when their own communities strongly support the investment,” said Sen, Deobrah Krishnadasan, during a committee hearing in January. Krishnadasan is a Democrat representing District 26 which includes Gig Harbor, Bethel and Port Orchard.

A bill that would ban school districts from using their primary funds on school enhancements to repair or build school facilities died in the Senate on Wednesday.

On the third reading of Senate File 156, “Expenditure of state funds on K-12 public schools,” bill sponsor Sen. Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, said the bill should be studied between legislative sessions. The bill has been postponed indefinitely.

The bill would’ve prohibited school districts across Wyoming from using the funding that’s distributed each year through the School Foundation Program to address facility enhancements. Districts would also have been prohibited from using their major maintenance funds or reserves, which also are funded by the SFP.

A coalition of more than 100 organizations representing public school advocates, parents, teachers, and community members are calling on Gov. Phil Murphy and the state legislature to invest $500 million annually to fund New Jersey’s school construction program, starting with the upcoming budget.

Dozens of speakers gathered at a virtual town hall described the experiences of students and staff forced to learn and work in old and crumbling buildings to underscore what they say is an “urgent need” for more funding for school construction projects. A Newark Public Schools teacher said numerous students at Bard High School had to be displaced because classrooms were too cold while teachers from Jersey City and Paterson explained how schools in their districts were dealing with rodents and leaky roofs.

Healthy Schools Now, a coalition of 135 organizations across New Jersey, said it hosted the virtual town hall last week to highlight how years of inadequate funding for the New Jersey Schools Development Authority has left dozens of schools across the state in dire need of repair and replacement. The SDA is responsible for fully funding school construction projects in Newark and 30 other high-poverty districts in the state. It also provides grants and undertakes construction projects in regular operating districts under a cost-sharing arrangement.

The Lafayette Public Trust Financing Authority board recently approved issuing $275 million in bonds that would allow two charter schools to refinance their existing facilities to a better interest rate.

The LPTFA board unanimously approved selling up to $100 million in bonds to Lafayette Renaissance Charter Academy and up to $175 million in bonds to Acadiana Renaissance Charter Academy. Both are tuition-free public charter schools for students in elementary through high school grades.

The proposal goes before Lafayette City and Parish councils and the State Bond Commission next week.

If approved, the bonds would allow the Friends of the Lafayette Charter Foundation to finance the acquisition of existing facilities at LRCA at 205 Vienne Lane in Lafayette and ARCA at 600 Savoy Road in Youngsville. Currently, the schools lease buildings from Red Apple, a sister company of Charter Schools USA.

DAYTON (WGME) -- Many of Maine’s schools are in need of significant upgrades, with air quality, security and space concerns creating significant challenges for students and educators.
As school districts across the state struggle to keep up with repairs and replacements, a new push is underway to reform how Maine funds school construction.
At Dayton Consolidated School, space is tight. For more than 30 years, the majority of students have been educated in portable classrooms, moving between separate buildings and braving the elements between class and lunch.
“The staff and the principal have done wonderful things to try and alleviate some of that,” Superintendent Jeremy Ray said. “But the fact of the matter is, not having kids in the same school building, especially pre-K through 5, is really problematic.”
Beyond space limitations, the school, built in 1950, also faces air quality concerns and other limitations related to technology.
"Just having enough power in each classroom can be a bit of a challenge, because some of the older classrooms, I believe, have two outlets in them," Ray said. "The spaces that were designed 75 years ago may not quite meet 21st century learning standards and what we want for our kids and our schools."
 

It was 80 degrees inside Bugg Magnet Elementary School in the middle of end-of-year testing, so hot that teachers were hearing from their very uncomfortable students. “One student said, ‘Miss, can I go out in the hallway and lay on the cold tile with my shirt up?’” said Christina Cole, president of the Wake County chapter of the N.C. Association of Educators.
Cole repeated the story as told to her by a teacher, one of many anecdotes shared Wednesday evening at a rally and town hall meeting to spur community members to take action. The group estimates over two dozen schools have been forced to close at least once this school year due to extreme temperatures. They’re asking the Wake County Board of Commissioners to put a school bond on the ballot in 2026 to pay for deferred maintenance. “We’re focused on addressing facilities issues in our schools, specifically HVAC issues, because those have been so widely felt and incredibly disruptive to the school day,” Cole said. Last fall, the Wake County Public School System estimated it had over $200 million in deferred HVAC maintenance and replacement, and more than $600 million in total deferred maintenance.
 

RENO, Nev. — The Washoe County School Board had another busy meeting Tuesday, approving $99.5 million in funding to go toward a couple of major projects in the district.

One of the two projects included in the funding will build a new elementary school at the current Pine Middle School site. According to district staff, now that funding has been approved, building, site assessment and concept design will begin this month for the project.

Construction is expected to begin in the fall of 2026 and to wrap up in August of 2028.

"We're potentially merging several schools. So that process is going to look a little different," Trustee Christine Hull said at Tuesday's meeting.

The Reed High School Modernization Project is also included in the funding. That project will be done in two phases, staff said. The first phase will focus on classroom expansion and athletic and band expansion, among other areas.

Last year, Idaho legislators approved a 10-year, $2 billion funding bill to help school districts throughout the state whose buildings were crumbling and sometimes dangerous.

But early reports from districts and a new state cost estimate show that even after passage of the historic funding bill, districts are still struggling to meet their most dire needs. That has put local school officials in the same position they have long faced: asking voters to approve additional funds.

School districts in Idaho rely heavily on taxpayers to approve local bonds to pay for school construction and repair. The state’s unusual policy, however, requires two-thirds of voters for a bond to pass, a threshold many superintendents say is nearly impossible to reach. Most states require less.

The Idaho Statesman and ProPublica reported in 2023 how the bond requirement, combined with the Legislature’s reluctance to invest in school facilities, has forced students to attend schools with faulty heating systems, leaking roofs and broken plumbing. Idaho has long ranked last or near last among states in education spending per pupil.

Much of the new money from the funding bill is being distributed based on the number of students attending school in each district — a big problem for smaller and more rural schools. An analysis by ProPublica and the Idaho Statesman shows that most of the state’s school districts will get less money than it would take to build a new school. Around 40% of the districts will receive $2 million or less, which some administrators said wouldn’t be enough to cover their biggest repairs.

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — Help could be on the way for school construction projects in Virginia.

“Localities all across Virginia have asked for additional tools to start to solve their own problems,” Senator Jeremy McPike (D-Prince William) told 8News. 

McPike has introduced a bill that would allow localities to charge an additional 1% sales tax with the money going toward school construction and renovation, but only if voters in that locality approve the increase through a referendum.

“That’s really the key,” McPike explained. “It’s the choice of the local voter. They know the infrastructure of their schools. Their kids go there.”

McPike’s bill comes after a 2021 report found that over half of Virginia’s schools were more than 50 years old. That same report found that the cost of replacing those schools would be nearly $25 billion.

“When kids roll into school every day they can see whether their community’s invested in their schools or not. We have leaky roofs. We have outdated technology all across Virginia,” McPike told 8News. 

Another step in the long process of building the new Kyrock Elementary has been completed with the purchase of 61 acres directly across from the current school, with construction being planned to begin in the early summer of this year.

According to the Edmonson County Board of Education, the tentative date for school to begin at the new building will be August of 2027.  Initial plans were to build next to the existing Kyrock Elementary, but the availability of the new site brought new options that the board deemed as better. The new Kyrock is slated to be built for a 550 student Pre-K through 6th grade facility.

According to School Superintendent Brian Alexander, the new land purchase will allow the current building to remain intact during the construction, and then repurposed after the school moves location.  The cost of demolishing the current Kyrock school would have been more than the cost of purchasing the new property, per required guidelines.

The property is the former farm of the Joe Don Patton family, which borders both Hwy 259 N and Black Gold Road.

“The Board and I would like to thank the Patton family for working with us on this property purchase," said Alexander. "It was important to Mr. Patton’s family (widow Sherry, and children Coty Patton and Verena Tracy) that this property be used for something meaningful to honor his memory. I think they’ve done that. Also, a huge thank you to Cindy Hudson McCombs, their realtor, for her diligence in making this purchase a reality."