BOISE, Idaho — Some education leaders and lobbyists are advocating for a new way to fund school construction costs.
It's an issue that's been a conversation topic among education leaders and lawmakers since the '90s. Through this funding method, a fee would be collected from new development and given to public school districts to fund new school buildings.
Education advocates say this would mean growth pays for growth.
Population Growth Impacts Public School Enrollment
Before the pandemic slowed in-person enrollment at many public schools, the West Ada School District was adding an average of 655 students per year.
fund school construction costs


Idaho State Capitol
By: Anna AzallionPosted at 1:59 PM, Jan 26, 2022 and last updated 8:06 AM, Jan 31, 2022
BOISE, Idaho — Some education leaders and lobbyists are advocating for a new way to fund school construction costs.
It's an issue that's been a conversation topic among education leaders and lawmakers since the '90s. Through this funding method, a fee would be collected from new development and given to public school districts to fund new school buildings.
Education advocates say this would mean growth pays for growth.
Population Growth Impacts Public School Enrollment
Before the pandemic slowed in-person enrollment at many public schools, the West Ada School District was adding an average of 655 students per year.
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“We’re growing in Star, we’re growing in south Meridian and we have some spots in Eagle that are definitely growing,” said Marci Horner, the planning and development administrator for the West Ada School District.
This growth impacts every area of life, including public school enrollment.
 

The Baltimore City school board voted Tuesday night to close three public schools during summer 2023, citing low enrollment numbers and deteriorating buildings, despite calls from community members to keep them open.
The vote means the school system will close Eutaw-Marshburn Elementary on Eutaw Place in West Baltimore, Steuart Hill Academic Academy in Union Square in the Central Southwest area of the city and New Era Academy, a high school in South Baltimore, after the 2022-23 academic year. The only board member to oppose all three closures was Durryle Brooks.
The school board voted unanimously to develop a strategic plan that will look at long-term enrollment and school closures.
A fourth school that was being considered for closure, Dr. Bernard Harris Elementary School in East Baltimore’s Oliver neighborhood, will remain open, city schools CEO Sonja Santelises said.
 

NEW JERSEY - Hoboken voters overwhelmingly rejected a costly high school project on Tuesday.  There were about twice as many no votes as yes votes for the new school.
Heated meetings, social media brawls, a flood of op-eds, and more have seemingly dominated the city over the weeks leading up to the vote.
The school board proposed erecting a new high school where the current school’s football field sits and building a new field on its rooftop. It would come with other sports facilities like an ice rink and a swimming pool.  As well as new classrooms, science labs, art studios, an auditorium, a black box theater, and more.
"We’re seeing this huge wave come, we need to address enrollment at all levels," said BOE President Sharon Angley.
But the project would have cost $241-million-dollars which becomes $331-million when you include interest payments paid for by the taxpayers of Hoboken.
The plan was to raise property taxes by about 6% to pay for the project.
 

Newly dubbed Memphis-Shelby County Schools, the district has started to make good on its proposed Reimagine 901 plan's facilities changes unveiled last spring, with the first major facility changes receiving required board vote Tuesday. 

Shady Grove and Alton Elementary Schools will both close at the end of the school year, impacting about 600 students and their families and teachers. Other schools will relocate to new buildings. 

Board members voted unanimously to change the name of the district and close and merge its schools as part of a consent agenda with more than 30 items. There was no board discussion during the business meeting. 

The district's plan, unveiled last April, includes the school facilities plan as well as an academic plan, both impacted by the district's infusion of hundreds of millions of federal funding in the three rounds of COVID-19 stimulus. 

As the president, federal lawmakers, and critical media coverage ramp up pressure on schools to quickly spend the $195 billion in federal pandemic aid they received in 2020 and 2021, school administrators are pushing back with an unexpected message: We need more time.

A coalition of nearly three dozen school, health, and environmental advocacy groups, led by AASA, the School Superintendents’ Association, last week sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona asking the department to consider extending the deadline for spending COVID relief funds on construction and capital improvements projects.

The current deadline for spending all of the COVID relief funds is September 2024—more than four years after the pandemic began taking a toll on school operations and causing all manner of disruption for students and staff alike. Congress approved the aid in three waves in March 2020, December 2020, and March 2021.

CRESSKILL — Since a flood ravaged the middle and high school building, causing over $20 million in damage, parents and students have fought for two things: swift repairs and a return to in-person instruction.

The fate of both is on the line Tuesday. That's when residents will vote on a $21 million spending proposal for repairs  — 75% of which will be reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. And Tuesday night, the Northvale zoning board will determine if students can return to classrooms. 

Since September about 1,000 middle and high school students have been learning remotely the majority of the week. Two grades attend in person once every four days on a rotating schedule at the St. Thérèse of Lisieux Church school in Cresskill.

The remnants of Hurricane Ida wreaked havoc on the Cresskill middle and high school building, which sits in a flood zone on Lincoln Drive. Several feet of water rose above the auditorium stage, destroying it and the gymnasium, the media center, desks and chairs.

A school’s local planning committee (LPC) is responsible for the development of a school system’s district facilities plan (DFP). A committee is created every four years to do so in accordance to Kentucky Revised Statues.
The LPC isn’t discussed much until it is asked to consider something like a significant building or renovation project within a school. Two local planning committees have been brought in beyond the regular assessment and approval of the DFP. Ashland Independent gathered it’s LPC to discuss a new technical center, which was approved by both the LPC and the local board of education.
Carter County is in the process of discussing renovations and grant money dedicated to East Carter High School along with renovation needs at the district technical center or a new single campus high school that would consolidate both high schools and provide access to a new technical center all on the same property.
The LPC is one of three primary boards or committees that have a say in the process of capital construction. The local planning committee, the local board of education and the Kentucky Department of Education all have a role in the process.
“(The LPC) are charged with reviewing the properties, the facilities of the district, their condition, whether or not they are satisfying the needs of the students in the community,” said Ashland Director of Student Achievement Richard Oppenheimer.
Oppenheimer explained the committee considers if builds have enough space, too much space and the cost of operating those buildings. The LPC also considers the district’s financial status and enrollment trends and “long range forecasts for population changes,” he said.
Oppenheimer said information is gathered from architects, financial advisors and more to determine building goals and feasibility in the district.

Throughout the first year of his presidency, Joe Biden has regularly highlighted the need for investing in school infrastructure. From speeches referencing the lack of safe drinking water and ventilation to the pollution produced by school buses, the subject has been consistently present in the administration’s remarks. The American Society of Civil Engineers echoed these concerns in its release of the nation’s infrastructure report card earlier this year, grading public school facilities with a D+.
This post describes recent developments in the administration’s school infrastructure proposals, highlights areas of underinvestment, and summarizes recent research on how some of these failings might impact students.
On Nov. 15, 2021, President Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act into law, with total investments of $1.2 trillion over 10 years (including $550 billion in new spending). The package covers $284 billion in new funds directed toward transportation needs, such as roads, bridges, public transport, railroads, and electric vehicles. The remaining $266 billion in new investments focus on core infrastructure—ranging from improving the power grid, broadband access, and water systems to environmental resiliency and remediation.
But there is one notable category that is missing in the newly minted infrastructure legislation: schools.
In early versions of Biden’s infrastructure plan, the White House outlined a $100 billion investment for “school construction and modernization.” In September 2021, the proposed investment slipped to $82 billion; by late October, all language referencing school investment was removed from the plan. This left many educators, families, and advocates who were previously hopeful about the potential investment disappointed—especially those suffering from the consequences of failing and dangerous school infrastructure.
 

A new building management system proposed for Mattituck Junior-Senior High School would allow for better temperature control to create more efficiency.

Superintendent Shawn Petretti discussed the system as part of a five-year plan for upgrades to the district’s facilities at a “roundtable of shareholders” last Wednesday. 

“Right now, if you teach in junior high, or are students in junior high, you know it’s either really, really hot, or it’s really, really cold,” Mr. Petretti said.

The building management system would control the temperature throughout the building and in individual classrooms. Its installation would “create efficiency, comfort and control of temperatures in the junior high classrooms,” according to a five-year facilities plan report handed out at the meeting. 

The system would cost about $110,000, according to the report, and the money would come from the district’s annual budget.

Mr. Petretti said two items were pressing. The first was to address the junior high boilers. The plan calls for replacing burners as opposed to the entire boiler, he said.

The other would address a safety concern for track and field athletes. A sunken track curbing where the pole vault is located would be repaired before the outdoor spring season begins, according to the report. The sunken curbing is a safety concern, Mr. Petretti said.

OSWEGO — Oswego City School District administrators and board of education members are considering a proposed $4.6 million energy efficiency project that would bring upgrades to lighting fixtures, building insulation, and other mechanical and building-control software enhancements.

The 18-year project — devised by Siemens Building Technologies engineers based on Oswego City School District (OCSD) building evaluations, as well as the district’s periodic building condition survey — could result in energy and operational savings of up to $5.86 million over that time frame, according to John Partsch, a senior account executive with the company. 

Partsch and Siemens engineer Christopher Gump presented the project to board of education members at a Tuesday meeting. The review of the district’s energy efficiency is part of the district’s overall efficiency evaluations, which also feature inquiries into educational program offerings, transportation efficiency and financial efficiency.

As proposed, the energy performance contract would reflect a lease-purchase agreement. Partsch noted that the final cost for the project, including what he called a “conservative” interest rate of 3.5 percent, would total $6.7 million over the 18-year timeline.

“It is really a high estimate, but not really knowing where inflation is going and where the market is now, we would like to be conservative for now,” Partsch said of the interest rate. “This is not a hard number.”

WLOS — Every year North Carolinians spend millions on North Carolina Education Lottery tickets hoping for a winner.
For years, lottery advertising has featured school superintendents and leaders, expressing their gratitude, making it clear a portion of revenues made from the sales of those tickets go towards public education.
A News 13 investigation set out to find just what projects area school systems are using those funds for.
Education lottery ads highlight scholarships and millions in donations that go to help build schools. However, lottery officials confirm, there’s never been an ad campaign on projects such as the $250,000 weight room at Madison High School or the over $1 million recently spent on new turf projects in Haywood County, all paid for with lottery money.
News 13 found that many districts are also spending millions of lottery dollars towards athletic repair projects, from synthetic turf to tennis courts and swimming pools. All the projects are allowed according to state education reports.
Last October, Buncombe county’s School Board voted unanimously to use $875,000 in Education Lottery funds for new stadium and baseball field lights at AC Reynolds.
The North Carolina Athletic Association made a ruling that stadium lighting levels must meet their standards in order for a school to host a state playoff game," said Tim Fierle, facilities director for Buncombe schools. "ACRHS was scheduled to have its lights replaced with energy-efficient led lights. The schedule moved up due to this requirement.”
Whether it’s stadium lights or a new school roof, all lottery project requests must get approved by a school district’s county commission, and North Carolina’s Department of Public Instruction (DPI).
A spokeswoman for DPI couldn’t provide any projects submitted by any district that had ever been turned down. “Rejections are very rare,” said Blair Rhoades, spokeswoman for DPI. “Districts contact our office on the front-end regarding eligibility or questions surrounding the application, this is typically a non-issue.”
 

SMITHFIELD – Improvements to the Boyle Athletic Complex will include $25,765 in upgrades to bring energy savings and Rhode Island Department of Education reimbursements to the district.
During the Jan. 12 Town Council meeting, the council approved entering a performance contract with Honeywell Energy Solutions for energy efficiency investments at Smithfield High School and Gallagher Middle School that will result in lower water and electricity usage.
In addition to adding Honeywell’s suggested work to the project, the Town Council approved the addition of removing and replacing HVAC units at SHS and GMS as part of the Boyle Athletic Complex upgrades, at a cost of $24,000.
Town Manager Randy Rossi explained that by combining both the HVAC units and Honeywell improvements with the Boyle Athletic Complex renovations, the projects will receive RIDE reimbursements in addition to energy savings.
“It increases reimbursement for the overall project. It’s important to include those items,” Rossi said to The Valley Breeze & Observer. “It gives us more bang for the buck.”
Honeywell’s John Bonavist explained that a preliminary report found capital improvement energy savings projects including HVAC, boiler upgrades, lighting and more.
 

If it wasn't for the parts shortage brought on by the pandemic, Morenci Area Schools would be further along in the district's project to install more energy-efficient lighting and heating and cooling equipment and it would be seeing lower utility bills.
Still, the district is expecting to complete the project by the end of 2022. The upgrades are expected to save more than $1.4 million in energy and operational costs over 10 years.
The $1.4 million in improvements are being funded by a state of Michigan energy bond, district general funds and federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds. The ESSER funds are part of the federal COVID-19 relief funds approved by Congress in 2020. The bond has a 13-year payback schedule.
"The district is going to see those savings way past the payback schedule, so the general fund is going to be better because of it," district finance director Erica Metcalf said.
That will free up funds to pay for other things down the road.
The district had about $500,000 in general fund and ESSER funds to put toward the project and Metcalf worked with Standard & Poors to improve the district's bond rating, Superintendent Mike McAran said. Both helped lower the bond amount.
 

ENNIS, Mont. – Ballots will be mailed out today for Madison County’s Ennis School District voters which includes a 20-year, $59 million ask to address outdated facilities.

Ennis Schools Superintendent Casey Klasna said the funds will help replace their 50-plus-year-old high school, add an additional gym, administrative offices and improvements to the existing junior high school wing among other goals for the growing school district.

Klasna said the Ennis area is continuing to grow and can be seen in their student enrollment projections where enrollment has increased from 325 students in 2010 to now 411 students enrolled in the district and projections continue to predict an increase.

Fixing Philadelphia’s crumbling — and dangerous — public school buildings has been a big item on City Council’s collective to-do list for years. But without a clear source of funding and a system for tackling the $5 billion problem, plans have languished.
That could change if Councilmember Maria Quiñones-Sánchez gets her way with a piece of legislation she plans to introduce legislation on Thursday, the first day the council returns to session from their winter break. The bill would create a working group to investigate the possibility of a new school board building authority modeled after organizations created in New York City and other U.S. cities with underfunded school systems.
Quiñones-Sánchez said the authority would work to figure out the district’s building challenges in both the long and short term while giving the incoming superintendent the ability to “focus on education and academics for the district.”
The new authority would help school officials “get the millions we have budgeted for the school district on the ground and work done,” Quiñones-Sánchez said.
At this point, the district has more than five dozen of its schools under construction and billions of dollars of work in the planning phases as officials focus on remediating lead, asbestos, and other hazards that have long persisted within public school buildings.
 

Although not the $90 million initially sought, a split Middletown Town Council votes Tuesday night for the School Building Committee to see what $60 million can get for each of the schools. The matter still hasn’t been okayed for an Election Day bond, however.
The Town of Middletown issued the following press release on the decision;
The Town Council wants to see what $60 million would get for improvements to the school buildings. 
During a meeting Tuesday night in Town Hall, a split council backed off $90 million plans to upgrade each of schools championed by the School Building Committee, saying the cost was too much without enough specifics when there are many other needs facing the community.
Instead, a split council voted on the $60 million compromise, which allows the School Building Committee to continue its drive to get a school improvement bond before voters in November while taking advantage of state reimbursement money. 
Before the revised application goes to the next step of Phase II to the state Department of Education, it would need to go before the council again for review and approval.
 

Three of Bowling Green’s school buildings will have air conditioning when classes resume next fall.

At Tuesday’s board of education meeting, members accepted a bid for the installation of air conditioning units at the high school as well as Conneaut and Kenwood elementaries.

The mini-split units will provide air conditioning to each classroom, but not ventilation. They can be moved if new facilities are built.

Earl Mechanical Services, Inc., Wauseon, presented the low bid of $3,308,700, which was was 17% less than what was estimated.

The bid included there alternatives: for earlier construction to start on the elementary schools in order to have some of the projected completed by the end of spring; the installation of double-wall construction; and the enclosure of the exterior refrigerant piping in metal.

“When we put this out to bid, the budget was for $4 million,” said Superintendent Francis Scruci. “We are really, really pleased this came in a $3.3 million.

“In this day and age, that’s really good news.”

SANDY, Utah (KUTV) — At the Canyons School District, the high cost of steel and labor shortages because of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 are either delaying the construction of new schools, or busting the budget.
The district has three schools under construction. One of them, Glacier Hills Elementary in Sandy, has suddenly become $550,000 more expensive because the cost of steel has gone up during construction.
Leon Wilcox, business administrator for the school district, told the school board that the extra cost is covered by the contingency fund set aside for unexpected expenses during the project.
He said other supplies, like school furniture, has gone up in price, too.
Two other schools under construction, Peruvian Park Elementary and Union Middle School, are also impacted by delays in getting materials or by the labor shortage.
Peruvian Park, which was originally set to open in August for the first day of school in the fall of 2022, will now open at the end of September.
Kids who’ve been taking the bus to a middle school where classes are held in the interim will have to start next school year at the interim location, then move to the new school about six weeks later.
 

A proposal to allow all local governments to impose a sales tax to pay for school construction or renovation sped out of a key Senate committee on Wednesday, as a new General Assembly and governor prepare to grapple with an old problem of crumbling school buildings.
The Senate Finance & Appropriations Committee voted 14-2 to advance Senate Bill 472, proposed by Sen. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, to give localities another way to pay for school construction or renovations they otherwise cannot afford.
The option of imposing a 1% sales tax, subject to voter approval, is one of more than a half-dozen recommendations from a commission that McClellan led to address the challenge of repairing or replacing old public school buildings, with more than half of them more than 50 years old.
Other proposed options include the creation of a fund to make grants to localities that cannot afford to repay loans, as well as changes to the state Literary Fund to make more money available to lend to school divisions and their local governing bodies. Former Gov. Ralph Northam included $500 million in his proposed two-year budget to help pay for school modernization.
“We wanted to have multiple tools in the tool kit,” McClellan said. “For some localities, the sales tax will be the solution.”
 

School districts that have relied on emergency aid to recover from floods, fires, and storms are more likely to serve large shares of students of color, economically disadvantaged children, and other vulnerable groups, new federal research says.
While that disaster aid proved very beneficial to many communities, K-12 officials also reported a variety of significant disruptions to students’ mental health, school infrastructure, and other problems stemming from destabilized housing environments and parental job loss, a Government Accountability Office report found. These leaders also told the GAO that federal assistance sometimes fell short of meeting schools’ long-term needs, leading to delays and other problems for recovery efforts.
In recent years, more than half the districts receiving certain disaster relief served disproportionately large shares of at least two groups of vulnerable students, like English-language learners and children from low-income backgrounds.
“School districts serving high proportions of children in these groups may need more recovery assistance compared to districts with less-vulnerable student populations,” said the GAO report, which was published Tuesday.
During interviews with officials overseeing districts affected by disasters, the GAO also found that bureaucratic, financial, and other hardships made it more difficult for less-affluent districts to repair buildings. And in contrast to their wealthier counterparts that were also affected by natural disasters, such districts reported prolonged academic declines among disadvantaged students.
The GAO study looked at districts getting assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Public Assistance program and the U.S. Department of Education’s Immediate Aid to Restart School Operations (Restart) programs from 2017 to 2019.
In all, 840 districts received the Education Department grant assistance, FEMA assistance, or both during the period studied. These districts educate roughly 18 percent of public school students in the U.S., and constitute 4.5 percent of all districts.