MARLBORO COUNTY, S.C. (WMBF) - Multiple school districts in South Carolina will receive millions in funding to replace and renovate school facilities.

State Superintendent Molly Spearman and Marlboro County leaders will formally announce the allocation of $21 million to school districts in the Pee Dee on Wednesday.

Dillon County School District Four will receive $12 million in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding and $3 million in state funding to renovate and replace aging school facilities.

In April, the South Carolina Department of Education (SCDOE) commissioned a study of schools in the state’s poorest counties to help with deciding how much capital funding would go toward disadvantaged schools. The review found that schools in Dillon Four, especially five elementary schools, were in need of modification and renovation. The schools have an average age of 73 years old with the oldest being East Elementary School which is almost 100 years old.

WESTPORT — Armed with an adjustable $92.4 million 10-year capital plan, the Board of Education is ready to move forward on the first two years
This is year one.
The board voted 7-0 last week to ask the Board of Finance for $83,906 to fund projects in the 2022-23 school year.
The projects exclude a building envelope evaluation for Long Lots Elementary, which has already been evaluated, and Coleytown Middle which was recently renovated. That leaves four other elementary schools, Bedford Middle School and Staples High School, which would get comprehensive studies.
The projects on this year’s list are:
a security and accessibility evaluation of half the schools in town.
an in-depth evaluation of Coleytown Elementary to see if it can be renovated.
a modified mechanical evaluation at Saugatuck and Bedford.
 ancillary costs to wrap up the Coleytown Elementary School modular classroom project.
demolition of the modular classroom at Kings Highway.
HVAC work at Greens Farms and Kings Highway.
Supt. of Schools Thomas Scarice said there are few items on the list that board members have not seen before. The total requested is less than originally penciled into the 10-year forecast.
 

Over the last ten years, enrollment in the Anchorage School District has dropped by 5,000 students. Now, there are 18 schools in the district operating at less than 65% capacity. 

That enrollment decline is one of the big reasons why the district faces a budget gap of at least $68 million next year.

The district is considering closing some schools to help fill that gap. District chief financial officer Jim Anderson said the district could save between $2.5 and 3.5 million if it closed five elementary schools, depending on the schools and whether the district would need to add new bus routes.

But he knows it won’t be easy.

“Everywhere you go, everyone loves, adores, their neighborhood school,” he said. “It is a community center in many cases.”

Birth rates are declining all over Alaska, and fewer young couples are moving to Anchorage. As fewer young kids enter the school system, elementary schools shrink. But as those kids grow up, Anderson said, all schools will eventually feel the impact.

The devastation from Hurricane Ian has left schools shuttered indefinitely in parts of Florida, leaving storm-weary families anxious for word on when and how children can get back to classrooms.

As rescue and recovery operations continue in the storm’s aftermath, several school systems in hard-hit counties in southwestern Florida can’t say for sure when they’ll reopen. Some schools are without power and still assessing the damage, as well as the impact on staff members who may have lost homes or can’t return to work.

Shuttered schools can worsen the hurricane’s disruption for children. Recovery from natural disasters elsewhere suggests the effects on kids can be lasting, particularly in low-income communities that have a harder time bouncing back.

“In a week or two, we’ll have forgotten about Hurricane Ian. But these districts and schools and students will be struggling months and years later,” said Cassandra R. Davis, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina.

Legislators will begin taking a new look at an old dilemma Thursday: the question of paying for new school buildings.

A legislative “interim committee” will hold its first meeting to discuss school building construction issues. And the committee could be working on an aggressive timetable: The goal is to come up with some ideas by December — which could translate into bills for the 2023 legislative session that begins in January.

“Our intent is to make some progress in an area where we haven’t made some progress,” said Sen. Dave Lent, R-Idaho Falls, a co-chair of the 10-member House-Senate committee.

For years, not much has changed in the way Idaho builds schools.

The Legislature has long balked at putting state dollars into school buildings, passing on most of the cost to local property owners. Meanwhile, the Idaho Constitution makes it hard for school districts to bankroll buildings, requiring two-thirds voter support to pass a local bond issue.

Neither of those political realities have changed much over the years.

But political momentum could be building behind a change.

Since Idaho is sitting on a record budget surplus — and since legislators in September agreed to put an additional $330 million a year into K-12 — education lobbying groups have intensified their push for state funding of facilities.

Boston Public School parents and local education activists are increasingly worried about what they fear will be inevitable school closings and consolidations as enrollment continues to decline. From 2015 to today, the number of students educated by the BPS has dropped by 15%, from 54,000 students to 46,000.

Parents and school reform advocates said they want a master plan for the $2 billion in school building changes that Mayor Michelle Wu proposed in the spring as part of her Green New Deal for BPS. Some said a detailed blueprint would give children more educational stability and allow families to plan for changes, as well as ensure racial fairness. Others said urgent and comprehensive planning is a financial necessity in a city where enrollment is trending downward.

Brenda Ramsey, a Dorchester mother of two, doesn’t like the current uncertainty. Her youngest daughter attends the PA Shaw, a school that may — or may not — be on the chopping block. She already experienced the closure of the Mattahunt Elementary five years ago with her oldest daughter and isn’t eager to go through that again.

“I don't know if [district leaders] know what it's like to have to go through a shutdown,” Ramsey said. “It's traumatic for the students, it’s traumatic for the families.”

WASHINGTON — DC Public Schools gets a failing grade from some parents and teachers when it comes to keeping up with repairs to its aging school buildings. Now, one of D.C.'s Councilmembers says the district must do better.

Jennifer Fitzpatrick, a teacher at Langdon Elementary School in Ward 5, took her complaints about slow repairs to social media, tweeting at D.C.’s Mayor and the Chancellor of Public Schools: “My heart hurts for these kids and our staff that you have shown, through your lack of action, that you don’t care.”

One Langdon parent responded that her son’s classroom “hasn’t had lights or working AC since Sept. 6”.

At-Large DC Councilmember Robert White is Chair of the DC Council’s Committee on Facilities and Procurement which has worked to streamline and speed up work orders across the school district. Including a backlog of hundreds of broken security cameras district-wide.

Kentuck Elementary School Principal Christie Dawson has a few specific concerns about her building when it comes to safety.

One is that students must walk outside to get to the mobile classrooms and the gym. The second is that the pre-K classrooms are in the school’s basement and have only one entrance and exit — and those doors open directly to the outdoors.

Safety concerns in a society where school shootings have become less than rare are one of many reasons that the school division, with the full support of the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors, is again trying to pass a 1% sales tax referendum this fall.

And replacing mobile classrooms are high on the list. Currently the division has 26 mobile units at six elementary schools.

Many of the county’s schools, to include Kentuck, which was built in 1963, are in need of renovation and repair when it comes to basic systems, such as heating and air-conditioning, as well as adding classrooms and constructing safety vestibules.

One Portland middle school’s teachers recorded 100-degree temperatures and a 124-degree heat index in September.
Another middle school reached 90 degrees and 106 heat index. One Portland high school had a 95-degree interior and a 99-degree heat index.
Portland Association of Teachers vice president Jacque Dixon reported at a PPS board meeting on Sept. 6 that kids and staff had heat-related ailments this week, including a student who threw up until they passed out.
Dixon claimed most schools were 90 degrees. Portland isn’t alone. It’s not new.
 

The Anchorage School District is facing an important decision: how to spend roughly $100 million in one-time funds from the state while it contends with a significant budget deficit and the continued fallout from a failed school bond earlier this year.

“Everybody wants a piece of the pie,” School Board President Margo Bellamy said Wednesday.

The influx of cash is available to ASD at a moment when the district faces a $68 million budget deficit in the following budget cycle and persistent capital needs after the failure of this year’s bond — a roughly $112 million measure that was narrowly voted down and would have replaced school roofs, added secure entrances to elementary schools and rebuilt one school entirely.

Lee County schools took a major hit from Hurricane Ian along with the rest of the SWFL area.

Superintendent of schools Dr. Christopher Bernier says many of the district's school buildings have water intrusion and structural damage. He will be touring them in coming days to assess the damage.

It's going to take weeks to get the schools reopened, he says, and some schools may require a complete rebuild. He would hope to help feed the school communities but at the moment they have no power and water to operate the kitchens, and of course the storm affected school district staff, who suffered terrible losses in the storm.

Here is the transcript of our conversation:

PRESS RELEASE - Hampton, S.C. - State Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman today announced the allocation of $52 million in state funding to Hampton County School District to assist in the renovation and replacement of antiquated existing school facilities with safe, modern facilities to accommodate current and future county enrollment trends. The funding is part of the $140 million under Proviso 1.92 of the General Appropriations Bill for Fiscal Year 2022-2023.

In April of 2022, the SCDE commissioned independent facility studies of schools in the state’s poorest counties to aid in decision making for capital funding appropriated by the General Assembly for disadvantaged schools. Hampton County is composed of ten separate schools and a career and technology center. Current enrollment of the county-wide district is approximately 2,455 students.

New Hanover County Schools is under investigation by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights for allegedly failing to provide adequate facilities at New Hanover High School – but decrepit facilities are a trend across the nation, experts say. 

Originally built in the early 1920s, New Hanover High School over the decades received significant wear and tear with renovations and repairs not keeping pace, one parent alleged in a complaint to the Office for Civil Rights, especially in the wake of a 2014 school bond. The complaint alleged the district was discriminating against Black and Hispanic students because New Hanover has a majority Black and Hispanic student body, while the district's other high schools -- Laney, Hoggard and Ashley -- have majority white student bodies. Hoggard and Laney both received more funding from the 2014 bond to renovate some academic facilities and build new gymnasiums.

The Worcester County Board of Education unanimously approved several capital improvements projects last week, along with a $142.5 million capital improvement plan (CIP) for FY24.

The CIP is a six-year strategic plan that identifies capital improvement needs across the district, while attaching to each project a timeline and a budget.

The district’s CIP includes planning and designing requests for Buckingham Elementary School and a design funding request to replace the roof at Snow Hill Middle School/Cedar Chapel Special School.

The plan does not include any construction funding requests.

The district in January finished work on a new roof at Pocomoke Middle School and is now in the process of constructing a 24,800 square foot addition at Stephen Decatur Middle School.

According to district officials, work is proceeding on time and on budget for a December completion.

AUSTIN (KXAN) — If your child is going to a school in the Austin metro, their campus may be generating power for your home. A new report published by the nonprofit Generation 180 found schools in the Austin metro are using more solar power than all other Texas school districts combined.
Schools in the state are in general lagging behind. About 8,409 K-12 schools in the United States use solar power, either through their own generation or by opting to use solar power through their local utility. Only 139 of those schools are in Texas. Seventy-two of which are in Central Texas.
This is according the 2022 Brighter Future report published by Generation 180 earlier this month. The report, published every two years, tracks the usage of solar power and green initiatives in school districts. Since they began reporting in 2015, the usage of solar has tripled in school districts.
Over the past year, Texas schools generated 12,399kW of solar power. California schools, which topped the list, generated 703,507kW of power.
“We’re finding schools across the country in all settings going solar. schools in rural areas and urban areas, large school districts, small school districts,” said Tish Tablan, the author of the report. “I was surprised to see that nearly half of the public schools with solar in the country are serving low-income students.”
Fifty-two schools in the Austin metro use solar power.
 

WESTFIELD — The Baker-Polito Administration today awarded $24 million in Skills Capital Grants to 14 different high schools. Each school received awards between $1 million and $2.5 million, which will enable the schools to modernize labs and significantly expand student enrollment in programs that provide career education.

Governor Charlie Baker, Lt. Governor Karyn Polito and Education Secretary James Peyser visited Westfield Technical Academy to make the announcement and visit with students exploring advanced manufacturing and culinary arts programs. The high school received more than $1 million to modernize its advanced manufacturing and electrical instructional labs. The school will also launch a Career Technical Initiative program, supported by this funding.

The high schools receiving grants will make strategic investments over the next two years to grow their career education programs to provide more learning opportunities for both traditional high school students and adult learners, with several schools expanding their Career Technical Initiative (CTI) programs to offer more learning opportunities in the late-afternoon and evening. Over the next 5 years, today’s grant awards will directly impact approximately 10,000 students across 38 different programs.

The funding for this round of grants was included in An Act Relative to Immediate Covid-19 Recovery Needs, passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor, which included $100 million in state resources to provide capital improvement grants to vocational high schools and public schools operating career and technical education programs.

Next to a bee yard, a field of horses and a solar farm rests Trinity School, Canyon Creek’s elementary school, located northwest of Helena.
Students from every grade are outside on the playground for a physical education class together surrounded by mountains, hills and quiet Montana charm. 
Jennifer Kueber teaches second and third grade and has 11 students in her classroom. She’s been at Trinity School for 14 years and is now the supervising teacher.
“I was interested in a small school. I had taught multi-age grades before. I started when my daughter started kindergarten (at Trinity School) because I stayed with them when my kids were little,” said Kueber. “...I just like the country feel and you get to have the kids for so many years that you become part of their family. You love them.”
Kueber said Trinity School is the “oldest continually run school” in Montana and has been in operation since 1893. Today, the school is the biggest it has ever been physically and in enrollment size.

The RI Attorney General’s office announced Tuesday that three Rhode Island-based drywall installation contractors have been arraigned in Providence Superior Court on felony and misdemeanor charges following an investigation by the Attorney General and the Department of Labor and Training into allegations that they stole more than $64,000 in wages from 14 workers during the construction and renovation of RISE Prep Mayoral Academy in Woonsocket in 2018 and 2019.
In total, four contractors have been charged with wage theft and related charges stemming from an investigation into alleged wage theft during the construction and renovation of RISE Prep. Earlier this year, an East Providence contractor was charged with stealing over $93,000 in wages from workers employed at the RISE Prep construction site.

Historic heat waves across the United States thwarted the start of the 2022-23 school year, forcing schools to shut down, pivot to remote learning, or dismiss students early in the day.
2022 marked the nation’s third-hottest summer on record, with several states seeing record-breaking temperatures stretch into September. Schools across the country—in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland, Denver, and San Diego, among others—closed due to excessive heat. In Columbus, Ohio, teachers went on strike demanding air conditioning in classrooms.
Experts say all of that is a foreboding harbinger of what’s to come.
As climate change accelerates, temperatures will continue to rise well into the school year, including in regions that aren’t used to hot weather. Many schools don’t have air conditioning units that are equipped to cope with sweltering heat. And a body of research shows that hot classrooms are detrimental to student learning.
“Schools are not prepared for the extreme heat, and we need to change that now,” said Jonathan Klein, the co-founder of UndauntedK-12, a national nonprofit supporting climate action in public schools that tracks school closures due to heat and other extreme weather.
It’s also an equity issue, he said: “Our most vulnerable students are the most vulnerable to extreme heat.”
How does heat affect student learning and well-being? How well are schools prepared for the longer, hotter summers to come? Here’s what you need to know.
 

CEDAR RAPIDS — A community-led “vote yes” committee was “vital” in getting taxpayer approval for a $15.7 million general obligation bond in Anamosa to build a new competition gym for the school district, Anamosa school Superintendent Darren Hanna said.
“You would feel less positive about your project if there weren’t a group of people excited about it and willing to spend time promoting it,” he said.
The bond issue passed with almost 70 percent approval earlier this month.
Cedar Rapids leaders are beginning to express interest in rallying support for a “yes” vote on a $312 million general obligation bond referendum the Cedar Rapids school district plans to put before voters, perhaps in March.
The bonds would pay for a new middle school, a new aquatics center and for renovations and updates to the district’s middle schools and high schools.
School board President David Tominsky said Friday that the submission of Superintendent Noreen Bush’s resignation last week will not affect the Secondary Facilities Master Plan or plans to put the bond issue on the ballot next year.
“All initiatives are moving forward, and community input is being gathered for the board to review at our upcoming Oct. 24 working session,” he said.
Bush, who is on medical leave, is resigning at the end of the school year.
Bonds in Iowa
In Iowa, school bond issues — basically, loans that schools take out, typically for 10, 15 or 20 years — require a supermajority of 60 percent to pass. In passing bond issues, voters agree to repay the loan, with interest, through their property taxes.