At least nine Columbus City Schools will start the school year on Aug. 24 without building-wide air conditioning. 

Columbus Schools is updating the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems in 13 of its 109 school buildings this summer using $35.6 million in federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Funds created due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

While work to update the HVAC systems will be completed at seven of those buildings in time for the scheduled start of classes, work at six other buildings won't be completed until the end of September, said Columbus City Schools spokeswoman Jacqueline Bryant.

In addition to the six buildings that won't be finished until the heat of late summer has waned, two other buildings — Columbus Alternative High School and Hubbard Elementary School — will have to wait until the start of the 2023-2024 school year to get building-wide air conditioning.

Three people were taken to the hospital after a ceiling collapsed at Cummings K-8 Optional School in South Memphis Monday.
Officials with the Memphis Fire Department (MFD) said a tile ceiling in the library collapsed.
A librarian and two other workers were taken to the hospital in non-critical condition.
Two other workers were injured that were not inside the library at the time, officials said.
Officials said one MFD unit went to Regional One following the incident.
According to Michelle Robinson-McKissack, MSCS Board Chair, students were evacuated and taken to Metropolitan Baptist Church, 767 Walker Ave.
No students were injured in the incident, which Memphis-Shelby County Schools described as a maintenance issue.
The school dismissed early Monday.
 

ON THURSDAY, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker signed into law a landmark climate bill which affirms, for the first time, that schools are part of the state’s leadership on climate. What’s missing is a plan that will turn that affirmation into action.

The Green and Healthy Schools provision in the climate bill, originally filed by Sen. Jo Comerford and Rep. Mindy Domb, passed with support from advocates throughout the state. It calls on several key agencies to devise school building standards that promote healthy, safe, and carbon-free learning environments. It’s a crucial step.

In order to take practical steps to address schools’ massive carbon footprint, however, a separate element — the state’s climate plan — must be fixed.

Sampson County Schools started a major maintenance overhaul this summer, much of it federally funded, allowing them to fix some issues just in the nick of time, according to Mark Hammond, maintenance director. The school system is dealing with national shortages to bring significant benefits to local school children.
“There are a lot of big projects that we’re taking on,” Hammond stated. “This is by far the busiest summer that we’ve ever had.” This uptick in improvements is possible because of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds from the American Rescue Plan passed by Congress last year. “These are projects we wouldn’t normally be doing if we didn’t have that ESSER funding,” he said.
No Republican senators supported the American Rescue Plan. North Carolina senators Thom Tillis and Richard Burr both voted against the bill that has provided to this funding.
All spending of ESSER funds must be tied to improving the air quality and improving environmental factors for schools, noted Maria Rose, Sampson County Schools Plant Operations Office Manager.
The major get under ESSER is roof replacements for ten schools. “Roofs are one of the most expensive parts of upkeep on a building,” Hammond said.
 

PROVIDENCE – The late William D’Abate, a longstanding city councilman and state senator, called the school bearing his name “the ticket out” of poverty.
On Wednesday, D'Abate family members were at the Olneyville elementary school to break ground on a $21-million renovation that will include combined arts and science labs, collaborative learning spaces, a separate pre-kindergarten and media center, air-conditioning and an elevator. All told, the overhaul will add 6,000 square feet to the building. 
No one was happier than his granddaughter, Julie D’Abate Calise, who was inspired to become a special-education teacher in Providence because of William’s belief in the transformative power of public education. 
“This is his legacy,” she said at a ceremony attended by state Treasurer Seth Magaziner, Mayor Jorge Elorza, state education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green and Supt. Javier Montañez, among others. ”They deserve a learning environment that’s clean, safe and ready for 21st-century learning.” 
 

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The state School Building Authority is putting the brakes for now on its annual meeting to fund school construction projects in the state because of the continued impact of high construction costs.
The authority decided Thursday to cancel its December quarterly meeting where those funding decisions are normally made.
According to SBA Chairman Brian Abraham, the authority wants to take a wait and see attitude after seeing the impact of inflation on building costs during the past several months.
“It’s the smart thing to do,” Abraham said. He added the meeting could be rescheduled at some point.
The problem with prices has been growing in recent months.
“We’ve got a lot of needs and very little ability to award those projects. Our finances are weak and we’re trying to increase that with whatever we can and with what we have right now,” then SBA Executive Director, now state School Superintendent David Roach told MetroNews back in February.
The situation hasn’t improved.
The SBA decided Thursday to add funds to previously approved construction projects in Roane and Summers counties because of bids that came in millions of dollars over budget.
The SBA approved $4.9 million in supplemental funding for Roane County and $3.6 million for Summers County. Both counties are building new middle schools.
 

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — As enrollment rates continue to drop at Grand Rapids Public Schools (GRPS), the district is now considering a restructuring plan that could include closing and consolidating some schools.
On Monday, the Grand Rapids Public Schools Board of Education met for a special work session begin work on a plan to optimize its operations in response to the declining enrollment.
The most recent enrollment data from 2020 shows 14,314 students enrolled in the district, a 26% decrease from the 19,364 enrolled students in 2008.
That lower enrollment has pushed building utilization in the district to approximately 53%, which is significantly less than the 85% recommended by the state.
Through a facility demand summary conducted by a consulting firm the district estimates that of their 42 facilities, only 21 are considered being essential to operations based on enrollment and capacity levels.
During the meeting, GRPS leaders discussed possible actions they could take to make all schools in the district viable options across the district. In addition, they want the process to be transparent, while also building a culture of collaboration with the district's stakeholders.
The district is calling this their "Facilities Master Plan," which will start to take form after planned town hall meetings with the community later this fall.
 

GREENSBORO, N.C. (WGHP) – A group called the Joint Capital/Facilities Committee for Guilford County – members of the Board of Commissioners and the Board of Education – heard during an educational summit on Tuesday that cost overruns will require about $170 million more dollars in capital to complete eight rebuild/replace projects school officials have planned.
Voters in 2020 approved $300 million in bonds for the first phase of repairing, rebuilding and replacing every facility for Guilford County Schools, and in May they added the remaining $1.7 billion to complete the list.
For the projects scheduled to be completed in 2024, officials said they were not able to lock in prices and that they continue to rise. Steel prices, as an example, have increased by 128% since the bonds were passed.
Commissioners asked school officials to take a look at their design plans and find ways to save money.
 

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Thousands of students in eastern Kentucky are still waiting to head back to school as their communities continue to pick up the pieces.

The area, hit by devastating flooding last week that left at least 37 people dead, is home to 18 school districts. Four of them returned to the classroom this week, but 14 others are still cleaning up and assessing damage.

Breathitt County Schools delayed the first day until Aug. 29, while Perry County Schools are scheduled to start on the same day. Floyd County Schools are scheduled to begin classes on Aug. 24. But, as of Monday, the school districts in Letcher and Knott Counties had not yet scheduled a new start date. 

The state's department of education said damage varies school-by-school. But, the ones hit hardest are brainstorming how to get kids back to class.

The first day of school in Fayette County Wednesday was also the first day that the new $84. 5 million-plus Tates Creek High School building opened. The building for 1,800 students replaces the old high school built in 1965 by the same name on Centre Parkway. “The students deserve a building like this,” Assistant Principal Kevin Crosby said, pointing to tree-filled views from floor to ceiling windows in the cafeteria.
Students and staff helped design the building, which is built around a learning academy model that gets kids career, college or military service ready. “The learning environment which you go to every day makes a huge difference in your experience,” not just in what students learn but in how they interact with others, said principal Marty Mills.
“It’s breathtaking,” Mills said.
“Opening a brand-new building is a once in a lifetime event,” Mills told families in a recent letter. Senior Adam Lynch said he hopes the new building will bring memories as his class will become the first to graduate from it. He said it was “the best school” to go to.
 

Nine years ago, severe flooding in Eastern Kentucky’s Floyd County buried McDowell Elementary School in a layer of mud, temporarily displacing about 300 students. Flooding had hit the school at least three other times since 1989, which isn’t surprising. It sat next to Frasure Creek in a FEMA-designated flood hazard zone. Although insurance helped the school district pay for cleanup, because of its soggy history, the cost of flood insurance on that property soared to more than $100,000 a year. “I was in there shoveling out mud myself,” recalled Henry Webb, who was superintendent of Floyd County schools at the time. “It was not a great situation. We want schools for our kids that are safe and secure.”
Recognizing that the floods would only continue, if not worsen, the Floyd County Board of Education voted to close McDowell Elementary in 2017 and move its students as part of a countywide consolidation plan. Now, following the catastrophic July 28 flooding that devastated much of Eastern Kentucky, other school districts in the region might need to weigh similar decisions.
Gov. Andy Beshear last week estimated the expense of rebuilding, repairing and refurnishing the region’s flooded schools at more than $100 million. “Think about, when we build a new school, what that costs,” Beshear told reporters at a news conference. “That’s significant work.”
 

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - There are a lot of things that need to get done leading up to kids going back to school, but what a lot of people may not realize is on the last day of school in the spring, kids head out and maintenance workers go in.

“It gets fast — right now is the time we’re really pushing the pedal to the metal to get these projects done,” said Calvin Mundt, project manager for Capital Planning and Construction for the Anchorage School District.

Mundt’s team has been working on a retubing project where two of the school’s four boilers are getting an upgrade. Mundt said it’s part of a larger project that started three summers ago when the last small chunk of funding from a 2017 bond allowed them to retube the boilers — a cost of $60,000 each — instead of having to replace them outright.

“If we were to replace each of those boilers, we would do so with a modern high-efficiency boiler — that would involve engineering and replacing all of the controls also, that’s about a million dollars a copy,” said the district’s acting Chief Operating Officer Rob Holland.

As students in Hawaii return to the classroom this month, the state’s department of education has reported about 10% of the 12,000 school classrooms in the state have poor quality air ventilation.
The department said those 1,261 classrooms have limited access to natural outdoor airflow because of central air conditioning. Among these rooms, officials identified 73 across seven schools with high levels of carbon dioxide, meaning there is a greater probability of breathing in another person’s exhaled air. 
Parents received letters from the seven schools, the department said. The state’s Office of Facilities and Operations will follow up to improve the air quality to “the extent possible.” 
The department said it has already put in place several steps to improve air quality and help prevent the spread of COVID-19 in schools statewide, including placing 12,000 20-inch box fans in every classroom before the 2021-22 school year to improve outside air ventilation. 
Ventilation can help prevent airborne viruses, such as COVID-19 from spreading. Schools are also beginning to relax other COVID-19 mitigation strategies, such as indoor mask requirements. 
 

RICHMOND, Va. (WSET) — Governor Glenn Youngkin participated in the official grand opening and ribbon cutting of the Mecklenburg County Middle School and High School on August 7, a best-in-class school made possible by the community.
Youngkin signs legislation investing in school facilities across the Commonwealth.
Youngkin ceremonially signed HB 563 sponsored by Deputy Majority Leader Israel O'Quinn, R-Washington, and SB 473 and SB 471 sponsored by Senator Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond.
HB 563 and SB 473, the School Construction Fund and Program will support $400 million in grants distributed based on student enrollment and local needs.
It will also support $450 million in competitive grants for high-need school's new construction, expansion, and modernization projects in partnership with local school boards.
SB 471 will provide $400 million in school construction loans and make additional improvements to the administration of the Literary Fund Construction Loan Program.

Conversations about “hardening” schools resurface after every mass school shooting. And so do questions about how the shooters manage to get into classrooms.
There have been 27 school shootings in 2022 that resulted in injuries or deaths, according to the Education Week school shooting tracker, and 119 since 2018, when Education Week began tracking such incidents.
To prevent school shootings from happening, some security experts and educators suggest adding more physical security measures, such as surveillance cameras, metal detectors, bulletproof glass, and door-locking systems, as well as adding more law enforcement and armed staff in schools.
On the surface, it would seem like locking classroom doors would be one of the simplest and easiest ways to secure classrooms. But about 1 in 4 public schools in the United States lack classroom doors that can be locked from the inside, according to the most recent data from the National Center on Education Statistics from the 2019-20 school year.
Robb Elementary School, in Uvalde, Texas, where a shooter killed 21 people in May, had problems with locks on both interior classroom doors and entrances and exits to the school building, according to a report from a special committee of the Texas legislature. The building had a classroom door system that required teachers to lock their doors from the outside using a key to secure their classrooms when they weren’t in them. Teachers often propped the doors open or instructed substitute teachers to do so if they did not have keys for the locks, which were limited and no longer in production.
 

As eastern Kentucky grapples with the aftermath of historic flash flooding, key infrastructure like schools, transportation, power and water systems will take a long time to rebuild.

Some schools are acting as emergency shelters in the wake of the disaster and many districts have already announced delayed starts to the school year. In a news conference, Gov. Andy Beshear said the cost of rebuilding and repairing school systems in the region will be massive.

“When looking at schools, there’s two things: there’s damage assessments and when school is going to start. But school damages are in the tens of millions, probably over  $100 million.”

Beshear said just the school cleanup costs in Knott County, one of the areas hardest hit by flooding, was estimated at over $1 million. 

“We’ve been talking to legislative leaders and we’re all committed to providing funding for our school system and working on a package like the SAFE Act in western Kentucky,” Beshear said.

Solar panels atop a pair of Wanaque schools are now powering the grid as part of the school district's effort to save some green, district officials announced this week.

The 390-kilowatt solar array split among the K-8 district's Wanaque and Haskell elementary schools will produce enough energy each year to offset 72% of the district's energy use or approximately 63 homes, according to the district's project partners, Connecticut-based Greenskies Clean Focus and local outfit Pfister Energy.

The companies will sell the electricity generated to the district at a reduced rate under a 15-year contract, district records show. First-year savings are estimated at $51,000.

A TALE OF TWO SCHOOLS
You might call it the tale of two schools. Because under one roof-- and a leaky one at that-- the Jackson Mann School was permanently shut down on June 27—its students and staff dispersed, its supplies transported across the city. But, there is another school in the same failing building. The Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing will remain in the same structure for at least another year.

The Jackson Mann Horace Mann complex has the highest buildings needs score in the entire school system. That’s BPS-speak for the building in the worst shape that impacts the most students. Eventually, the building will be torn down. The plan is to build a new one at that location. But the Horace Mann school population is filled with students who are some of the most vulnerable, who require the most services. They need a very specialized learning environment. And the Boston Public Schools has nowhere else to put these learners until a swing space is retrofitted - hopefully in fall 2023.

The decision to keep the building open for one school while closing it for the other has left people confused and outraged.

“Good planning, of which we’ve not had a lot in the Boston schools for a while, should have been able to figure out an alternative," Larry DiCara, a former Boston city councilor and author of a memoir on busing and the Boston Public Schools said.

Meanwhile, it is the families who pay the price.

DENHAM SPRINGS, La. (WAFB) - A new school in Livingston Parish will soon open six years after the flood of 2016.

The new campus, which is located on the former Southside Junior High site, incorporates the students of the previous Southside Elementary and Southside Junior High.

Both previous campuses were severely damaged during the flood. Officials say water reached as high as six feet above ground in some areas. FEMA even declared the buildings could not be restored due to the extent of the damage.

To avoid any potential future flood damage, the new school buildings are constructed more than nine feet higher than the previous complex.

“This facility truly is a showcase structure,” Livingston Parish School Superintendent Joe Murphy said of the new campus. “The design and layout are the result of much research and collaborative input to ensure that every aspect of the campus enhances learning.”

GARDNER - Pandemic-related supply chain challenges have put the new Gardner Elementary School construction project so behind schedule, school officials are delaying the start of school.

Brenda Sheehan, who takes care of her eight-year-old grandson, was taken by surprise. "Two weeks, it's a lot, and then what's going to happen at the end of the school year?" Sheehan wondered.

The two-week delay at the elementary school trickles down and forces a one-week delay at the middle and high schools, and it's complicated. Administrators have to juggle athletic schedules, bussing, and MCAS.

"There's also the teachers' contracts, which are 184 days. So you have teachers in the same bargaining unit starting at different times, ending at different times," said Mark Hawke Gardner Public School's Director of Finances and Operations.

That's why Gardner's school superintendent is asking the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education for a special waiver, to excuse Gardner Elementary from having to stay open longer at the end of the year.