Some of Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools' facilities are in need of repair or replacement, as the CHCCS Finance and Facilities Committee discussed at its Sept. 13 meeting.

Rani Dasi, the CHCCS Board of Education vice chair, presented the findings of the Capital Needs Work Group, which was founded in 2021 and is composed of representatives from Orange County, Orange County Schools and CHCCS.

The work group’s goal is to develop a plan for dedicating funds and addressing the needs of school facilities, especially older ones.

The work group found that more than half of the schools in the county are over 50 years old, and many are in need of major repairs or total reconstruction.

The aging school buildings are expensive to maintain and can provide poor learning environments for children, the work group's presentation said. 

“The latest thinking is that there's somewhere upwards of half a billion dollars that will be necessary to invest between the school districts in bringing those school buildings up to current standards,” Dasi said.

The work group also found that there are currently no standards or funding for ongoing school maintenance, and that policies have not been developed for allocating money for these needs.

Stafford County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Thomas Taylor proposed a 10-year, $1.6 billion Capital Improvement Plan during the September 13 Stafford County School Board meeting.
Of this, 75 percent is dedicated to new school construction or the reconstruction of existing aging school buildings over the next 10 years.
“Per capita, Stafford is the second fastest growing community in Virginia. This year alone, we gained more than 600 new students – the equivalent of an entire elementary school – but we have not built a new school since 2008,” said Dr. Taylor. “We are not keeping up, and we are not providing our students and staff with the learning and working environments they deserve.”
The school system projects an increase of 6,000 students in the next 10 years, calling for a minimum of six new buildings to simply meet the projected capacity requirements.
The plan recommends building three new elementary schools, one new middle school, two new high schools, and one public day school. The program specifies the rebuilding of 4 elementary schools – Falmouth, Grafton Village, Ferry Farm, and Stafford Elementary Schools, as well as the Rising Star Early Childhood Education Center and Edward E. Drew Middle School. Each of these buildings will have exceeded their 60-year life expectancy by the time any approved rebuild begins.
 

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WAFF) - The Madison County Board of Education met Tuesday to discuss the possibility of adding two new schools to the district.

During the meeting, the Madison County Board of Education approved a $196 million capital budget plan and a $250 million budget for the 2022-2023 school year.

Two future schools are listed on the capital budget plan. The schools could be built as soon as 2024 or 2025, but a school spokesperson said Wednesday that even if construction was starting right away, it would be late 2026 or even 2027 by the time the schools are ready to house students.

One of the future schools will be built on McKee Rd. in Toney, and the other will be built somewhere in Hazel Green. District leaders don’t have a specific spot picked out for the Hazel Green school. A district spokesman said it’s too early to know what grades the schools will house. District leaders said the growth in the area warrants the new buildings.

CENTRAL FALLS – With unanimous approval from both the School District and City Council, Central Falls will move forward to present a 10-year plan to construct two new schools and renovate multiple existing buildings, to the state.

The School District and City Council approved a proposal for the Rhode Island Department of Education on Sept. 7 and 12, respectively. The proposal includes plans for construction of a new high school, a new dual language pre-k to eighth grade school, and renovation of three existing elementary schools – Dr. Earl F. Calcutt Middle School, Veterans Memorial elementary School and Ella Risk Elementary School – over the next decade.

Sam Bradner and Erica Schechter with the Peregrine Group, and Jim Jordan from Ai3 architects, led the presentation to the City Council Monday evening. The proposal highlights the construction of a $110 million high school at the site of the city-owned Higginson Avenue/Francis Corrigan Sports Complex, located at the corner of Lonsdale and Higginson Avenue.

The vision for the leading high school design is to create “a focal point, home, and identity for the Central Falls School District.” One half of the new high school will include all of the academic wing. The other half of the building would incorporate the existing athletic facilities, and new arts facilities.

The first five years will prioritize construction of the new high school serving approximately 750 students, followed by conversion of the existing high school facility. After students and teachers move out of the current high school on Summer Street, the building will be turned into a dual language school for an additional $60 million – totaling approximately $170 million for the two schools.

“What we’re trying to do is get students out of the existing high school as quickly as possible so that building can come down, and that construction can start,” Bradner told the City Council Monday night.

Connecticut public schools will receive $150 million in state funding to repair and upgrade aging heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems, Gov. Ned Lamont announced Wednesday.
The newly formed Connecticut Public Schools HVAC/Indoor Air Quality Grant Program will supplement $165 million in federal COVID relief funds that school districts have set aside to improve air quality.
“COVID woke me up,” Lamont said at a press conference at Phillip R. Smith Elementary School in South Windsor. “Every teacher, every parent was saying, ‘Tell me about the ventilation of my schools. Can I get back to my school safely?’ And it just reinforced in my mind how important it is to make sure you have schools that are safe across the board from a public health point of view.”
State Sen. Saud Anwar, a pulmonary doctor, said that 10% of Connecticut’s teacher and student population has asthma and those respiratory problems are made worse by allergens, inadequate airflow and extreme temperatures.
 

“It’s bad.”
With those words, St. Mary’s public schools’ Director of Maintenance Steve Whidden told the school board about the lack of parts for various school maintenance projects.
The delays in completing such projects have gone from an average of 66 days to 98 days since 2020, he said. Ten years ago, it was 29 days.
In addition, a lack in finding available contractors has also impacted the school system.
“We’re having a hard time getting contractors to respond except for a couple local ones,” he said.
Whidden added that he’s had to pull staff from other assignments to “babysit” projects, such as heating and air conditioning repairs, until all of the necessary parts come in.
“I’ve never had this much problem finding someone who was qualified and would accept what we were offering,” he said.
Board member Jim Davis asked Whidden if he had thought about using students from the school system’s Dr. James A. Forrest Career and Technology Center.
“We’ve been talking about that,” Whidden said, noting students could possibly be used as part-time hourly employees in an internship.
The board voted 5-0 to approve Whidden’s proposed 2022 comprehensive maintenance plan.
Kim Howe, director of capital planning, presented the five-year capital improvement plan, which the board approved 4-0 after Vice Chair Cathy Allen had to leave.
Howe noted that the school system has a 51.25% Facility Condition Index compared to the state average of 47%. This means St. Mary’s public schools have more need in regard to facilities than the statewide average, she said.
“It’s a very heavy lift locally to get these jobs done,” Superintendent Scott Smith said.
 

NORTH OLMSTED, Ohio -- City Council recently approved a partnership with Leopardo Energy that will result in an energy efficiency upgrade for aging infrastructure.
“When it was brought to our attention that we could utilize a program like this, I thought it was an opportunity to make improvements to our city buildings and infrastructure that we otherwise wouldn’t be able to,” North Olmsted Mayor Nicole Dailey Jones said.
“I like the fact that it would increase our energy efficiency in the city and bring some jobs here to get the work done. Those are all good things.”
North Olmsted Director of Economic and Community Development Max Upton said Leopardo Energy, a recognized leader in sustainable building practices and early champion of the green construction movement in the Midwest, is currently conducting an energy audit, which evaluates ways the city can save money by reducing energy consumption.
 

NEW ZION, S.C. (WIS) - On Wednesday the South Carolina Department of Education announced more than $80 million in state funds will be going toward two rural counties to help upgrade aging infrastructure.
Clarendon County School District and Lee County School District will each receive $42 million.
The funds are part of $140 million set aside in this year’s budget to renovate what the State Department of Education deems “disadvantaged schools.” Some federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds are also included in this allocation.
Spearman said this is a historic day for South Carolina, and particularly for Clarendon County schools.
Clarendon County previously had three school districts, which have been consolidated into one district for the 2022-2023 school year.
More than $3 million in state funds went to the county to complete the consolidation.
According to Spearman, they were often competing for resources and personnel.
 

Following the disclosure of a federal investigation into Connecticut’s school construction program this spring, state officials vowed to restore trust in the system by reviewing four years’ worth of state-funded building projects.
Yet despite repeated promises from members of Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration to promptly deliver those audit results, nothing has been shared with state lawmakers or the public.
And state officials now say the team of independent auditors that was hired in March won’t be finished with its work until June 2023 — delaying any insight into the multibillion-dollar program that local districts rely on to finance school construction and renovation.
Kevin Kelly, the Republican minority leader in the Senate, said he was deeply frustrated at the lack of communication from state officials, after they committed to transparency.
“We don’t even get a status report,” he said. “They just clam up on us.”
Federal investigators first subpoenaed the state for records related to the school construction program in October 2021, and they focused their requests on several contractors and Konstantinos Diamantis, who led the school building program for more than six years prior to his exit from state government last fall.
The investigators followed up that initial request this spring by demanding records from at least four municipalities that undertook school construction projects in recent years.
Nobody has been charged to this point as part of the federal investigation. But when news of the criminal probe broke in February, several school superintendents and local elected officials came forward to announce that they felt pressured to choose specific construction contractors for their school building projects.
 

Lending an ear, being patient with kids’ emotions, and ensuring kids don’t feel they’re at fault: Offering support like that will help children cope with school closures, according to Jeffco parents who have already been through them. 
“I was trying to let him know, ‘we know you don’t like change but this new school is going to become home,’” Jamie Camp said she told her third grader as his school, Fitzmorris Elementary, faced closure in spring 2021 and he would have to move to a new school. “Be patient. They’re going to lash out. Our son did. That’s just them trying to process.”
The Jeffco school district is preparing to help thousands of students say goodbye to their elementary schools at the end of this school year. The board in November is expected to approve a recommendation to close 16 schools, nearly one in five of its elementaries.
In the past two years, the district suddenly closed two small elementary schools that leaders said were no longer sustainable. Now, in a more comprehensive plan, district leaders want to provide more advance notice as they reduce the number of small schools. 
Chalkbeat talked to parents of children who attended the two previously closed schools about what worked, what didn’t work, and what advice they had for families facing closures now. Below read their thoughts, and answers to questions on parents’ minds. 
Why does the district close schools?
Jeffco, like many other districts, has had fewer and fewer students for many years. That has left many schools with very few students. School districts, and in turn schools, get state funding based on enrollment. Most of the schools recommended for closure have either fewer than 220 students or use less than 45% of their building’s space. The district says it provides these schools more money than their per-student allocation, but they still can’t offer the same programs that bigger schools with more students can afford. 

Following the disclosure of a federal investigation into Connecticut’s school construction program this spring, state officials vowed to restore trust in the system by reviewing four years’ worth of state-funded building projects.
Yet despite repeated promises from members of Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration to promptly deliver those audit results, nothing has been shared with state lawmakers or the public.
And state officials now say the team of independent auditors that was hired in March won’t be finished with its work until June 2023 — delaying any insight into the multibillion-dollar program that local districts rely on to finance school construction and renovation.
Kevin Kelly, the Republican minority leader in the Senate, said he was deeply frustrated at the lack of communication from state officials, after they committed to transparency.

Although the majority of Maryland’s public school buildings are adequate for educational use, some still have problems with deteriorated roads and walkways, fire and safety systems and interior lighting.

That’s the finding of The Interagency Commission on School Construction, which approved the final draft of a fiscal year 2022 maintenance report this month.

The report assessed 265 schools that were chosen based on their being unevaluated for the last six fiscal years, being at least three years old or, or never being reviewed. There are more than 1,360 active public schools statewide.

About 189 schools were rated as adequate which is defined as “maintenance is sufficient to achieve the life of each system within the facility and, with appropriate capital spending and renewal, the total expected lifespan.”

Twenty-two schools received a “good” rating for buildings that will likely extend beyond the life of expectancy. A “superior” rating was elusive in 2022.

Approximately 52 schools from the report were classified as “not adequate.” Two schools — one each in Allegany and Prince George’s counties — were classified as poor, which means those buildings show evidence of significant or extensive corrosion or leaks, inconsistent custodial or maintenance practices, or extensive repairs or replacement needed.

As part of a larger project to address overcrowding in some of New Jersey’s poorest school districts, state officials approved two new schools in Newark, a district that’s dealt with rundown buildings for decades. 

The Schools Development Authority (SDA) granted two new pre-K through eighth grade schools in Newark, along with 14 other projects across the state, according to a press release issued by the agency last Thursday. The project is part of the SDA’s 2022 Capital Plan, which includes 16 projects that will address overcrowding and infrastructure needs.

“The Board’s approval of these projects, identified in the SDA’s Statewide Strategic Plan as priority projects, will significantly reduce District-wide overcrowding and facility deficiencies that impact thousands of students statewide,” said SDA chairman Robert Nixon. “These projects will deliver thousands of new or replacement student seats in state-of-the-art facilities that will foster learning and student achievement.” 

The average Newark school building was built more than 90 years ago, more than twice the national average, with many suffering from leaky roofs, outdated boilers, and dilapidated restrooms. Rundown buildings can dampen students’ enthusiasm for school and, in some cases, impair their learning. 

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KEVN) - The Rapid City Area Schools district had to close some of its school doors last week due to high temperatures making it dangerous for some students to be in the building. This raised some eyebrows and brought into question faults in various school buildings in the district.

While the age of several different school buildings in the RCAS district started to show last week, the lack of air conditioning in the buildings was the cherry on top for the community. Plenty of members from the area shared their thoughts on social media on what they thought about the situation.

But as easy as it would be to recommend the installation of an HVAC system to solve the A/C problem, school officials say this is not the case. The district must first carefully inspect the building thoroughly before even considering the allocations of resources.

“You can be looking at several hundreds of thousands of dollars to several millions of dollars just depending on the footprint of the building. Again, what type of system the building currently has and whether or not a system could be retrofitted to fit into that current system,” said RCAS Director of Business and Support Services Coy Sasse.

At least 13 California school districts in six counties have closed schools this week because they are either in the path of a wildfire or smoke from a fire has made it unhealthy to hold classes.

 The school closures have impacted more than 90,500 students in 119 schools, according to Tim Taylor, executive director of the Small School District Association.

Seven of those districts are in Riverside County where the Fairview Fire has burned more than 27,000 acres and is only 5% contained.

Two school districts – Temecula Valley Unified and Hemet Unified – are threatened by the fire, while Nuview Union School District, Romoland Elementary School District, Menifee Union School District, Paris Elementary School District and Paris Union High School District are closed because of poor air quality, according to Kindra Britt, director of Communications for the California County Superintendents Educational Services Association.

The Riverside County closures are impacting 66,239 students at 106 schools, Britt said.

To make matters worse, parts of the county may be subject to public power shutoffs because of  Tropical Storm Kay, which is expected to move into the area today. The storm could bring heavy rains, high winds and the possibility of flash floods.

School leaders also are concerned that the heavy rain, following a fire, may cause mudslides, Britt said.

School buildings across America are crumbling. According to a 2020 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), 54 percent of U.S. school districts need to update or completely replace multiple building systems in their schools.1 This crisis has only deepened during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as in the face of record-breaking extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change.

Historically, public schools have been excluded from federal infrastructure legislation,2 despite representing the nation’s second-largest infrastructure sector.3 In one recent example—although funds from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) may be used to upgrade school facilities—the president’s requested $100 billion specifically designated for this purpose did not make it into the final version of the IIJA.4 So, while funds from the IIJA and the American Rescue Plan (ARP) are being used in part to improve school facilities—particularly for efforts related to school air quality, school buses, and energy efficiency—it is noticeably less than the outstanding needs.

As a result of decades of underfunding school infrastructure, national spending for K-12 school buildings falls short by an estimated $85 billion annually, as reported by a 2021 analysis from the 21st Century School Fund. Over the next decade, it would cost an estimated $1.1 trillion to modernize and replace obsolete school buildings and systems.5

Ten new school buildings opened across the city today, with four of them in Queens.

A new 646-seat middle school opened in East Elmhurst, with school buildings added to Francis Lewis High School in Fresh Meadows, P.S. 131 in Jamaica, and P.S. 196 in College Point. There were two school buildings added in Brooklyn, two in Staten Island, one in Manhattan and one in the Bronx.

The new middle school in Queens is located at 111-12 Astoria Boulevard in East Elmhurst and has been named the Tommie L. Agee Educational Campus, I.S. 419, in honor of the Mets ballplayer.

The school building is five stories tall and includes 18 standard classrooms and two special education classrooms, as well as reading and speech resource rooms. The school also includes a District 75 program, which contains eight additional classrooms for students.

The school serves students from grades 6 to 8 and aims to help alleviate overcrowding in the district.

Meanwhile, a 555-seat 3-story annex has been added to Francis Lewis High School located at 174-25 59th Ave. The annex includes 18 standard classrooms for grades 9-12, a culinary arts kitchen/dining classroom, science lab with an adjacent science prep room and a greenhouse.

The School Construction Authority also opened a 384 seat, 3-story addition at P.S. 131 in Jamaica. The facility provides 15 standard classrooms and two special education classrooms for Pre-K-5. The addition also includes an art classroom, music classroom and dance studio.

A 250-seat addition has opened at P.S. 196 in College Point that provides 13 standard classrooms and one special education classroom for grades Pre-K-5.

The SCA also opened a high school building in Queens earlier this year—the 969-seat Academy of America Studies in Long Island City.

During Tuesday night’s meeting of the Stanly County Board of Education, board member Dr. Rufus Lefler, who sits on the board’s facilities committee, reported on items discussed at the committee’s Aug. 30 meeting, which centered on the physical condition of the county’s four high schools.
“Most of the high schools were built in 1962,” Lefler stated, “and most of them are nearly falling down.”
Lefler went on to state that the meeting included extensive discussion on needed repairs at the facilities.
He also noted that meetings with the Stanly County commissioners are planned over the next several months “so we can give them our long-term plan for the high schools.”
“Now, there are not labs or CTE (Career and Technical Education) offerings at all schools,” Lefler added, noting that the committee planned to address facility needs at the high schools initially.
“We would work down from there to the middle and elementary schools,” he said.
 

As Española school buildings age, members of the Española School Board will need to make difficult decisions about what to repair or rebuild entirely, according to the state authority that doles out funds for school facility projects. 

At a special school board meeting last Wednesday, members deliberated the status of several district schools and heard a presentation from the New Mexico Public School Facilities Authority which serves as staff for the Public School Capital Outlay Council, the group that manages funding allocations for capital projects at schools requiring repairs and remodels.

School and state officials say decisions surrounding which buildings to address are further complicated by a 2018 legislation that changed the formula for how the state allocates project funding for districts. The local match for Española Public Schools is now 80 percent for projects deemed eligible for funds, a roughly 40 percent increase from before according to the authority.

“There’s absolutely no logical way that districts like ours would be able to do that,” Board President Jeremy Maestas said of the 80 percent match during the meeting.

Public School Facilities Authority executive director Martica Casias said eight other school districts will be presenting to the Public School Capital Outlay Oversight Task Force, which oversees the work of the council and the authority on September 20 to make a case for reconsidering the 2018 formula. 

Some districts are on the hook for over 90 percent of costs for capital projects, according to the authority, and not making funding requests for needed projects as a  result.

Ten Cleveland Metropolitan School District schools closed temporarily last week and shifted to remote learning due to high temperatures outside. All of those buildings have either no air conditioning, or only in parts of the building.

CMSD CEO Eric Gordon says the school district is looking to address the issue by using American Rescue Plan Act funding to buy portable air conditioning units for those buildings. He says it won’t be a quick or cheap fix, considering some buildings will need electrical rewiring to support powering those units.

The other fix could involve complete rebuilding or renovation of those buildings in the coming years, but that will be dependent on funding. Gordon said he was “very thankful” the school district did not have to use a “calamity day” this week, and instead could just move to remote learning because each student in the district has been provided with a computer.

But CMSD isn’t alone in dealing with high temperatures in the classroom. Every year, schools in Cleveland and across the country must either close or move to remote learning due to high temperatures making it difficult to learn.

More than a third of public schools in the U.S. reported having a fair or poor heating, cooling or ventilation system, according to a 2012-2013 report on school conditions from the National Center for Education Statistics. And the hotter it is in a classroom, the less students learn overall, and the worse people perform mentally in general.