Apr. 4, 2023 / PRZen / WASHINGTON -- Marking the 21st Annual National Healthy Schools Day (NHSD), a national coalition of parents, teachers, school professionals, and environment and public health groups have come together to call on President Joe Biden to include $100 million in his Fiscal Year 2024 budget request for the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Office of Air and Radiation/Indoor Environments Division to protect school children and personnel from unhealthy environments in schools and childcare facilities.

The coalition is also requesting inclusion of an additional $10 million for EPA's Office of Children's Health Protection to increase public health research services for children's environmental health.

"School building conditions have been neglected for decades," said national Coalition coordinator Claire L Barnett whose office hosts National Healthy Schools Day annually. "But schools and their communities can help by using US EPA's voluntary guidance on effective interventions. EPA has the authorizations and the proven programs to help schools address complex facility issues. When children have school-induced asthma, headaches, nausea, and bloody noses, attendance and test scores drop, families are extra-stressed, and health care costs rise. With robust funding from congress, EPA can activate Biden's languishing Clean Air in Schools challenge with expanded national outreach and technical assistance to states and schools and communities. Congress could help lift standardized test scores and reduce health care costs if it appropriates $100M to EPA's office of air for school indoor air and $10M to EPA's office of children's health for research and health services."

After weeks of unprecedented storms and rainfall, the need for roof repair and replacement across Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District’s campuses has become increasingly clear, prompting the district to dedicate nearly $5.2 million for such work.

“Our aging SMMUSD buildings have failed to keep the water out of interior spaces at some of our facilities,” SMMUSD Interim Superintendent Mark Kelly and Chief Operations Officer Carey Upton wrote in an update sent out to community members this week. 

Kelly said that the district’s facility team is currently working to fix over 110 leaks and that 2% of the district’s 576 roofs need to be fully replaced while 7.4% need repair and restoration. 

“We understand the concerns and distractions caused with these issues that we know have led some to worry about classroom air quality, mold, flooding and falling ceiling tiles,” Kelly and Upton wrote. “As soon as issues are reported, our team of maintenance and operations staff, along with some outside contractors, begin to address the issues to determine what is required to fully remedy the problems.”

The U.S. Department of Education granted seven states and the District of Columbia additional time to spend down Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds from the first round of COVID-19 funding. 
The money, which goes directly to school districts, will allow certain districts to spend their ESSER funds through early 2024, or 14 months beyond the original deadline, according to a report on the K-12 Dive website. 
Extensions were granted due to challenges the school districts are facing such as staff shortages, supply chain disruptions and reallocating funds reserved for nonpublic schools. Funding requests for projects have centered around purchases involving cleaning supplies, technology infrastructure and HVAC equipment. 
 

Facing rising costs and new priorities, the Palo Alto Unified School District is planning to indefinitely delay certain planned, bond-funded construction projects in favor of completing items that are deemed more urgent.

Palo Alto Unified is currently in the midst of construction projects on campuses throughout the district, funded by the Measure A and Z bonds, which voters passed in 2008 and 2018, respectively.

There is currently roughly $165 million left available to allocate towards projects, Director of Facilities and Construction Eric Holm told the school board at a Tuesday, March 28, meeting. District officials are planning to indefinitely delay $163.6 million in planned projects, in favor of a collection of projects totalling $141.3 million that the district deems to be higher priorities. That will leave $23.8 million in reserve to cover any further cost overruns or to pay for deferred maintenance projects, Holm said.

Washington , D.C. -
The dire condition of tens of thousands of school buildings across America represents a threat to national security and the well-being of future generations, several of the nation’s top school facilities officials said Tuesday on Capitol Hill.
The only solution, they said, is robust federal investment.
Many districts, particularly in rural and low-income areas, lack the local property tax revenue to fund major school building improvements. Some states contribute virtually nothing to local school districts’ facilities projects. And the last major federal investment in school buildings came during President Franklin Roosevelt’s administration in the 1930s.
But recent developments demand bolder action, school facilities officials from Maryland, Rhode Island, and West Virginia said Tuesday during a briefing at the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill.
Materials and labor costs for construction have risen precipitously. Many decades-old school buildings lack space for the social workers, psychologists, and early childhood education providers increasingly seen as essential for serving students’ complex needs. Vendors, meanwhile, are swarming districts with pitches for expensive solutions to widespread concerns around school security and ventilation, but administrators don’t have the time or resources to vet the offers. And many school buildings in low-wealth and rural areas lack basic infrastructure like drinkable running water and working heat and air-conditioning.
 

As many as 32 students crowd into classrooms originally meant for 22 to 24 students in the Crestwood School District. 

Many of Crestwood’s buildings were built in the 1960s, said Youssef Mosallam, superintendent of the district in Dearborn Heights. But updates have been few and far between for the district’s needs, the superintendent said. 

Then came a small fortune from the federal government: $24 million in COVID relief funds for the district of nearly 3,800 students. At least $8 million of the relief money is going to build 12 new classrooms in the district’s elementary schools, to reduce class sizes and to keep students spaced farther apart, he said. 

Dozens of school districts across Michigan are also directing relief funds to rehab aging school buildings, some of which lack air conditioning or functioning heating systems. In rural Harrison Community Schools north of Mount Pleasant, Superintendent Judy Walton said that means heat may work in one side of a school building in the morning and the other side in the afternoon. The district hasn’t had the funding to make updates for years, she said. 

FEMA Public Assistance has approved two grants of more than $14 million to reimburse the Lee County School District and Lee County Sheriff for emergency costs responding to Hurricane Ian.

The school district was approved for a grant of $10,069,446. After the Sept. 28, 2022, storm, the school district conducted emergency repairs, mold remediation, debris removal, water removal, safety inspections and installation of temporary generators.

Dearborn Public Schools has retained the services of architectural consultants, Fielding International, to conduct a discussion of its work to create a long-range plan for the district’s buildings.
Fielding has been conducting a survey of all of the DPS properties based on a 30-year master plan.
The plan evaluates all buildings for structural integrity, classroom utilization, current building layout, as well as possible improvements and new methods in both design and function for teaching students vital educational needs for the future.
As part of the process, representatives from Fielding International presented the work so far to the Board of Education.
The presentation was given to the board, along with a sparse crowd, on March 21.
Representatives explained their firm used a few factors in evaluating 31 district school buildings including the need for deferred maintenance, adaptability of the structure for projected future learning needs, and building utilization.
 

WEST WARWICK, R.I. (WPRI) — Additional funding is on the way for school districts across Rhode Island to help them reduce energy costs.

State leaders announced Friday another $10 million has been secured for the Public School Energy Equity Program, bringing the total budget to $20 million.

Officials said the funding will allow schools to install building automation systems and upgrade their lighting, ventilation, heating and air conditioning systems.

Gov. Dan McKee said the money will help give students and teachers a better learning environment.

“Studies show that more comfortable classrooms lead to higher test scores,” he said.

The Rhode Island Department of Education also found in a 2017 study that by reducing energy consumption in schools, nearly $34 million could be saved statewide each year.

The long-delayed Northeastern High School renovations hit a new snag as district officials noted that a thermal scan of the building showed that insulation was "not staying in place or missing completely."
Board President Mike Redding said the scan was requested following an incident in which a burst pipe flooded the high school's common area this winter. As it turned out, the scan turned up more significant issues.
“These folks need to be held accountable for the less than high-quality work that they were paid to do,” Redding said, at a school board meeting Monday. 
Brian Geller, the district's director of operations, said the project's contractor of the Dillsburg-based Lobar Inc., has not been responsive.
"This is something that needs to be paid for by the contracts, not the district,” Geller said.
Messages left with Lobar from The York Dispatch were not returned Thursday.
 

WHEELING – Energy savings improvements implemented as part of overall upgrades on Ohio County Schools properties have saved the district more than $2.3 million over the last three years – nearly $1 million above what was expected during that time, according to engineers from CMTA Energy Solutions.
Jonathan Gasser and Presley Dean, engineers with CMTA, recently provided an update to Ohio County Board of Education members on the success of energy savings promised by the company as part of its contract with Ohio County Schools.
They provided numbers showing the total amount of energy savings in the school district over the past three years at $2,320,095.
CMTA had guaranteed Ohio County Schools a savings of $1,347,534 over the first three years of the contract, and this sets the savings beyond expectations at $972,561 to date. CMTA had guaranteed Ohio County Schools a savings on its utility costs of $7 million over the next 15 years, or over the term of the 15-year school improvement bond passed by voters in 2018.
 

Three bills related to addressing sanitation and facilities issues at Guam Department of Education schools were passed unanimously by the Guam Legislature on Tuesday night. 
Fourteen senators were present and voted. Vice Speaker Tina Muña Barnes was absent and excused from voting.
Lawmakers passed the following measures:
• Bill 29-37, which makes corrections and amendments to administrative rules and regulations related to updating sanitation regulations to promote the health and safety of schools.
• Bill 46-37, which provides temporary, expedited procurement protest procedures for acquisitions funded with American Rescue Plan funds allotted to GDOE.
• Bill 32-37, which appropriates $30 million to GDOE for school infrastructure, repair and maintenance.
The three measures were the subject of an emergency session that began Monday.
Voting passed by quickly Tuesday night, but some senators had much to say about the events that transpired over the prior two days.
The emergency session coincided with a special session called by Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero to debate pay raises for government of Guam employees under the General Pay Plan. 
A majority of lawmakers have repeatedly put the special session on hold in favor of pushing through with bills in the emergency session, despite multiple calls for special session by the governor.
 

KETTERING — The Kettering school district will seek state funding for long-term improvements to buildings and facilities.
The district wants to apply for an Ohio Facilities Construction Commission program to help with long-range planning, citing a higher percentage in state funding assistance than in previous years, said Kettering Business Services Director Jeff Johnson.
If the district is eligible for state money, the OFCC would assess its buildings at no charge and develop an agreement allowing Kettering “discretionary” decisions on projects, he said.
Kettering has not previously participated in the OFCC new building funding program, which has helped many area districts — including Xenia, Fairborn, West Carrollton and Valley View currently — to construct new schools.
 

The process of changing school boundaries for DC Public Schools (DCPS) is about to begin.

On March 21 the Mayor’s office announced the launch of the Boundary and Student Assignment Study 2023, or Boundary Study, through the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education (DME). The study will review boundaries and feeder patterns and District-wide public school student assignment policies.

It’s the first update to the Boundary Study since 2013-2014, when DC undertook its first comprehensive review of boundaries in 40 years. DME is running a Master Facilities Plan study at the same time and both studies will share foundational information. Any potential boundary modifications and feeder recommendations would take effect no sooner than School Year 2025-26, i.e. August of 2025.

“We are embarking on a city-wide planning process that will provide strategic, data-informed recommendations to ensure more students have access to great schools and facilities that meet their needs,” Deputy Mayor for Education Paul Kihn.

The process will be essential toward the ongoing work to not only recover from the pandemic, but to continue efforts to close the opportunity gap, Kihn added. “We know that residents will have strong thoughts and feedback, and we look forward to engaging directly with families, educators, and stakeholders over the coming weeks and months,” he said.

For nearly three years, Cassie Armstrong has lived in a cozy two-bedroom apartment that she shares on Hawaii island.
The pre-K teacher and her roommate split their monthly rent of $1,150. Travel to her job at Kohala Elementary School is a convenient nine-minute drive. 
Armstrong said living in teacher housing is an upgrade from where she was previously — in a garage with an outdoor shower, no paved walls or floors and no stove. 
“Moving into teacher housing was great,” Armstrong said. “It feels like I was coming into an actual home.” 
But her housing situation is coming to an end as Armstrong was only allowed to stay for three years.
Now she has until the end of May to find a new place.
With limited housing options in her area, Armstrong said her worst-case scenario is moving back home to Illinois. 
Currently the Hawaii Department of Education’s teacher housing is only intended to provide teachers with temporary housing in rural areas with limited affordable housing. 
The DOE allows teachers to live in cottage-style housing for three years in Kohala, Honokaa, Kau, Waimea and Molokai. It’s five years in Hana and Lanai, but housing is not guaranteed year-to-year, according DOE documents obtained by Civil Beat.
However, there’s no teacher housing on Oahu and Kauai.
There are currently 51 rentable teacher housing units available statewide, the documents show.
They are between 20 and 50 years old, and several more are closed for major repair or demolition. Maintenance costs are paid out of the rental income generated.
 

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -  

HPM, the consulting firm managing this process for SBCSC has created its facilities master plan and shared it with the public Monday night. 

An effort to “right-size” the South Bend Community School Corporation culminated Monday in a formal recommendation from consulting partners to the school board.  

“Just the overall community voice and number of meetings we’ve had, it’s been extensive throughout this process,” said Scott Leopold, director of planning services for the firm. 

Ultimately architecture firm Fanning Howey and consulting partner HPM recommended the closure of Clay High School.  

“If you choose to keep Clay open, it’s going to cost $16.17 million over the next 5 years,” Leopold said, “and that means there are other projects that don’t get done.” 

The news was much to the dismay of many in the crowd Monday.  

“Clay has been done a disservice for far too long. Find a better way than closing it down,” one person said in front of the school board.  

“You need a find a way to save Clay, these students have found a home here. Many 8th graders are already here, working on sports for next year. People want to go here,” said another person in attendance.  

Recommendations also include facilitating clear “feeder patterns” from primary to secondary schools in the district.  

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The state School Building Authority approved the extension of more time and funding for the construction of schools across the state during its meeting Monday in Charleston.

The SBA gave the okay to supplemental funding for schools in Wood, Mercer, McDowell and Hampshire counties.

The increasing construction costs attached to inflation have been the cause for delay in building new schools and providing updates to existing ones for a little over a year now.

Making adjustments on square footage allowances for the projects was a specific detail being discussed at the meeting, as the school board’s bids for the projects were being affected by inflation costs.

“That is a lot of the reason why these schools came back to talk to us today, because, when their bids came in they were higher than they thought, they were higher than the square footage allows for these projects, and so they have to look for some help,” SBA executive director, Andy Neptune told Metro News following Monday’s meeting.

Last year, voters approved over $60 million to Wood County Schools for the construction of three new schools along with making updates and expansions on others. The SBA additionally approved its $21 million commitment on Monday to go into Wood County School’s bond for the current projects.

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — Some local high school students used their voices to get some much-needed repairs done to their school which was built nearly 100 years ago.
Almost a year ago, they made a video of what they were dealing with at Druid Hills High School and after it went viral they got school officials to take action.
Channel 2′s Tyisha Fernandes got an exclusive tour of what the school looks like now that renovations have been done.
“They deserve to have a building they feel comfortable in everyday
Dr. Vasanne Tinsley heard students loud and clear and as soon as she was named interim superintendent of DeKalb County Schools, she put several schools on a priority list to get repairs done.
Druid Hills High got work done first.
 

NEW LONDON, Texas (KETK) – It’s known as the worst school tragedy in American history. A day in which one of East Texas’ proudest assets became its most deadly killing agent, leaving a tight-knit community with hundreds of dead to bury and several lifetimes worth of grief.

By 1932, the New London school in Rusk County was one of the richest rural school districts in the United States, a claim to fame brought on by boomtown prosperity. The steel-framed E-shaped school building was built for close to $1 million, holding up to 700 children and boasting a state-of-the-art manual training shop in its basement.

MARCH 18, 1937
March 18, 1937 was a Friday. Students were preparing for an interscholastic meet to be held the next day in Henderson. Inside the New London gymnasium, which was separate from the main school building, the local PTA was holding a meeting.

Less than 15 minutes before classes were to be dismissed for the weekend, roughly 300 lives were lost in a tragedy that would echo across the nation for decades.

An explosion ripped through the school, causing the roof to fall in and bury students and teachers in a mass of brick, steel and concrete debris. Walls collapsed, and the blast was felt up to 40 miles away. A two-ton slab of concrete was reportedly hurled 200 feet from the school.

HOUSTON - A FOX 26 investigation reveals levels of carbon dioxide considered "above air quality guidelines" at a Houston Independent School District (HISD) elementary school.
According to documents obtained by FOX 26, high levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) were recently discovered in at least two classrooms at Kelso Elementary School.
"I’ve been to 3 different doctors, one doctor told me to take FMLA and not to return to that school," said one anonymous teacher from Kelso Elementary.
The teacher wants to hide their identity out of fear of retaliation. However, the teacher says the air quality is affecting the health of staff members and students.