To pay for schools, Gov. Jared Polis is proposing cuts to a fund that builds schools.

Why it matters: The rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul scenario reflects the difficult task ahead of balancing a $40 billion budget with a $1 billion shortfall.

How it works: Building Excellent Schools Today (BEST) is a high-profile program that distributes competitive grants to build new schools and upgrade existing ones, in large part with money from marijuana excise taxes.

The money typically covers improvements related to health and safety, including expensive security upgrades and improvements to the heating and air conditioning systems.
By the numbers: In the current fiscal year, the state issued $155.2 million in grants for 44 projects, part of the $3 billion-plus the fund has distributed since its creation in 2008, state records show.

Yes, but: The annual demand for money is much higher. This year, the applications totaled $659 million for 56 projects — well above the previous year's ask of $522 million.

So far the program has covered a mere fraction of the $20 billion in assessed need through fiscal year 2029, according to the Colorado Department of Education.
Between the lines: About three-quarters of the dollars to date went to rural districts. Another 27% went to urban schools, state statistics show.

District 112 will seek school board approval to advertise for bids on four maintenance projects at the board’s Feb. 23 meeting, with anticipated costs expected to be slightly less than $1 million.
Three of the projects involve original portions of the Chaska High School site, including reconstructing the tennis courts for approximately $438,000, resurfacing the track and field event area for approximately $120,000, and renovating parking lots for $264,000. A fourth project would be to renovate the District Education Center parking lot for approximately $120,000.
Pending the board approval, the district would choose contractors by March or April and construction would proceed during the summer months.
The projects are part of the first year in the district’s 10 year Alternative Facility Plan, which totals $26,852,962.
To fund the next three years of the plan, district officials are expected to ask for school board approval on a $10 million bond sale date in March, with the sale occurring in April.
The bond money would be used to pay for maintenance projects on current district facilities over the 2013-15 fiscal years. Significant items in those years include nearly $1.5 million to replace roof sections at Bluff Creek Elementary, Chaska High School and Chaska Middle School East and approximately $250,000 to renovate the District Education center HVAC system.
The bond’s net tax impact on a $250,000 home would be an additional $10 per year.
 

Following a slew of national natural disasters—most recently the Southern California wildfires and the historic winter storm that hit Southern states—interest in durable and sustainable architectural designs resurged.
Leading the pack, passive house designs have existed for decades and are gaining popularity again, as their construction can help mitigate damages when disaster strikes.
Just recently, a house in Pacific Palisades, CA, which was built in 2024, survived while neighboring homes burned down in the devastating wildfires. The house on Iliff Street was the “single one” to remain "intact,” Mansion Global reported, thanks to its specific features, many of which follow the principles of passive home design.
Now, the first passive house-certified school in New York has opened, and it may just be a sign of things to come.
 

FALLBROOK – La Paloma teachers, staff, and local UC Master Gardeners came together to set up 16 corrugated metal raised garden beds on the campus of La Paloma Elementary School, along with the forming Fallbrook Ranch Lions Club, Saturday, Jan. 18.

The garden beds will be used in a school gardening program for La Paloma K-6 students where they will learn to grow and care for various vegetables, native plants, and a butterfly garden.

La Paloma Assistant Principal Bridgid Murray put in a request for a school garden consultant with the Master Gardener Association of San Diego County in hopes to revitalize a garden area on campus that needed upkeep after a face lift in 2018-2019.

The drip system that was in place had also stopped working, requiring watering to be done by hand. And when the pandemic hit, all work on the garden stopped. Master Gardener consultant and Fallbrook resident Sharon Zornes sponsored the garden project and put in a request for a $500 grant to help purchase materials and tools for the garden, which was granted.

Fallbrook Union Elementary School District provided mulch for the garden area, along with a flatbed trailer to haul away weeds and the old wooden garden beds. La Paloma Principal Aimee Plette was able to secure $1,500 of Enriched Learning Opportunities funds to purchase the new beds, hoses, gardening gloves, and watering cans.

Some Wyoming lawmakers are pushing for a constitutional amendment that, if approved by voters, would change the way the construction of new schools across the state is funded.
Senate Joint Resolution 6, “School capital construction-constitutional amendment,” was approved by the Senate Education Committee this week on a 3-2 vote and placed on the Senate’s general file. On Thursday, the resolution passed the Senate Committee of the Whole.
The proposed amendment puts the cost of school capital construction back on local communities, as opposed to the state, overturning a state Supreme Court decision.
Sponsored by Sen. Charles Scott, R-Casper, the bill has several co-sponsors, including Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette. If it passes the Senate and the House and is signed by the governor, it will go on the general election ballot in 2026 to be decided on by Wyoming voters.
Scott explained that the “old system” has stopped working. It had been funded by money the state was getting from federal coal lease bonuses, but those have stopped.
“We’re afraid it will hurt our ability to fund the operations of the schools,” Scott said Monday. “For those reasons, we’re looking for an entirely different system.”
 

Guam Education Board members are now weighing the recommendations of Education Superintendent Erik Swanson on which schools needed to be consolidated and closed or decommissioned, and a decision could come as early as Feb. 18.
“We have accepted the recommendation report from the superintendent and it is now up to the board to make a decision on each of those recommendations,” GEB Chairman Angel Sablan told the Pacific Daily News.
Members of the board, representatives from the Guam Department of Education and school officials met in a recent work session to discuss the superintendent’s recommendations, including potential school consolidations and redistricting plans.
One key proposal involves consolidating schools such as Chief Brodie Memorial Elementary School and Juan M. Guerrero Elementary School, which could save the district about $1.9 million, according to Deputy Superintendent Wade Paul.
Similarly, merging Marcial Sablan and Harry S. Truman Elementary could result in $2.8 million in savings, Paul said.
During the work session, the board emphasized the need for transparency and community engagement, with plans to revisit the issue in February or March.
The discussion also touched on the potential use of vacant schools for revenue generation and the importance of balancing school enrollments.
However, concerns were raised during Wednesday’s board meeting about the impact on enrollment, support staff, and the broader community.
 

The Los Angeles school district will set aside $2.2 billion to repair or rebuild three fire-damaged schools and to make all campuses more “natural disaster resilient.”
L.A. schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho on Tuesday also announced that new health and safety evaluations are being undertaken at two smoke-damaged campuses near the burn scar of last month’s Pacific Palisades fire. Parents at Canyon Charter Elementary and Revere Charter Middle School had expressed concerns over whether these recently reopened campuses were safe.
Attendance at both schools has been below normal, especially at Canyon, where some parents have left the school or said they intend to.
In a related development, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass issued an emergency directive that could help the already distressed child-care sector in the wake of the recent fires. Displaced day cares would be allowed to reopen anywhere in the city and operate at higher capacity.
Anticipating Future Disasters
It didn’t take long for the Los Angeles Unified School District to plan for drawing down a huge chunk of $9 billion in school construction and modernization bonds that voters approved in November.
 

As Portland Public Schools tries to curb its sky-high school modernization costs, district officials asked School Board members where they’d be willing to make cuts for upcoming projects at Cleveland, Ida B. Wells and Jefferson high schools.

Those three high schools are on the docket for modernizations from the district’s upcoming $1.83 billion schools bond in the May 2025 election. They were also slated to be some of the nation’s most expensive new schools before the board asked planning committees to look for cost-saving measures in December.

On Tuesday, the School Board was finally presented with a long-awaited report from Cornerstone Management Group, whose findings were first reported in The Oregonian. The report compared five Portland rebuilds with nearby Beaverton, finding Portland spent much more than the neighboring district.

At a School Board meeting on Tuesday night, a district staff memo grouped cost-saving recommendations from the report into three broad categories: reducing building sizes and costly spaces, adjusting sustainability standards, and adjusting equity in contracting goals.

Reducing building size is the top priority for district Superintendent Dr. Kimberlee Armstrong. While Beaverton High School is being built at about 300,000 square feet, all three upcoming projects are slated for 320,000 square feet. “My recommendation is that we pursue a 300,000-square-foot-size high school that would save $24 million across three projects,” Armstrong said Tuesday.

“The hope was to be able to save upwards of $70 million or $80 million through this report and [with] all of these features that’s just not going to happen. So what are some small wins that we can get out of this?” she asked board members.

The board overseeing charter schools in West Virginia expressed hope that the state will get bang for its buck through dollars available for construction or improvements.
The West Virginia Professional Charter School Board is preparing for a recently-passed policy allowing charter schools to benefit from funding through the state School Building Authority. House Bill 227 passed during special session last year.
It added a line to state code to say: “A public charter school may, in its name and its sole discretion, submit application to the School Building Authority for funding for the purchase of a building to be used for public charter school purposes and for the cost of the project.”
Now charter schools have been applying for that funding.
“To my knowledge, all of West Virginia’s brick-and-mortar charter schools have submitted their applications for this grant opportunity,” said James Paul, executive director of the charter schools board, adding that representatives of the state School Building Authority have been making site visits to applicants.
Charter schools receive financial support from the state’s public education system and are given greater operational latitude in exchange for the possibility of losing their right to operate if they fail.
 

In an era where safety concerns have become an unavoidable reality, schools must prioritize robust and comprehensive emergency response plans. From natural disasters to security threats, these blueprints outline how schools and school districts will prevent and address situations that threaten school safety, such as violence, natural disasters, and medical emergencies.

Students and educators deserve clear protocols that safeguard their well-being in times of crisis. While about 90% of districts have an emergency response plan, too many schools remain underprepared, relying on outdated procedures or insufficient training that leave communities vulnerable.

It’s time for districts to reassess, invest in modern solutions, and implement proactive strategies that build resilience and confidence.

Tens of millions of dollars allocated to replace a dilapidated, 70-year-old campus serving students who live on a reservation near the Nevada-Idaho border was considered one of the biggest triumphs for tribal communities in the 2023 legislative session. 

But the building cost estimate quickly exceeded the original number — the Owyhee Combined School’s remote location makes the project more difficult than building in an urban area — and no companies placed bids for the project last August.

Despite facing a legal challenge over the school construction funding mechanism and a ticking clock to use the millions of dollars in state funds, district officials are trying again — and are optimistic that they’ll get back on track with a more scaled-back version of the project.  

On Thursday, the district received one bid from a Utah-based contractor, MGM Construction, that came in under the nearly $65 million that lawmakers appropriated to the Elko County School District through a 2023 bill, AB519, for the construction of the new Owyhee school. The school board is expected to vote on the bid at its Feb. 4 meeting. 

"It's exhausting," said tribal Chairman Brian Mason during a Friday phone interview. "I guess the easy part was actually getting a bill sponsored, voted on, passed and signed by the governor." 

The State Board of Education has amended Rule 160-5-4-.15 to ensure collaboration between local school systems and public safety experts during the design phase of new school facilities, a significant step to enhance the safety and security of public school facilities across the state, announced State School Superintendent Richard Woods.

Under the updated rule, local boards of education are required to consult with their municipal or county law enforcement or emergency management agencies when designing new facilities or structures intended to house or serve public school children. This proactive measure underscores the Georgia Department of Education’s commitment to creating safe, secure environments for Georgia’s students and educators.

“The safety of our students is our highest priority,” Superintendent Woods said. “By setting the expectation that all local school systems collaborate with law enforcement and emergency management professionals, we are taking an essential step toward ensuring that our schools are designed with safety in mind from the ground up.”

As he stood in the old Dean Street School building earlier this week, memories came flooding back for 88-year-old Bill Worthy.
“I started right here in this room in first grade,” he told a group of Wofford College students who were getting a tour of the building – the oldest public school structure in the city of Spartanburg and, before desegregation, one of several all-Black schools in the city.
Thanks to a $452,000 earmark approved by the state legislature, the building, now owned by the local chapter of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, will undergo a major renovation.
As chapter president Bernard Wheeler explained to the Wofford students, “We envision this as a center for the community. We want to promote youth programming.”
The opportunity to "secure the building" and solidify its future as a place for young people “is an honor,” Wheeler said. “We have the space, and we’re very fortunate. It’s something that we’re obligated to do.”
 

Many of Philadelphia’s schools are in terrible shape. The average public school building in the city is over 70 years old, and some are over 120 years old.

The state of disrepair, including a lack of air conditioning and incidents of untreated asbestos, mold, crumbling ceilings and flooded hallways, is well documented. In 2017, an assessment found that these buildings had US$4.5 billion in deferred maintenance needs. More recently, Superintendent Tony Watlington estimated that Philly’s school buildings need $7 billion to $9 billion for repairs and upgrades.

I am a scholar of school finance, with an emphasis on infrastructure. My colleague Camika Royal, who’s an expert on urban education and Philadelphia schools, and I wanted to figure out why the city’s school buildings are like this.

Using U.S. Census Bureau data from the National Center for Education Statistics on primary and secondary education finance – specifically data on total interest payments – we found that one key figure helps explain the dire state of the city’s school buildings:

From 1993 to 2021, when adjusted for year-over-year inflation, the School District of Philadelphia had to pay $3.6 billion in interest and fees to get the money it needed for its buildings and other purposes.

WESTLEY — For the first time in over 70 years, an elementary school in Central California could have consumable water. 
Grayson Elementary School in Stanislaus County was built in 1952. The school has never had suitable drinking water. 
In November 2024, the district noticed corroded pipes after a pipe break inside the school. 
"Back in the fall, we set out to sort of solve this drinking water problem at Grayson Elementary," said Dave Smith of the Patterson Joint Unified School District's administrative services.
That plan involved replacing all pipes inside the school that, up until that point, the district believed to be the original pipes. 
However, a recent discovery showed many of the pipes were replaced in 2013. 
"So our construction manager, while working with the utility company, found the drawings and then we were able to confirm that they had actually been installed," Smith said. 
The pipes are underground and have not been looked at yet. 
According to Smith, the water quality has been another issue for the school. The well water from the local housing authority was deemed undrinkable, but the housing authority has since announced it will create a second well with a filtration system. 
 

WASHINGTON — Parents, students and staff inside Lorraine H. Whitlock Elementary School say the newly renovated school has had issues with its heat for week.
Since then, temperatures outside have frequently dropped to the single digits. Parents tell WUSA9 the temperature inside the building some days has dropped to the 50s.  
"I think it's ridiculous. It's hard for them to concentrate. You have children sitting there with coats and hats and gloves. How are you supposed to operate like that," said Valerie Jackson, Whitlock Elementary School PTO President. 
Jackson says she reached out to DCPS when she first noticed the issue, but never got a response. 
This is the same school that just underwent a $45 million renovation and reopened to students in August 2024. Just a few months into the school year, students are having to bundle up inside the building. 
"Everything looks beautiful, but there's no heat and that's a problem. Why wasn't this resolved yet?" Jackson said. 
The Department of General Services (DGS) is responsible for all work orders and maintenance requests for DCPS buildings. According to their website, a work order to address heating issues for the entire school has been open since Jan. 8. 
WUSA9 reached out to DCPS early Wednesday morning. A spokesperson shared a letter that went out to Whitlock families that afternoon, after our inquiry. The letter states contractors have been out to the school and repairs are underway. According to the letter, heaters will also be distributed to make sure students are comfortable. 
 

In a joint October 2020 memo, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of General Services (DGS) and District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) announced that schools would receive robust ventilation, filtration and air quality monitoring support. Officials understood rightly that such measures were critical to safeguarding the health of students, school staff and the public at-large.

The State Board has heard concerns from constituents lately – from parents, students and educators – that school facilities’ air quality has been inadequate and uncomfortable. One parent, who wrote to city leaders late last year, relayed that her child’s school had gone without heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) for some time, and that filter usage in the school has been sporadic at best. Another shared that their 7-month-old contracted RSV (a serious respiratory virus to infants) via their daughter, who they suspect was exposed at school.

These accounts don’t necessarily evidence a District-wide, systemic issue with air quality in schools. But, they do raise questions the State Board is interested in answering: Do District schools have an air quality problem, and if they do, how can our city help them improve?

K-12 schools in major metropolitan areas continue struggling to find enough funds to inspect, repair and maintain their facilities in ways that keep them safe and reliable. But while these struggles require major funding and garner big headlines, big-city districts are hardly unique in facing these challenges. 
The nation’s rural K-12 districts also face uphill battles finding the financing to maintain facilities properly. Consider the case of one rural Nevada district. 
Nye County School District covers a sprawling 18,000-square-mile area. Its smallest schools are in far corners of the county as much as a four-hour drive from the Pahrump base, according to the Las Vegas Sun News. 
 

The Conewago Valley School District (CVSD) Board approved key measures for the proposed renovations and additions to Conewago Township Elementary School (CTE) during its recent meeting, setting maximum costs for the $37.6 million project while addressing longstanding infrastructure and accessibility issues.

The board approved the Act 34 booklet for the project and passed a resolution establishing a maximum project cost of $37,639,253, with an Act 34 maximum building construction cost of $16,118,207. This step satisfied a requirement under Act 34 of 1973, a Pennsylvania law governing school construction projects exceeding 20% of an existing building’s size, but does not authorize construction to begin. Act 34 is applicable when a project becomes substantial enough in scope to require public meetings and further cost calculations, including maximum building construction costs, school building capacity, and aggregate building expenditures, according to the act.

Funding for clean energy technologies through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is starting to reach K-12 school districts across the country, according to a news release from the National Association for Energy Service Companies (NAESCO). 
The Investment Tax Credit (ITC) is part of the IRA that was primarily targeted for solar energy projects but can also apply to renewable energy systems like wind, geothermal and fuel cells. The tax credit can allow schools to deduct a significant percentage of the cost of renewable energy systems from their federal taxes. 
NAESCO spotlighted four districts that recently received funding for their projects.