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NCEF News summarizes and provides links to news stories about educational facilities nationwide. Links to older articles may no longer be active.
July 2010
Are Washington Schools Earthquake-Safe? Pilot Project Aims to Find Out
Staff Writer, Ear to the Ground
July 30, 2010

WASHINGTON: With more than 1000 earthquakes every year in Washington, Department of Natural Resources geologists and other state agencies believe it’s time we asked, are all of our schools safe enough? DNR geologists completed field testing this month for the School Seismic Safety Pilot Project, which will assess the seismic vulnerability of schools in the Walla Walla and Aberdeen Districts.

Earthquake vulnerability is based on both a building’s structure, and the types of rock and soil beneath its foundation. In an earthquake, soil type influences how much shaking occurs at the surface. Without looking underground, the picture of seismic risks posed on schools is incomplete. The reality is that two structurally-identical buildings could face very different risks depending on their locations. Seismic engineers and building officials also have a role to play in this pilot project. After geologists look at the potential for ground shaking at each site, engineers and building officials will estimate how fragile each building is by inspecting schools to note conditions and irregularities.

Computer hazard software will use these data to simulate earthquakes for each school site. These simulations will estimate how much damage buildings might sustain at different levels of ground shaking. The hope is that this pilot project will lead to a statewide assessment for all Washington public schools, which would prioritize schools based on seismic “risk.”
This effort is being coordinated through the Washington State Seismic Safety Committee and the Washington State Emergency Management Division. Assessing the safety of school buildings has been a priority of the Seismic Safety Committee for many years, according to Dave Norman, (DNR) co-chair of the committee. Funding for the pilot project has been provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

NJ Governor Releases Millions More in School Construction and Maintenance Funds
John Mooney, New Jersey Spotlight
July 29, 2010

NEW JERSEY: Add nearly 200 more school districts to the list of those receiving state school construction funds, as the administration of Gov. Chris Christie continued to roll out construction and repair money following a halt to the program earlier this year.
But New Jersey’s urban districts still face a wait of at least several more months, with an administration spokesman saying it will likely be end of October before a review of district needs is completed.

The Governor announced that $270 million in additional funds will be made available to 177 districts for 740 separate maintenance and construction projects. Another $16 million was provided to six vocational districts. All the projects will need to go through final reviews to secure the state funding, which will account for up to 40 percent of the total cost. This was the third round of new projects getting the go-ahead since Christie resumed school construction funding in May with a $500 million infusion of new borrowing.
Christie had essentially halted projects in January, saying in his first months of office that he wanted to review the operations of the Schools Development Authority and its checkered history of waste and mismanagement. The Governor pitched much of the latest round in economic development terms. He said the projects would provide 6,000 new construction jobs, and the vocational projects specifically would help in job training.
But the pace has been slower in urban districts, for which the school construction program was first created in 2000 by order of the state Supreme Court. These districts receive 100 percent of their construction funding through the state, with the state overseeing the entire project as well, and their progress has come in fits and starts. SDA executive director Marc Larkins said this spring that he first wanted to review the existing capital plan for the 30 qualifying urban districts, completed in 2008, to ensure all the projects were still needed. He said in early June that it would take four months. Agency spokesman Larry Hanover said that it will now be the end of October before that review is completed. Advocates for the urban districts reacted with frustration and some anger at the timeline, saying it seems to creep longer and longer while projects first proposed nearly a decade ago continue to wait.

Independent Schools in Pennsylvania Get Solar Panels with State Grant
Blair Meadowcroft, Main Line Media News
July 28, 2010

PENNSYLVANIA: In an effort to save money and energy, Paoli’s Delaware Valley Friends School (DVFS) joined forces with four other local independent schools to pursue grants through the Philadelphia Area Independent School Business Officer Association (PAISBOA) to have solar panels installed. July 7 it was announced that their efforts paid off.
DVFS was one of only five Pennsylvania independent schools to be approved for a grant to install solar panels at their facilities. The grant was awarded through Pennsylvania’s Solar Energy Program, which provides financial help to help promote the use of alternative energy in the state. The grant money, in the amount of $124,740, will be used by Blue Renewable Energy LLC to buy and install a rooftop solar photovoltaic system at DVFS.
The benefits of such a project are financial, environmental and educational.

Oregon District Turns To Grants, Donations To Fund Construction Projects, Leveraging Stimulus Bonds
Denise Ruttan, Statesman Journal
July 28, 2010

OREGON: At a time of funding crises and recession, school districts have been putting extra focus on grant writing to sustain programs and to pay for building projects. In the past two years, through in-kind donations and grant awards, the district has raised $600,000 to $700,000 for a variety of projects.

In the last three months, the district used an interest-free loan through the federal Qualified Zone Academy Bond (QZAB) program to fund an outdoor classroom at Stayton Middle School; facilities for a new teen parent program; an ADA-accessible bathroom at Stayton High School off the football field; new libraries at Stayton Elementary School and Mari-Linn School; and resurfacing of the Stayton High School track. The district was able to leverage that bond money to get grants through other foundations, Hack said. Grants and donations through Lowe's Foundation, Roth's Foundation and Slayden Construction also funded the outdoor classroom at Stayton Middle School. Grants through True Value Foundation and Lowe's Foundation funded the elementary school libraries. The Stayton High School Booster Club awarded the district with $20,000 for resurfacing the track. The district was awarded $5,000 with the Community 101 program through the Oregon Community Foundation for Stayton High School; $1,000 of that money goes to the school, and $4,000 goes to the community. High school students serve as grant reviewers. The district has also been ramping up partnerships with businesses and organizations in the community like Friends of the Family, Santiam Family YMCA, Stayton Cooperative Telephone Company (SCTC) and Slayden Construction.

New Austin Charter School Could Be Forced to Move: Office Tenants Don't Want Students in Their Building
Melissa B. Taboada , American-Statesman
July 28, 2010

TEXAS: With less than a month before school starts, a charter school with an emphasis on media arts and civics education now needs a new place to teach its students. School officials last spring spent $100,000 in renovations on its downtown campus, the entire fifth floor of an office building. It's a sprawling glass-walled space with desks and computers positioned so that students get views of the Capitol a block away.
But the 303 Office Condominiums Owners Association, which has control over how the building is operated, has filed for an injunction to keep iSchool from opening.In court filings, the association said housing a school there could cause insurance rates to go up and will be a nuisance to other businesses in the building. To date, there have been no insurance premium increases attributable to the school, according to court documents.

Campus director Michael Lopez said Responsive Education chose the location because of its proximity to the Capitol. Students would get an up-close look at how government works, and school officials would have easy access to state officials to establish government and other internships. The curriculum calls for students to focus on project-based learning and to be involved in service projects, such as identifying a problem or issue in their communities and working with an organization to tackle those issues.

State funds help traditional public schools build and pay for facilities, but charter schools get no such aid and lack the taxing authority of public school districts. Last week, the State Board of Education voted to dedicate $100 million of the Permanent School Fund, created in 1876 as a public school endowment, to developing and leasing buildings for charter schools.

Wisconsin School District Will Benefit from Low Interest Rates and Stimulus Bonds
Teresa Stowell , Watertown Daily Times
July 27, 2010

WISCONSIN: Members of the Watertown Unified School District Board of Education clapped and cheered after the approval to borrow the final funds of the referendum project. The applause came when board members learned the district will see a $4.5 million savings in interest. “The final amount the district will have borrowed is $20,856,000,” Doug Linse, district business services director, said. “That is $4.5 million less than what was projected at the start of the referendum.”
Linse said the savings is due to favorable interest rates and the advantage of receiving $2 million in Qualified School Construction Bonds, which are federal dollars borrowed to the district at zero interest. The two resolutions approved included $1 million in Qualified School Construction Bonds at zero interest and another at $529,000 in general obligation notes.

Buildings Totaling $568 Million Under Construction at UC San Diego
Mark Larson, San Diego Business Journal
July 26, 2010

CALIFORNIA: Low-interest university bond funding, high demand for construction at down market prices, easy term financing, and cash reserves are enabling UC San Diego to construct six more buildings, promising it a new, modernized skyline. The school's $568 million worth of construction under way includes four student apartment complexes, adding 2,600 beds to the campus as it tries to meet a pent-up demand for more student housing. Meanwhile, a cardiovascular center and medical education/telemedicine center are also being built. The last of the projects will be finished by mid-2011.

It's a revved up economic engine for the region, providing an estimated 5,500 on-site construction jobs in the next year or so to a San Diego industry that has lost 26,000 jobs during the last three years. While the timing has worked well, yielding low construction costs because of tough times in that sector, Cunningham says there was no intentional timing involved. "I'd love to tell you we saw the market shift," he said. "A lot of good luck came to us. We're looking at the lowest costs in well over a decade." That has enabled the university to add value into its new buildings, such as certified, environmentally friendly features promising LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, gold and possibly platinum ratings.

Student Ideas for Green Roof Make School a Teaching Lab
June Q. Wu , Boston Globe
July 26, 2010

MASSACHUSETTS: Take Boston Latin School, and pack on top of its building a weather station, a greenhouse, two outdoor classrooms, a cafeteria, and a garden. Then add solar panels, wind turbines, and the outdoor elevator. It’s a 70,000-square-foot, $6.2 million green roof dreamed up by Boston Latin students, and it’s becoming a reality.
“It started out as a simple request for how the school can reduce its carbon footprint," said Gail Sullivan, the architect who has been working with the students free of charge. “But then the students said yes, yes, and yes to all the different features."

Unfazed by the hefty price tag, students from the school’s Youth Climate Action Network have been raising money and applying for grants over the past year to make their green wonderland a reality, piece by piece. A 28-solar panel array and 350 trays of sedum, a flowering succulent plant, have been installed on the school’s roof. Up next are the outdoor classrooms and elevator, a $2.7 million project to be completed in fall 2011, according to Sullivan, who works for Studio G Architects. Sullivan said she expects to finish the project in five years, but said the timeframe depends on when the students can raise the money.

Last week, students in the Youth Climate Action Network were helping 30 Boston area teachers, 15 from Boston Latin, to develop a middle school and high school sustainability curriculum to be piloted this fall at their school. Eventually, classes will be held on the roof. Students can measure the wind velocity from the rooftop turbines or test how much energy the solar panels generate. English and art classes can find inspiration from the rooftop orchard and garden. Other schools can plan a field trip to the top of Boston Latin, which has grades 7 to 12. The possibilities are endless, students say.

Led by eighth-grade US history teacher Cate Arnold, the network launched a campaign in 2007 for sustainability education across the state. The students hope to see the project completed when they graduate. While several schools in the state have installed green roofs — two in Boston public schools — Arnold said that from talking with other educators and school officials, Boston Latin’s green venture appears to be the most complex, student-driven project with a heavy emphasis on integrating sustainability education.

Arkansas University Restores Old School From 1960s
Associated Press, Texarkana Gazette
July 26, 2010

ARKANSAS: Alumni of the elementary and high schools once housed in Peabody Hall are watching with interest as the University of Arkansas spends about $8.5 million to restore the structure. Peabody Hall was finished in 1913, the first building on the campus built with private money, a $40,000 gift from the George Peabody Fund. It was built as a new home for the College of Education. An elementary school was established on the bottom floor of the three-story brick structure, a high school called University High School on the second floor and professors offices and college classrooms on the third floor. The schools were intended as training sites for young teachers. Student teaching in public schools wasn’t an option at the time. It wasn’t unusual to have six, seven or even eight student-teachers in the classrooms with the regular teachers, all of whom were college professors, Duell and Johnson said. The schools closed in the 1960s. The high school shut down in 1962, followed by elementary school, or training school as it was called by some, in 1966.

At least one room will be furnished with historical furniture. And, Peabody Perks, a popular coffee shop, will again open in the building. The restoration will attempt to return Peabody Hall closer to its original appearance. Some 180 windows will be replaced. Once completed in August 2011, the curriculum and instruction department will move back in.

Overbey said Peabody is one of two buildings being restored under the campus preservation master plan. The other is Davis Hall on the corner of Garland Avenue and Maple Street. “Peabody will be a very handsome building when it’s finished,” Overbey said. An elevator will be installed, and other details to make it accessible will be incorporated. The building is registered to receive Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design silver certification when completed. It is a third-party verification process for environmentally conscious construction. The building has undergone some changes over the years, but the original footprint of the building remains the same, Overbey said.

Detroit Public Schools Touts $60M in Renovations at Three Schools
Marisa Schultz, Detroit News
July 26, 2010

MICHIGAN: Detroit Public Schools officials hosted a ceremonial groundbreaking for about $60 million in renovation work set to start this summer at Western International, Henry Ford and Denby high schools. The schools will be upgraded by fall 2011 to modernize classrooms, enhance security and install new technology to benefit nearly 4,000 total students. The work is part of the $500.5 million Proposal S bond program that voters approved in November to renovate or rebuild 18 schools.

Robert Bobb, the district's emergency financial manager, outlined the improvements at the schools, such as sustainable technology labs, security fencing and new exercise facilities for student and community use -- services often described in top-performing school districts, he said. Under Proposal S, the school district has a rigorous time frame to build seven schools and renovate 11 others by September 2012 to comply with guidelines for federal stimulus-funded bond projects. So far 10 construction projects for $180 million have been announced this summer.

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Amid Economic Bust, a Building Boom at University of Massachusetts
Robert Gavin, Boston Globe
July 25, 2010

MASSACHUSETTS: At the University of Massachusetts Medical School, excavation has begun on one of the largest building projects in New England. The $400 million science center is expected to create hundreds of construction jobs, attract millions of dollars in federal research money, and provide another catalyst to the state’s vital health science industry.
The science center is just one of several projects the UMass system is undertaking across its five campuses, and another sign of its growing impact on regional economies. Underpinned by rising enrollments, burgeoning research grants, and an increasingly entrepreneurial culture, UMass is doing what few other institutions or businesses are these days: building, buying, and expanding.

Over the past year, UMass Lowell has bought a failing downtown hotel, taken over a city arena, and begun construction of a $70 million emerging technologies center, its first new academic building in 35 years. UMass Boston recently snapped up the struggling Bayside Exposition Center at a bargain price, and in the coming year, will see construction begin on two new buildings at its Dorchester Bay campus. At its flagship Amherst campus, UMass has completed more than $300 million in construction projects over the past two years, and has $375 million more in construction underway.

This building boom comes as major projects from other organizations have been delayed or canceled, including Harvard University’s Allston expansion, the Filene’s redevelopment in downtown Boston, and Columbus Center in the South End. Needless to say, UMass is providing relief to a construction industry only beginning to recover from a recession that destroyed one in four of its jobs.

Carrollton, Georgia To Use Stimulus Bonds To Fund $8 Million School Renovations
Rachel Lane, Times-Georgian
July 23, 2010

GEORGIA: Carrollton High School’s gym and restrooms are a step closer to renovations following the school board’s unanimous approval of the Qualified School Construction Bond (QSCB) Projects resolution. During a special meeting, the board entered into an agreement with the Carrollton Redevelopment Authority to be the financial agent for the school system’s $8 million bond projects. The money will be used for two projects, building a sixth-grade wing at Carrollton Middle School and to renovate the gymnasium and restrooms at the high school.
“This is not the typical way to do construction,” said Superintendent Dr. Kent Edwards.
There are typically two ways for school systems to get money for construction projects, the most common of which is to use special purpose local option sales tax funds, approved by voters. The second manner is through bonds, sold to investors.

Steve Spofford, chief operating officer for Carrollton City Schools, said the QSCBs are no-interest bonds loaned to states through the American Recovery Reinvestment Act, part of the federal stimulus program. The school system can decide when to start repayment of the loans and put the money into a fund that cannot be touched until the full amount is paid. The interest the account earns is placed in the account toward repayment of the loan, thereby helping to lower the total cost to be repaid, he said. Because it is a federal program, the construction projects must be bid out based on Davis-Bacon Act guidelines, which can increase the cost of labor and the total cost of construction, he said. The possible increase, however, has been factored into the projects. Construction of a two-story sixth-grade building will cost about $5.5 million, and renovations to the high school gym and restrooms are expected to cost $2.5 million.

California Schools Paying Millions Too Much for New Roofs
Jill Tucker, San Francisco Chronicle
July 23, 2010

CALIFORNIA: California public school districts are spending too much annually to replace or repair hundreds of school roofs by employing a practice that restricts cost-saving competitive bidding and makes taxpayers pay up to double what they otherwise would spend, an investigation has found. Statewide, the practice costs school districts $30 million to $125 million extra each year, taxpayer money that shouldn't be wasted at any time, but especially not in the middle of a recession, said California legislators who are investigating the practice.

In San Francisco, for example, the district will spend $60,000 more than it perhaps should this summer on a new elementary school roof because the bidding process limited competition by specifying a precise kind of roof sold by a particular manufacturer. While that job is locked in place, the district over the last couple of years has amended its procedures to include more open bidding processes. Another roofing project this summer that was bid under the new system is costing the district about half as much. But the kind of noncompetitive bidding that led to the expensive roof in San Francisco is in play at school districts across the Bay Area and state. It is the product of aggressive marketing techniques by roofing manufacturers, a tendency of districts to stick with manufacturers hired by previous administrations and a convenient reliance by district officials on the manufacturers to write project specifications, the legislative inquiry found.
State law requires competitive bidding in public projects, including schools, but there's little enforcement, industry experts said. State law allows public agencies to specify a particular brand name product, but also must include an "or equal" clause that allows alternative manufacturers to be considered. The noncompetitive bids get around that clause by listing product requirements that are so specific that no other manufacturer could qualify.

Texas State Board of Education Adopts Charter Facilities Investment Plan
Associated Press, Austin American-Statesman
July 23, 2010

TEXAS: The State Board of Education adopted a plan to dedicate millions of public school endowment dollars to finance charter school facilities. The proposal, which is contingent on a legal opinion from the Texas attorney general or action by the Legislature, is to invest $100 million of the $23 billion Permanent School Fund into developing and leasing Texas charter school facilities.
The Permanent School Fund is an endowment created in 1876 to benefit Texas public schools.

The board's investment adviser, Rhett Humphreys, said estimating the risk for a charter school investment is "very tricky business" because there is no performance history for such an investment. The NEPC analysis put the expected return at 4.75 percent with a high risk level.

Give Students a Say on Their School Design
Michael Carlson, Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce
July 22, 2010

WASHINGTON: The bonds have passed, the architect is selected and a committee is formed to provide critical input on the needs and culture of the school. Who is on the committee? Most of the time it’s composed exclusively of adults. Occasionally you will find an enlightened school that includes a student or two on the committee, but their participation is often marginal at best. Why is it that we are creating schools whose primary purpose is to engage and stimulate kids, but we spend so little time actually engaging them while we are creating their learning environments?
Admittedly the adults on these committees are extremely knowledgeable and committed, but can they really represent the perspective of a 5-year-old on her first day of school? For the past 20 years I have been exploring that question and searching for ways that kids’ voices can influence the design of their school.

Here are some of the things I’ve learned over the years: Renovations are absolutely the best projects to engage kids: They know their school intimately and have a personal relationship with it daily. They can tell you what works, what doesn’t, what’s cool and what sucks. Start with playgrounds: If you are having difficulty deciding where to start, playgrounds are the slow pitch. Kids need very little prompting when you ask them to draw their dream playground. Believe me, they have ideas! Make activities age appropriate: Ramp up the intellectual content for older kids, you’ll be amazed at the insight and sophistication of their ideas. Get pictures: Encourage all students, even the older ones, to draw and color for you. Let them know that it’s not important that the drawings are pretty. I often show some of my rough sketches to illustrate messy work. My favorite incredulous comment was, “Someone paid you to draw that?” Make it optional: Not all schools and all teachers have the time and interest. Don’t press too hard, you can get their input in many other ways. Be entertaining: This may be the hardest part for us naturally dull architects but there is nothing that deflates the ego faster than to have a second-grade class lose interest. A microphone is a great prop when soliciting comments — you can pretend you are Oprah! Interpret creatively: Be open and flexible in your thinking. You have to believe there is a message or theme in there somewhere!

New Colorado School Facility to Be Saturated with Science and Technology
Adam Goldstein, Aurora Sentinel
July 22, 2010

COLORADO: The lessons at the Cherry Creek School District’s Institute of Science and Technology will begin before any student reaches their classroom.
Prime numbers will steer the design and layout of a plaza on the lawn, and the mathematical Fibonacci sequence will be a guiding design principal for the windows on the building located between Overland High School and Prairie Middle School in Aurora. The 58,000-square-foot school is set to include an “energy dashboard,” a visible meter that will allow students to track the building’s power consumption. A column at the school’s main entrance will be in the double helix shape of a DNA strand, and the ceiling will bear the celestial star patterns of the night sky.
It’s all part of the district’s push to stretch instruction in STEM — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — beyond the classroom. It’s also part of a bid to make the subjects more accessible to a broader range of students.

“There’s a lot of technology here — it requires learning about science, technology, engineering and math,” said Todd VandenBurg, project architect for the district’s $14-million school set to open in a little more than a year. “It’s a practical application of the curriculum.” It’s a bold approach, one that Cherry Creek officials say could represent a new direction in offering specialized and accessible instruction. Funded through the bond issue approved by voters in 2008, the IST will offer engineering, health sciences, technical communications, computer science and mathematics courses for students from Overland and Prairie. Elementary students from Prairie feeder schools will also have access to specialized STEM instruction.
“We’re providing STEM to all the 4,000-plus students on this campus,” VandenBurg said. “These are spaces where small groups or large groups of students can get together. We’ve designed formal and informal classrooms in this building.”
The school’s distinctive curved walls are slowly taking a solid shape at the dusty construction site tucked neatly between Overland and Prairie, and district officials are already looking at the IST’s larger impact in the district, the city and the state. “It’s our first dedicated STEM building in our district. It’s really going to set the tone for how we approach learning and a lot of the curricular components,” said Richard Charles, director of STEM for CCSD. “It’s going to be pretty important for us to get this right, because STEM is not going to go away ... We’re hoping to be able to help in providing a solution to the nation is facing around science and technology.”

Bricks From Razed Detroit Public Schools To Be Preserved
Cecil Angel, Detroit Free Press
July 22, 2010

MICHIGAN: Bricks from the old Cass Tech, Finney, Mackenzie, Mumford and Chadsey high schools -- all slated for demolition -- will be preserved and restored for sale to the public to raise money for the Public Schools Foundation, Detroit Public Schools officials said.
“We think this is an important program to honor the legacy and history of these schools, while also acknowledging that students deserve facilities that support 21st Century learning and aiding schools by providing needed funding for supplemental programs,” said Chacona Johnson, foundation president and CEO. “We hope the alumni and the dedicated faculty and staff who taught and provided services in these buildings will participate in this fundraising effort.”
Two entry arches and other items from Cass Tech also will be preserved, officials said.

Cleveland Schools Plan Would Scrap More Buildings, Cut Back Construction
Thomas Ott, Plain Dealer
July 21, 2010

OHIO: A plan for completing the Cleveland schools' state-funded construction program calls for the district to scrap many more schools than it builds or renovates. The proposal, drafted by Ohio School Facilities Commission planner Bill Prenosil, is a "work in progress," according to district building official Gary Sautter, and would be subject to approval by the school board.
But the plan illustrates the tough choices Cleveland school officials face as they adjust the construction program to fit declining enrollment and shrinking piles of state and local tax money.

Even after closing 16 buildings in June, the district operates more than 90 schools. Prenosil's plan calls for reducing the number of new and renovated schools to 63, well below the 111 envisioned when work began in 2002. Prenosil based the building count on a forecast that Cleveland will have 35,059 students in 2017, when the final projects should be winding down. The original plan projected that enrollment would bottom out at 72,450 by the time the construction program was completed, but the total is already less than 50,000.

The state pays two-thirds of most Cleveland school construction expenses, but the bottom line will be based on how many students are served. According to Prenosil's calculations, the cost of work jointly funded by the state and district will in the end total less than $1.2 billion, a decrease of almost $348 million.
Cleveland can keep as many buildings as it chooses, paying for replacement or repairs with its own money. But that would be difficult; the district doesn't even have enough to pay its share for all the construction, renovation and demolition the state is willing to help fund. In 2008, the school board responded to decreased enrollment with a plan that called for 76 new and renovated buildings. But the board also left a number of other buildings in limbo, referring to them as "maintain only." The school board recently voted to borrow $55 million, the last of $335 million in debt voters approved for construction in 2001. Officials have discussed asking voters to extend payments on the bond issue, but financial distress might force them to first seek a property-tax increase for operating expenses.

If officials follow Prenosil's plan, they would still have more than 40 projects to complete after the local tax money runs out. The projects, mostly demolition, are estimated to cost nearly $200 million. Sautter expects to present a finished construction plan to the school board in late summer or early fall. Even that document could be changed before the program wraps up, with state funding cut deeper if enrollment falls more than expected. The money could increase if enrollment stabilizes.

Make Sure Your Community Has a Green School Advocate
Heather Clancy, SmartPlanet
July 20, 2010

NATIONAL: Okay class, your assignment for the summer recess is to read as much as possible about why and how we as adults can and should act to make school buildings greener — and why this isn’t just a great thing for operational efficiency, it’s a great thing to teach “Generation G.” Before you start protesting that this just isn’t a priority given all the other things the public education system needs, consider that addressing basic things like energy efficiency or climate control doesn’t just help schools save money it helps promote an environment that is more conducive to learning. Seriously, how much can a child be expected to focus on the lesson plan if he or she is about to pass out from heat or poor air circulation? If we have any hope of moving to year-round schedules in the future, we can’t expect kids to sit in stifling classrooms.

The U.S. Green Building Council estimates that attention to green details in schools — notably through energy efficiency and water consumption habits — can save the average school $100,000 annually. That’s the equivalent of being able to hire two new teachers or invest in approximately 200 computers. If every new school construction project or retrofit took green concerns into account moving forward, the impact of energy efficiency alone could save $20 billion over the next decade.
The challenge, of course, is that school buildings are different from commercial buildings and the best practices for applying something like the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program to schools are still evolving when it comes to school architectures and buildings.

Clark County, Nevada School District Turning to Solar
James Haug, Las-Vegas Review Journal
July 20, 2010

NEVADA: Solar power used to be thought of in the same way as organic produce: healthy but pricey. Costs, however, have dropped because the recession has depressed demand while there is a growing supply of photovoltaic panels, which convert solar radiation into electricity. As a result, the startup costs associated with solar power are now so affordable that even the cash-strapped Clark County School District is going on a summer spending spree.

The district plans to invest $4 million in rooftop solar panels for as many as 20 schools. The photovoltaic systems could provide about 25 percent of the schools' power and save the district $190,000 a year for the next 20 years, based on current energy prices, said Paul Gerner, associate superintendent of facilities.
Officials are not counting on energy savings to pay for the investment in startup costs, but they do expect a return on the investment in solar energy because of NV Energy's rebate program and other government incentives. The school district has to pay for the startup costs, but it will receive $1.44 million in federal stimulus funding once the first five schools are outfitted as solar farms. In addition, the district will receive $1.2 million for the same five schools in the form of one-time rebate checks from NV Energy, the local utility. The district will receive additional rebate checks as more schools are completed. The goal is to finish the project by November. The school district could get as much as $5 million in rebate checks if all 20 schools hook up the solar power systems, which would be more than enough to cover the initial investment and any financing and design costs.

Tom Axtell, general manager of Vegas PBS, looks at school rooftops as an energy asset, much like a river or a ray of sunshine. Because many district schools share the same design, there would be economies of scale in planting solar farms on school rooftops across the Las Vegas Valley. "You have a single property owner that has large expanses of flat roofs, that all have the same exact designs because you have cookie-cutter schools. It really allows for the efficiency in the planning and the installation of solar farms," Axtell said. "You do it for one high school, there's probably 10 others that have the same footprint. So you don't have the same expense of engineering."

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$1 Million Stimulus Projects on Track at Jamestown, North Dakota Schools
Ben Rodgers, Jamestown Sun
July 20, 2010

NORTH DAKOTA: About $1 million in construction projects at Jamestown Public Schools will be wrapping by Aug. 13, said Bob Toso, superintendent. The funds came from stimulus dollars. The bulk of the work is being done at Gussner Elementary, where six classrooms in the northwest corner of the building will be enclosed, Toso said. Other projects like new windows at Roosevelt Elementary and new doors at Washington and Lincoln schools will save the district money by increasing energy efficiency, he said. Baffle pads were also installed at Jamestown High School to improve the sound system in the pool area.
Gussner also had a hole in a water main. Instead of replacing the pipe for around $20,000, a plumber was able to install a sleeve for between $2,000 and $3,000, he said. The money came from the general building fund. “It’s kind of been a mess up there,” Toso said of the lawn at Gussner. He said he expects the dirt to be leveled and seeding to begin soon. All projects will be completed before school starts.

Illinois State Budget Woes Not Stopping Local School Construction
Scott Cousins, Suburban Journals
July 20, 2010

ILLINOIS: Even though Illinois continues to face a major budget crisis, local universities and school districts keep on building. Plans in the pipeline include a new high school in Mascoutah, renovations in the Columbia School District and $18 million in new projects on its Edwardsville campus.
With so much planned and money so tight, it begs the questions: Why do officials keep building? And why can't they move money around to cover costs in other areas instead of laying off workers? The reason, school officials say, is that districts and universities operate using several funding streams, only one of which is for construction. The rest are for day-to-day operations, transportation, bond payments and other expenses. There's just one catch: The funds are locked in and can't be switched. Major school construction projects, for example, are usually paid through bonds that are paid off over time and are less impacted by yearly budgets issues. The result is that hard times in one area may have little to no effect in another.

That can become troublesome at a time like this, when the state owes local school systems millions of dollars. Many times, the money is for operations, which means construction projects are left untouched. For example, the state owes the entire SIU system - which includes campuses in Edwardsville, Carbondale, Springfield and Alton - about $84 million. Because of that, there have been concerns about SIU's payroll since December. But that does not directly affect the construction projects, which include a $920,000 renovation of locker rooms at SIUE's Vadalabene Center; a $14.3 million Art and Design Building expansion; and $2.8 million to replace windows in the Peck Building.

The Mascoutah School District is currently building a new $38 million high school, which voters approved in November 2008 and will be finished in fall 2011. The Columbia School District is completing work renovating the district's original school building, creating Eagleview Elementary School. Most of the $6 million cost is being paid for through a restructuring of bonds issued in 2003 to build the district's new middle school following a fire at what was the new elementary school. That project is expected to be completed by the start of school in August.

Editorial: New Los Angeles Schools are Gorgeous, But Who's in the Classroom Matters More
Sandy Banks, Los Angeles Times
July 20, 2010

CALIFORNIA: When you're dueling with mogul Donald Trump over real estate, you'd better prepare to empty your wallet. That helps explain the $578-million price tag on Los Angeles Unified's most recent school construction project.
District officials spent 20 years battling Trump, conservationists and neighborhood groups to build a school complex on the site of the famed Ambassador Hotel. A school construction project that began with a $50-million outlay became one of the most ambitious in the country, with three campuses on the site. But that's nothing new for L.A. Unified. When it comes to building schools at least, the district is tenacious.

A few miles away stands the $400-million Roybal Learning Center, built to relieve overcrowding at nearby Belmont. Roybal was also a 20-year project. Many districts would have given up, but L.A. Unified was undeterred by discoveries of an earthquake fault, methane gas and toxic soil beneath its site. Remedying those problems made Roybal the most expensive public high school in the nation, and it was six blocks from the nation's second-most expensive school.
Second place goes to L.A. Unified's $232-million arts high school downtown. It doesn't have a formal name or a final enrollment plan, and it's on its second principal in two years. But it does have floor-to-ceiling windows, an outdoor atrium and three dance studios with sprung maple flooring.

Three "world-class" campuses in one struggling school system. If only the district would be so dogged about staffing them with world class teachers. Don't get me wrong. I think it's great that inner-city students are finally getting new buildings. I spent years as an education reporter watching aging campuses decay, as children were bused to far-flung neighborhoods or crammed in on year-round schedules.
It's hard to focus on learning when loose ceiling tiles dangle above your head or you can't hear the teacher over a portable fan's din. These new campuses send a message, with their spacious art studios and high-tech labs: Your education matters. You are worth the best.
But a building doesn't drive academic progress. New campuses are sprouting like weeds in parts of Los Angeles where student test scores are still stuck in the mud. It's no secret that the most important factor in student success is an excellent teacher. And research shows that exceptional teachers are especially important for low-income students since poverty can undermine educational efforts.
Maybe all these shiny new buildings will attract teachers, what with their underground parking, lesson-preparation centers and lunchrooms with stone ovens for making pizza. After all, studies of new teachers who leave the profession suggest that they do so almost as much because of inadequate facilities as because of large class sizes.

San Antonio's First Green School Completed
Elizabeth Allen, Express News
July 19, 2010

TEXAS: Cibolo Green Elementary, in the North East Independent School District, is one of the first green schools in San Antonio. Built by Satterfield and Pontikes to meet LEED Silver standards, Cibolo Green features recycled building materials and energy-saving lighting throughout the school.
Built on a steeply graded site, the new school also features learning centers throughout the facility and viewing windows into the mechanical rooms and infrastructure, allowing students to see such building components as steel columns, insulation, piping and wiring. It also has an emphasis on multiple colors and natural light in the atrium, common areas and classrooms.

Massachusetts Towns Turn to School Mergers
Peter Schworm , Boston Globe
July 19, 2010

MASSACHUSETTS: Under growing pressure from state officials, small public school systems across Massachusetts are discussing potential mergers, defying the state’s staunch tradition of local schools and hometown identity in a quest for greater financial stability. For the first time in nearly a decade, several towns recently joined ranks to create new regional districts, linking Ayer and Shirley, Berkley and Somerset, and three vocational schools north of Boston. From a host of small Berkshire towns to Chatham and Harwich on Cape Cod, another three dozen districts are considering teaming up with their neighbors or expanding existing unions. Even Hull and Cohasset, Thanksgiving Day rivals with a decided class divide, are courting.

But many towns are deeply conflicted over the idea, uneasy with the prospect of relinquishing local control, particularly on tax and budget issues, and fond of their schools the way they are. Many parents blanch at the idea of sending their children out of town for school, while older residents feel nostalgia for their alma maters.

Governor Deval Patrick’s administration has pushed small districts to consolidate or regionalize over the past two years, believing that larger districts are decidedly more cost-efficient. More than one-third of the state’s school districts have fewer than 1,500 students, and sharing costs could save tens of millions while offering students a wider range of classes and programs, educators say.

Some districts are looking into regionalization on their own accord, hoping it will provide long-term stability. But most are bending to pressure from the state, which since 2008 has more generously reimbursed districts that merge for school construction and renovation costs, like a dowry for an arranged marriage.

L.A. Unified's Faulty Vision for Schools on Ambassador Site
Christopher Hawthorne, Los Angeles Times
July 18, 2010

CALIFORNIA: Along one edge of the old Ambassador Hotel site, where the Los Angeles Unified School District has been building a controversial collection of schools, there is a new park dedicated to the life and work of Robert F. Kennedy. Created by artists May Sun and Richard Wyatt and running parallel to Wilshire Boulevard, the park includes a series of quotations from Kennedy, who was shot and killed inside the hotel on a June night in 1968, and a few others.
Among the lines by Kennedy is one that seems tailor-made to address the controversy that has followed the LAUSD's attempts, adamantly opposed by the Los Angeles Conservancy and other preservationists, to knock down Myron Hunt's 1921 hotel complex and replace it with a new campus costing more than $578 million, a streamlined but conservative piece of work by Pasadena firm Gonzalez Goodale Architects.

[The conversation with the Conservancy] led to a solution that was tone-deaf architecturally: After failing to reach any common ground with the Conservancy, the district directed Gonzalez Goodale, in designing a new high school building, to match as closely as possible the size and shape of the old hotel. Other elements of the historic campus, which included contributions from Paul R. Williams and Gordon Kaufmann in addition to Hunt, have been re-created in ersatz fashion, including the old Cocoanut Grove nightclub, which has been reborn as a kitschy auditorium.

L.A. and its cultural guardians, in other words, had the decisiveness neither to save the original hotel complex as a school nor to make a clean break with the past by building an ensemble of entirely new buildings. Instead the LAUSD settled on an architectural path — confused, expensive and a little macabre all at the same time.

For all the constraints the firm had to work with, certain elements of the Gonzalez Goodale design, collectively known as the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools, show initiative and strength. Among them is the decision to flatten much of the site's rolling topography and knit the schools into the street grid of the surrounding blocks.
Given that the campus is really a collection of neighborhood schools that most students will reach on foot, that change makes a good deal of sense. It is also an implicit recognition of how this part of Los Angeles has changed since the hotel's heyday. No longer a glamorous and essentially suburban outpost removed from the life of the city, the school site now sits in the middle of a diverse, crowded mid-Wilshire residential district whose families had been sending their children on long bus rides to other LAUSD schools.

As a mediating presence between past and future, the Gonzalez Goodale design manages well enough, and a collection of public art woven into the campus effectively engages the hotel's complex history without having to mimic its architectural forms. The new construction, for the most part, is confidently contemporary and free of ornament, if also decidedly risk-averse. The dominant formal gesture is a series of oversized entryways wrapped in zinc.

Kentucky Schools Get Upgrades in Notification Technology
Natalie Jordan and Jeff Beach, Daily News
July 17, 2010

KENTUCKY: The Bowling Green and Warren County schools systems have upgraded their ability to keep parents informed with a system that can do mass distributions of e-mails, phone calls and text messages and also target smaller groups within the schools. Both districts have contracted with Alert Now, a notification system that allows a school system to send up to 2 million messages every hour. The Warren County school system put the Web-based service in place last year, but only purchased the emergency notification portion, with only a handful of administrators given access. Hendricks said the notification was only used once and that was a test. There was no way to determine how effective it was.
For Bowling Green Independent, the system replaces the One Call system, which had been used only within the high school. The new system expands to e-mails and phones and, in the case of emergencies, text messages to all schools in the district. Principals and other representatives from the schools will be trained on the system this week.

Alert Now allows users to customize the system, to reach parents in the entire district, individual schools, or specific groups - such as parents with children in a specific grade level, extracurricular activity or on a particular bus route. If the system reaches a busy number or no one answers, it will attempt to call back within a three-minute time span. Because it is Web-based, notifications can be made from anywhere with Internet access.

County schools were prompted to make the upgrade at least in part by a parent survey that showed a need for better communication, especially among parents of middle and high schools students. Nine Western Kentucky University students from a marketing class, approached the school system about doing a market research project. The study - which focused on safety, technology, the district’s website, quality of education, quality of teachers and communication - was done in March. “We felt like there was a need, but we wanted to support that with the survey on parent perception,” Hendricks said. “You cannot enhance communications enough, and this system will let parents feel like they are the local experts at their child’s school.” There were 16 of the 18 schools represented in the findings. Under the area of communication, results showed 41 percent of parents were satisfied with communication between them and the schools and 30 percent were very satisfied. However, that perception differed by grade level.

Report Identifies Problems With Shreveport, Louisiana District's Aging School Buildings
Nicole Blake Johnson, Shreveport Times
July 17, 2010

LOUISIANA: Caddo Parish hasn't seen a new public school since the mid-1980s, and many of the district's aging buildings need repairs — including replacing outdated library equipment and worn sewage systems. Cracked exterior walls, inadequate space for school clinics and buildings that don't meet the Americans with Disabilities Act accessibility guidelines were among the issues addressed in a 5,165-page report detailing the physical conditions, educational adequacy and technological needs of 79 schools and sites.
Houston-based Parsons Commercial Technology Group began the 5-month, $1 million study last year as part of the district's Vision 2020 plan to reshape schools. The plan includes results from a recent community survey and a review of national best practices. Recommendations, based on these findings, will be made to the board July 27. Schools Superintendent Gerald Dawkins said the community will have a say in the matter, and it may be several months before the plan is finalized.

The average age of Caddo schools is 17 years beyond the national average and 22 years beyond the southeast region of the country, according to the report. And there are significant deficiencies in storage and fixed equipment in administrative, science, kindergarten, computer labs, performing arts, arts, music, physical education and remedial spaces. Clinics are almost non-existent and do not meet guidelines, and many schools have temporary buildings.

The total estimated cost to raise the conditions of all schools to a good rating is between $548 million and $803 million. Identifying immediate and long-term projects are under way now. The district will look at all funding options, including bond issue, private and public partnerships, grants and joint agreements. "I think it will be some of the most intense conversations that we've had because schools are at the heart and root of local communities and neighborhoods," Dakwins said.

Design Challenge for Minimalist Schools in Haiti
Paolo Zambon, CELE Exchange
July 15, 2010

HAITI: In an effort to inspire learning through a real-world situation, students from around the world have been challenged to create innovative and sustainable designs for small single-room schools that can be constructed across Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Natural disasters have increased the need for successful and thoughtful design of temporary shelters, and over the past five years, these have grown from a niche design element to a necessary aspect of the architecture profession. Needs range from transitional housing and intensive community planning sessions in the American Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina or the need for entirely new villages built following the tsunami in Thailand, The earthquake in Haiti on 12 January 2010 has yet again put the spotlight on temporary shelters and good, quickly built structures to accommodate thousands of homeless families and replace collapsed schools in Port-au-Prince.

Numerous organisations and individuals have invested time and effort to develop infrastructure for the nearly 600 000 homeless in Port-au-Prince. However, without social areas such as community centers, schools and libraries, the city of Port-au-Prince will struggle to bring displaced individuals back to the city center. It has been estimated that of the 4 616 schools surveyed in Port-au-Prince, 80% are damaged and approximately 431 teachers and 4 000 students were killed. An additional 250 000 schoolchildren are now displaced.

Autodesk and the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS) both strive to provide architecture students the skills and tools needed to succeed in their chosen profession. In an effort to inspire learning through a real-world situation, AIAS and Autodesk have challenged students from around the world to create innovative and sustainable designs for small single-room schools that can be constructed across Port-au-Prince, Haiti, with limited materials and minimal construction experience. Using the Autodesk building information modeling (BIM) portfolio, students were invited to submit their designs for review from peers and juried professionals.
Submissions have just been reviewed by peers in a People’s Choice category as well as by a prominent group of judges in the Juried category. The winners and the winning designs from each category are as follows: People’s Choice: Elana Willey, San Joaquin Delta College: “Ji Lekol, the Little Haitian School that Juice Built.” Juried: Ian Siegel, New Jersey Institute of Technology: “Aluminum Disaster Relief Schoolhouse.”

Changes Funded by Stimulus Bond Should Help Wisconsin School Save Energy
Staff Writer, LaCross Tribune
July 15, 2010

WISCONSIN: New windows and upgrades to heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment this summer should help lower energy costs at Onalaska High School, Superintendent John Burnett said. The $500,000 project is being funded through no-interest Qualified School Construction Bonds the district received in August 2009. The high school is almost 50 years old, with several additions. “We looked for items that lent themselves to being funded over longer periods of time — energy saving-type projects,” Burnett said. The district also learned in June it is eligible to borrow an additional $1 million in the no-interest bonds.

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The ABCs of Wasteful Spending
L.A. Daily News Opinion, Press-Telegram
July 15, 2010

CALIFORNIA: What's more valuable in a high school: Talking benches or teachers? Art installations and marble memorial walls? Or a few trees so it's actually cool enough for kids to play outside? A state-of-the-art swimming pool or functioning science labs? The sensible answers are pretty obvious, right? Not to the Los Angeles Unified School District, which chose to spend $572 million to build elaborate - no, lavish - schools out of the former Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard. Artificial turf soccer fields, historic replica spaces and public art sculptures helped push the per-student cost of the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools to $135,000, nearly 40 percent higher than the average school built in the central Los Angeles area over the past two years. When the completed campus opens this fall, students will be met by a shocking incongruity. They'll enter the most expensive school ever built by the LAUSD and find fewer teachers, older textbooks, larger classes and a shorter school year.
Yes, school construction is paid from one pot of voter-approved bond funds and school operations are paid from another pot of state budgeted funding, so the district isn't laying off teachers to pay for the expensive school. But, the district is still playing with precious taxpayer dollars. LAUSD has sought bond after bond to pay for school construction, even as enrollment was decreasing, and for big-ticket items, such as the RFK schools and the $230 million performing arts schools downtown. Meanwhile, older schools could use some rehab.

There's nothing wrong with spending money to build nice schools. These facilities become homes away from home for children from the time they enter kindergarten at age 5 until they graduate at 18. Having a bright, clean, inspired environment helps instill a sense of pride and enthusiasm in their school and, by extension, their education. Who wants to spend eight hours a day in a dump?
There is also value in historic preservation. Los Angeles has a sad track record of demolishing landmarks, and the school district has done an admirable job of recreating elements of the Ambassador Hotel, which was a center of historic Hollywood nightlife and was the site of Robert F. Kennedy's assassination in 1968. The fight over historic preservation unfortunately added to the expense of the school.

But somehow good intentions spun out of control. Nobody questioned how much is too much to spend on a school construction project. And nobody seemed to recall that previous LAUSD board members had pledged to find private funds to pay for the pricey additions of a park, soccer fields (for which groups will have to pay fees to use), art installations and the aforementioned talking benches that commemorate the historical significance of the Ambassador Hotel.
Worse, district leaders don't seem particularly bothered by this outlandish price tag. Their comments seem to imply that building lavish, expensive schools in traditionally underserved communities makes up for decades of neglect. It does not. Nor do swanky amenities provide what students so desperately need: Quality teachers, smaller classes and high expectations, to name a few.

Salinas, California First to Receive Eco-Friendly Modular Classrooms
Janette Rizk , PR Newsire
July 15, 2010

CALIFORNIA: The first-ever Gen7 modular classrooms will be delivered to the Bolsa Knolls Middle School in Salinas, Calif. These new, eco-friendly Gen7 schoolrooms for sixth- and seventh-graders feature a high amount of recycled and recyclable materials, low- and zero-VOC interiors, and learning-enhancing acoustical design. Eco-friendly insulation within the classroom's walls and roof serve as sound insulation and minimize heat/cooling loss. Innovative smart lighting with natural daylight harvesting and energy-efficient mechanical and electrical systems ensure that each classroom is highly energy-efficient, exceeding California Title 24 Energy Code by more than 30 percent.

In approximately two months, AMS custom-built six Gen7 modular classrooms, designed to meet and exceed the Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS) criteria for learning environments that are healthy, comfortable, resource-efficient and easy to maintain. These will be the nation's first modular classrooms to receive CHPS verification for a new school on an existing campus.
Why green schools? Sarich added, "Not only do green schools enjoy 20 percent higher test scores, fewer absences, lower healthcare costs and higher teacher retention, these eco-friendly, low-maintenance classrooms save money for the school districts -- both in installation costs and energy savings -- up to $100,000 per year in direct cost savings and long-term savings of more than 30 percent." The six Gen7 classrooms at Bolsa Knolls are the first of a two-phase project. Eight additional Gen7 buildings and a boys and girls restroom facility are scheduled for delivery on the new campus late fall 2010 and will be ready for use when the students return from winter break.

San Diego Charter School To Occupy Two Floors of New Downtown Library
Maureen Magee, Union-Tribune
July 15, 2010

CALIFORNIA: It isn’t collecting swatches and paint chips yet, but the San Diego school district is preparing for an innovative interior design of the charter school that will occupy two floors of the long-awaited downtown library. After committing $20 million to lease space in the library, the San Diego school board voted Tuesday to spend another $10 million to design and outfit the urban campus. A charter high school will occupy the sixth and seventh floors of the library, 71,800 square feet of learning space with killer views of San Diego Bay, the San Diego-Coronado Bridge and Petco Park.
Construction is set to begin on the library this month. The San Diego Unified School District is already thinking about how to design this nontraditional campus to take full advantage of its venue. But any firm decisions probably will come after a charter contract is awarded, said Jim Watts, San Diego Unified’s planning director. “This is clearly going to be a unique school by any district standards,” Watts said. “We certainly want it to be a really excellent design.”

Most school design projects are routinely sent out by administrators to preapproved architecture firms the district has contracted with, similar to law firms that are put on retainer. But because of the buzz surrounding this school, a special process may be established to attract top firms and creative designs. School trustee Katherine Nakamura, who has been a vocal advocate of the library charter, is hopeful the school will have a “wow factor,” a design that reflects its urban venue and innovative academic focus. “There is a flood of possibilities,” she said. “This will not look like every other school.”

Charters are publicly funded and independently operated schools that often infuse a theme into the day-to-day academics. The district will use $10 million in redevelopment funds from the Centre City Development Corporation to design the school interior, including architect fees, furniture and equipment. Of that money, $200,000 to $500,000 will be spent to make custom changes to the construction of the space, such as duct work to accommodate science labs, a staircase to connect the two floors, and an elevator stop and door from the underground parking garage. San Diego Unified receives about $5 million annually in redevelopment funds for capital improvement projects at schools in and around the city’s downtown core. In April, the school board approved a 40-year, $20 million lease to take over the sixth and seventh floors of the library. The investment revived the languishing library project that was virtually dead and desperate for funding. The library is set to open in July 2013, but it’s unclear when the charter school would open its doors to students.

San Diego, California District Factors in Sunny Weather for Energy Solutions
Regina Ip, San Diego News Room
July 14, 2010

CALIFORNIA: Schools in San Diego County are taking advantage of the sunny weather to save money, become energy efficient and spark students’ interest in science. In the San Dieguito Union High School District (SDUHSD), located in the Encinitas area, two schools—Canyon Crest Academy and La Costa Canyon High Schools—are installing solar energysystems to generate about 70 percent of each school’s energy usage. The solar panel project is expected to save more than $10 million in energy costs over 15 years. And since the solar panels generate energy without producing greenhouse gases, the district will reduce its carbon footprint by 2,200 metric tons.
With a $25-million budget from the district, the project is expected to cost about $12 million. The district will use school construction bonds, federal subsidies and $4 million in grants from the California Solar Initiative to fund the project. The rest will be offset to San Diego Gas and Electric.

The project consists of installing 4,000 three-by-five foot solar panels at each school site. The two-megawatt panels, which absorb and convert the sun’s rays to electricity, are placed on top of shade structures in the parking lots of the two school sites. SDUHSD chose shade structures based on results from neighboring districts like Poway Unified School District, which had security problems with panels mounted on the ground, and other districts that also had security issues with mounted panels on roofs.

With the district’s help, Canyon Crest Academy student government is raising funds for a JumboTron LED display that will show statistics and updates on the project and its progress as well as interesting facts about solar energy. Funds will also come from the California Solar Initiative grants, since the project will be part of the solar facility. As a site of green innovation, Addleman says, the project provides educational opportunities to students who will get a chance to be part of the construction planning. So far, the projects have generated interest from both students and teachers.

Neighboring San Diego Unified School District’s (SDUSD) solar panel project started in 2000 and spans across 30 sites. Instead of being placed on shade structures, the five-megawatt panels are placed on top of roofs. The estimated savings of the project are about $37 million in roof replacement, maintenance and electricity costs over 20 years. Currently, the project in its third phase and is considered the largest school district photovoltaic installation project in the country.

Lower Cost Bids For Construction Projects Mean Big Savings for Fairfax County, Virginia Schools
Kali Schumitz , Fairfax Times
July 14, 2010

VIRGINIA: A local construction industry still hungry for work continues to add up to big savings for Fairfax County Public Schools. Renovation projects that were, a couple of years ago, slated to begin in fiscal years 2015 and 2016 could begin as soon as fiscal 2013, Chief Operating Officer Dean Tistadt told the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors.
"We're getting 13 to 14 bids on every project we do now," he said, leading to lower average costs and freeing up funds for additional work.

In 2007, it cost as much as $172 million to renovate an elementary school, while bids for similar projects coming in this year were around $120 million -- up slightly from the $110 million average cost last year. With the savings, there now are 11 school addition and renovation projects in the design phase and nine other projects are proposed to move up in the renovation queue.

Stimulus Bond Option Could Save Catawba County, North Carolina Money
Larry Clark, Hickory Record
July 14, 2010

NORTH CAROLINA: Catawba County commissioners thought the means of funding school projects was in place until Finance Director Rodney Miller offered a potential money-saving alternative. It's a federal program that pays state and local governments for a portion of interest payments on construction costs. Commissioners have already approved a new Newton-Conover middle school and renovations at Arndt Middle School, Hickory High School and Catawba Valley Community College. The board is prepared to spend up to $32 million for the work.

Monday night, commissioners examined ways to pay for the projects. The county has been saving for school capital expenses, first setting aside 2 cents of the 53-cent property tax rate, and then adding another 2 cents over the past several years. Commissioners, with Miller and the finance department doing the preparation, expected to use the money they set aside, lottery receipts, and Qualified School Construction Bonds. The QSCBs are part of the America Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The purpose of those bonds is to sell them at zero interest. However, according to the county, transactions involving QSCBs in other counties have been financed at 2 percent interest. County officials were prepared to try selling the bonds at zero interest that would have saved $4 million over the 15-year life of the loan. The county also was ready to fund the rest of the expenses at 4 to 4.5 percent interest.

Monday, Miller told the commissioners about Build America Bonds. "We would borrow against our credit rating, which is double-A," he said, "instead of using traditional collateral." "The federal reimbursement could mean a less expensive loan."
According to the Internal Revenue Service, the Build America program "authorizes state and local governments to issue Build America Bonds as taxable bonds in 2009 and 2010 to finance any capital expenditures for which they otherwise could issue tax-exempt governmental bonds. "State and local governments receive a direct federal subsidy payment for a portion of their borrowing costs on Build America Bonds equal to 35 percent of the total coupon interest paid to investors," the IRS Web site states.

Miller wants to plot all possible combinations of financing to produce the least cost to the county for the school projects. Commissioners approved his request, giving him and County Manager Tom Lundy the authority to use Build America bonds if they prove to be a viable option. Reassessing the means of funding the projects will not delay construction or renovation. Whatever financing plan emerges must be approved by the Local Government Commission, a state agency that evaluates large expenditures by county and municipal governments to ensure affordability.

Lawsuit Asks State to Make Rules on N.J. Urban School Districts Taking Over School Construction Projects
Jon Whiten, Jersey City Independent
July 14, 2010

NEW JERSEY: A statewide nonprofit group has filed a lawsuit to compel two New Jersey agencies to adopt rules that would potentially allow the Jersey City school district and other urban school districts in the state to plan, design and construct needed school construction projects in their communities. The action, brought in the state Superior Court’s Appellate Division by the Newark-based Education Law Center (ELC), looks to force the state Department of Education (DOE) and Schools Development Authority (SDA) to set into motion a long-promised process that would allow some of the 31 urban school districts governed by the SDA to directly plan and construct their own projects while being supervised by the agency.

Initially, all school construction projects in the SDA districts could only be managed by the SDA, but in 2007 the legislature amended the law in an effort to both cut costs and increase the level of local involvement in the school construction process. Under the amendment, the DOE was required to establish rules that would determine if a district generally had the capacity to undertake the construction projects, and the SDA was required to establish rules that would determine if a district had the capacity to undertake specific approved projects.

But despite a deadline of August 6, 2008 to adopt the rules, there has been little action from either agency, according to ELC. Meanwhile, the SDA’s new executive director Marc Larkins is reviewing the agency’s 2008 capital plan, which covers 52 projects in urban districts, including several projects — like the much-needed School 20 improvements — in Jersey City. The EDC’s suit asks the court to impose a strict timetable for publishing and adopting the required rules.
“After careful deliberation, the legislature decided to allow capable districts to manage school projects in their own communities and, at the same time, reduce costly state bureaucracy,” ELC executive director David Sciarra says in a statement. “The DOE and SDA are flouting the will of the Legislature by not putting this process in place.”

$59M Savings in Construction Costs May Fund 2 Wake County, North Carolina Elementary Schools
T. Keung Hui, Cary News
July 14, 2010

NEW YORK: Wake County school board members will have to decide whether the best way to spend $59 million in school construction savings is on building two elementary schools. Administrators have recommended using the $59 million to build two new elementary schools that could open in 2013. Administrators have identified three sites.

"We've got the money and we're dealing with potential crowding," said Joe Desormeaux, Wake's assistant superintendent for facilities. He said the $59 million was accumulated from projects coming in under budget from the district's ongoing $1.056 billion construction program. Although the national recession has delayed some projects, the school system has completed most of the work funded by a record $970 million school construction bond issue approved by voters in 2006. Despite budget cuts resulting in layoffs and some classes being eliminated, the construction savings can only be used for other capital projects such as building and renovating schools and buying land. Staff looked at where crowding was the greatest and where the school system could quickly begin building. At a cost of $25 million per elementary school, the savings covered the cost of two schools.

New York City Finds Space For New Schools in Closing Schools' Buildings
Sharon Otterman, New York Times
July 14, 2010

NEW YORK: The Department of Education and the city teachers’ union announced a solution to a math equation that had been plaguing them since this spring: how to fit 16 new and expanding schools into space occupied by 19 existing schools. Those 19 schools had been slated to close because of poor performance, but a successful lawsuit from the United Federation of Teachers and the N.A.A.C.P. last March gave them a reprieve, at least for another year. The problem was that the city had already promised space in the closing schools’ buildings to the new schools, which were left in a kind of limbo.

Under the terms of the agreement, 9 of the 16 schools will open in the promised locations, alongside some of the saved schools. In exchange, the union pledged to not sue the city for placing new schools in the closing schools’ buildings, a matter that was left undecided in the lawsuit that could have been challenged.

Five of the schools found new locations, including the Manhattan Academy for Arts & Language, which will lease space at the union’s headquarters in downtown Manhattan. The city will pay for the space, but “at below market rent,” said Michael Mulgrew, the union president.

The city has repeatedly vowed it would try again next year to close all 19 schools that were saved by the lawsuit, by repeating the process required to close them, which two courts found was not in compliance with the law governing mayoral control of the city schools.

Univ. of Pennsylvania Turns a Paved Area into A Green Sustainable Site
Staff Writer, Almanac
July 13, 2010

PENNSYLVANIA: A University of Pennsylvania project designed to turn a set of aging tennis courts into an urban park called Shoemaker Green has been selected as a pilot for the nation’s first rating system for green landscape design, construction and maintenance.
The Sustainable Sites Initiative will pilot more than 150 projects in the United States, Canada, Iceland and Spain to evaluate its new rating system for sustainable landscapes, anticipated to be analogous to the US Green Building Council’s LEED Green Building ratings. The Initiative is a partnership of the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin and the United States Botanic Garden.

Shoemaker Green was chosen as a pilot project based on its numerous environmentally friendly elements. Plans by Andropogon Associates, a Philadelphia-based landscape architecture design firm, call for green space to replace the paved tennis courts that now lie in a 3.75-acre site off 33rd Street surrounded by the Palestra, Franklin Field and the David Rittenhouse Laboratories. The site is classified as a grey field—previously urbanized land—where storm water drainage is a major issue. This project, while creating a new open space for the campus, will also improve water quality, minimize runoff, restore biomass to the site and increase local biodiversity with habitat planting and use of living soils. By replacing paved surfaces with landscaping, it will also reduce the urban heat island effect.
The proposed design demonstrates the Penn’s commitment to sustainable site management as one of the goals of its Climate Action Plan (Almanac September 29, 2009). It establishes the framework for introducing sustainable practices into Penn’s campus and tying these practices into the living and learning environment. Shoemaker Green, as one of the campus’s open spaces, will provide a key link between the University’s core and Penn Park.

The Sustainable Sites Initiative plans to use feedback from the pilot phase of these selected projects to revise its final rating system and reference guide by early 2013. The US Green Building Council, a stakeholder in the Initiative, anticipates incorporating the guidelines and performance benchmarks into future iterations of its LEED Green Building Rating System.

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Students Want Colleges To Show Them the Green
Brittany Anas , Colorado Daily
July 13, 2010

COLORADO: The University of Colorado's law school has solar panels on its roof and an electric-car-charging station where a donor to the school can be spotted juicing up his Tesla electric sports car. A recently made-over dorm -- Andrews Hall -- just got news that it received a "gold" rating for its features like low-flowing shower heads and smart sensors that suspend heating and cooling systems when windows are open. And, come the holiday season, students can buy earrings crafted from recycled beer caps at a green-themed expo in the student center.
From a college recruiting perspective, green is gold. "I appreciate CU's environmental outreach," said CU student Rena Goldstein. "Many of my friends and family members recommended this school as one of the country's leading eco-friendly hot spots." She said she's been impressed with the dual-flush toilets around campus that save water and the amount of recycling receptacles on the campus.

An increasing number of students say they want a college that has a good report card when it comes to environmental issues. The Princeton Review in 2009 found that 68 percent of students, and 59 percent of their parents, value having information about a college's commitment to the environment -- which is a 4 percent increase from the previous year.
There are now a hodgepodge of publications and organizations interested in scoring universities for their environmental efforts, but they have wildly varying criteria. Dave Newport, director of the Environmental Center at CU -- a campus that was rated the No. 1 green school by Sierra Magazine -- expects that the "Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System" will emerge as the uniform standard in coming years. Newport said CU has made a name for itself as a green school: The university launched the nation's first student-led environmental center in 1970, and in 1976 became the first in the country with a student-led recycling program.

In its College Sustainability Report Card, the Sustainable Endowments Institute reports found that 69 percent of colleges and universities are weaving messages about sustainability into student orientations, according to Rob Foley, senior research fellow. That compares to 27 percent of schools that gave the green pitch at orientations last year.

At CU, barbecues for new students attending orientation are zero-waste and students are given reusable black-and-gold bags. Last year, the school -- using a grant for sustainability projects -- installed four filtered water stations outside of its "grab-and-go" food outlets, complementing similar stations in the residence halls. Sales of water bottles at the food shops declined by 15 percent, said CU dining director Amy Beckstrom. Dining services also gave more than 200,000 gallons of fryer grease to a local biodiesel company last year to be turned into fuel. And, more than 200 tons of food waste last year was diverted from the landfill and instead composted, Beckstrom said. CU student Kate Sandler said that she's wowed by environmental efforts at CU, chiefly the number of students she sees voluntarily plucking recyclable items out of trash bins or encouraging their peers to recycle. She thinks sustainability efforts need to be the standard at schools. "When looking for colleges, most students focus on majors and cost and things like that," Sandler said. "Greenness isn't usually broadcast as much. But going here really brings the eco-friendly issue to the front of what people think and care about."

Higher Ed Sets Power Goals: Switching from Coal to Cleaner Fuels
Housley Carr, GreenSource
July 12, 2010

NATIONAL: The “greening” of U.S. colleges and universities is presenting opportunities for engineering and construction firms.
Increasing numbers of schools that for decades have depended on coal-fired plants for steam and electricity are working to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions by shifting to natural gas and biomass, says Kim Teplitzky, coal campaign coordinator for the Sierra Student Coalition, an adjunct of the Sierra Club. About 60 colleges and universities currently burn coal, she said, but several already are planning to switch to other, cleaner fuels. For example, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in May announced that it plans to phase out coal of its co-generation plant by 2020.

Ball State University, Muncie, Ind., started a $70-million, five- to 10-year plan to swap four existing coal-fired boilers for a geothermal system. The University of Wisconsin in Madison this summer will begin a $250-million conversion of its Charter Street steam and powerplant to natural gas and biomass from coal. The UW project—which includes two new gas-fired boilers, another fueled by wood, agricultural waste and other biomass, and a 22-MW steam generator—grew out of a 2007 plan by Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle (D) to phase out coal at all state-owned institutions, says Troy Runge, director of the Wisconsin Bioenergy Initiative.
Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation Group, Lynchburg, Va., says it recently won a contract to design and supply a new biomass-fired, bubbling fluidized bed boiler for the University of Missouri. The 150,000-lb-per-hour boiler in 2012 will replace an older coal-fired boiler of similar output, says Karlan Seville, university spokeswoman.

Reflections on Modernizing and Expanding a Historic School
Sean O'Donnell, PreservationNation blog
July 12, 2010

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Now that summer has arrived in earnest, Washington, DC’s School Without Walls Senior High School (“Walls”) has become unusually quiet. This 440-student public school just enjoyed its first year back at its newly-modernized and expanded campus, giving me a chance to reflect on how well this learning community has settled back into its home.
The renewed facilities – a combination of a 19th century school house and a 21st century addition – have had a dramatic impact on learning. Test scores and applications to enroll in the school have both risen dramatically. The fourteen juniors who enrolled in the first full year of the Early College Program are taking dual credit courses at the neighboring George Washington University toward an associate’s degree.

In a roundtable conducted by the American Architectural Foundation, teachers remarked that the building greatly enhanced communication among the faculty. New distance learning technologies have further enhanced collaboration with students attending schools in Ghana and Nigeria, and the facilities have enhanced the sense of pride among the Walls community.

Walls provides tangible evidence that if you can look past the daily experience of the current problems beleaguering many of our older school buildings and truly assess their potential, many are capable of meeting contemporary educational needs with the proper investment. And when considered within a broader context of educational and societal goals, they may even exceed the performance of a new “green field” school.

Building Maryland Schools
Editorial Board, Baltimore Sun
July 11, 2010

MARYLAND: School construction is one of the biggest responsibilities of state government, along with other major capital projects such as highways, roads and bridges. Over the last four years, Maryland has poured more than $250 million annually into school construction and renovation projects that have both enhanced the educational opportunities for its students and produced thousands of jobs for its residents. Gov. Martin O'Malley's pledge last week to continue funding school building projects at the same level over the next four years if he is re-elected in November signals he understands the importance of such efforts as an investment in Maryland's future.

No one doubts that the key to a quality education is a good teacher in every classroom. But classrooms and the buildings that house them also play a vital role in creating an environment in which students can learn. Studies have consistently shown that up-to-date science and computer labs, well-lighted and well-equipped classrooms, libraries, media centers and athletic facilities all have a measurable positive impact on student learning, attendance and graduation rates. At the same time, the lack of such facilities has just the opposite effect: students who attend classes in crumbling, ill-equipped buildings, with inadequate heating, cooling and ventilation, soon get the message of how little society values their education.

Mr. O'Malley suggests that the $1 billion commitment he is making to school construction and renovation will generate more than 9,000 jobs. Job creation is a short-term benefit that his proposal shares with other large capital projects, and in an economic downturn like the present one every one of those jobs is sorely needed. But the long-term benefits of improving existing school buildings and creating new ones are even greater because Maryland's future depends on a well-educated workforce capable of meeting the challenges of the 21st century. For that the state will not only need dedicated, highly motivated teachers and principals, but also modern, well-equipped facilities that inspire children to excel.

Omaha Public Schools Green Plans Blooming
Michaela Saunders, Omaha World-Herald
July 10, 2010

NEBRASKA: The Omaha Public Schools is ready to show that Kermit the Frog was wrong: With commitment, it is easy being green — and it's saving money. The district's relatively new Green Schools Initiative already is paying off. Eight of the district's newest or recently remodeled schools have been recognized as Energy Stars. Running an Energy Star school costs about 40 cents less per square foot than a building with average efficiency. That means those eight OPS schools save the district a total of more than $300,000 a year in utility costs.
“The more efficient a building is, the more cost-effective it is to run,” said Craig Moody of the local stainability consulting firm Verdis Group. “This initiative is very much financially driven. Our goal is to make our schools as efficient as possible.”

OPS has had some green building standards for the last 10 years, said buildings and grounds director Mark Warneke. In all OPS buildings built or remodeled in the last decade, the restrooms have automatic lights, toilets and faucets. The buildings also have heat pumps that allow for individual classroom climate control. Those standards helped make the Energy Star schools as efficient as they are. Twenty OPS buildings use geothermal heating and cooling systems and many — including the Energy Star schools — have a building-wide energy management system, in which a computer monitors and controls everything from temperature to lighting and indoor air quality, room by room. The Green Schools Initiative will build on current district standards. The goal: Increase energy efficiency to save money and shrink the district's environmental impact.

Administrators and school board members say they want OPS to lead by example with environmentally friendly practices. And education — for staff, students and the community — will be a major component of the effort. When finished, Moody said, the district's green plan is likely to include everything from establishing public gardens to standardizing ways to cut carbon use in buildings and vehicles. When finished, the Green Schools Initiative plan will outline equipment efficiency options so the district is armed with information when everyday upgrades are necessary. For example, the district will know the cost and energy benefits if it decided to repair or replace a boiler or add a skylight when a roof is replaced. And it will try to spread the best programs under way at individual schools around the district, such as recycling and reducing food waste. “There's a real desire for this to be a leading-edge program nationally,” Moody said. “We're doing some really fun stuff.”

California Law Exempts Most School Remodels From Fire Sprinklers
Sharon Noguchi and Mark Gomez, Mercury News
July 10, 2010

CALIFORNIA: Three years before a fire ravaged San Jose's Trace Elementary this week, the school underwent a major remodel to upgrade classrooms and expand space. But the $3 million renovation didn't include a safety feature that fire officials have long sought California to require in classrooms: automatic fire sprinklers.
And when the school is rebuilt this summer, school officials probably won't include sprinklers this time either. That's because state codes that require fire sprinklers in new schools — and starting Jan. 1, in new homes — for the most part don't apply to existing schools or even to brand-new buildings on old campuses. And unless the state requires sprinklers, insurance companies won't cover the cost to install them — even when rebuilding a burned-down school like Trace. "We had Gardner, we had Pioneer and now Trace," said literacy coach Therese Beaver, who lost 14 years of work in Monday's fire, and recalled recent fires at San Jose Unified schools. "There seems to be a history here. I just hope maybe they would look at the number and maybe determine that it would be worth it to put in sprinklers."

That California mandates sprinklers in schools at all is the result of a vigorous campaign by firefighters after 60 children narrowly escaped their burning classrooms in 1997 at Green Oaks Academy in East Palo Alto. The lobbying helped produce the Green Oaks Family Academy Elementary School Fire Protection Act, enacted in 2002.

But ironically, Green Oaks itself, a K-4 school in the Ravenswood City School District, was rebuilt without sprinklers after the near-tragic 1997 fire and subsequent blazes in 2001 and 2003. Its namesake law exempted Green Oaks as a "modernization." San Jose's Gardner elementary was rebuilt after a 2003 fire without classroom sprinklers. The lack of a broader law frustrates officials of the Menlo Park Fire Protection District who responded to the Green Oaks fires and note that if a student walking out of his classroom hadn't noticed smoke and flames — the 1997 fire had disabled the alarm system — dozens of children might have perished. "We came as close as we can to losing 60 kids," said Menlo Park Fire Chief Harold Schapelhouman. "How much closer do you have to get?"
Three more far-reaching bills were vetoed by ex-Gov. Pete Wilson and by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The education lobby opposed the bills because they would add to the cost of construction, Schapelhouman said. Competing with the demand for new computers, classrooms and cafeterias, fire sprinklers don't rise high on educators' wish lists. And opponents point out that there has never been a fatal daytime classroom fire in California. "In an ideal world, if I had millions of dollars, we would absolutely" install sprinklers, said Veronica Grijalva Lewis, president of the San Jose Unified school board.

The process of determining when schools needs sprinklers isn't an exact science. Districts remodeling schools must submit plans to the Division of the State Architect, which ensures that the plans meet code. Sometimes the results are surprising. About five years ago, the Oak Grove School District in San Jose sent in remodeling plans for identical schools — Sakamoto and Del Roble — and was told that it needed to add sprinklers at one school but not the other. "Now they are insisting we put fire sprinklers in both schools," said Assistant Superintendent Chris Jew. This summer, the district is installing those sprinklers, which have added $2 million to the cost of each 38,000-square-foot pod, Jew said. Oak Grove is paying for them with bond money. But Sakamoto school parent Danielle Contreras said she felt fortunate. "I would love to see sprinklers in all the schools, for a safety measure," she said. "You'd think it would be more cost effective than to rebuild."

University of Colorado Scales Back Vacuuming, Paint Jobs, Cleaning Amid Budget Cuts
Brittany Anas , Daily Camera
July 09, 2010

COLORADO: Paint jobs, vacuuming in offices and stairwell cleaning at the University of Colorado's Boulder campus will be less frequent because of budget cuts that have reduced the school's custodial staff. Last year, amid budget cuts, the university told employees they needed to take out their own trash. The elimination of the school's office trash pick-up service is saving the campus about $122,000 a year, according to CU officials.
Beginning this month, CU custodians will scale back vacuuming service from once a week to every other week and only clean stairwells two times a week, instead of three times. Painting will be "significantly reduced," according to the school's Facilities Management. Together, the newest reduction in custodial services will save CU about $202,000 a year, according to CU spokeswoman Malinda Miller-Huey. The university, in its latest round of budget cuts, eliminated six vacant positions that were responsible for office vacuuming services, stairwell cleaning and painting.

"When identifying budget reductions, Facilities Management's overall objective is to minimize the impact to the campus's core mission of instruction, research and public service," John Morris, director of Facilities Management, said in an e-mail to building proctors. "Also of great importance is ensuring that there are no impacts to the health and safety of the campus community."

Virginia School Board Votes to Close Town's Only Elementary School and Community Centerpiece
Michael Alison Chandler, Washington Post
July 09, 2010

VIRGINIA: The Fairfax School Board voted to shut down Clifton Elementary School, following months of intense resistance from residents seeking to save the town's only school and a community centerpiece. Board members cited the outsize cost of renovating one of the county's smallest public schools, particularly during an economic downturn.

Clifton Elementary has stellar test results but a faded brick facade. It is not attached to a public water supply, and its wells have tested positive for contaminants. Officials said the cost of upgrading the 58-year-old building on the hilly 14-acre property would be about $11 million, roughly the same as building a larger school elsewhere. At the same time, they project Clifton's enrollment to dip below 300 by 2015, down from 369 this year.
Parents in the tiny picturesque town and its pastoral environs said the school is an integral part of their community and a crucial gathering place for families. In an emotional rally and at a hearing, many said they would rather make do with a pared-down renovation than have no school at all.
Some Clifton neighbors are seeking a historic designation for the 1950s-era building, which would make it eligible for federal and state grants to offset rehabilitation costs. A few agencies, including the National Trust for Historic Preservation, wrote letters to the School Board to support restoring the neighborhood school.

46 Mayors Team Up for Green Schools
Wendy Fry, Union-Tribune
July 09, 2010

CALIFORNIA: Mayors in three South Bay cities are joining a green schools coalition. Cheryl Cox of Chula Vista, Ron Morrison of National City and Jim Janney of Imperial Beach announced their participation in the Mayors’ Alliance for Green Schools at Chula Vista High School. The alliance is a coalition of 46 mayors nationwide who will work with the U.S. Green Building Council to promote the building of environmentally sustainable buildings at public schools and to encourage green renovations in South Bay campuses.
Wednesday’s event was held in front of the construction site for Chula Vista High School’s new creative arts multipurpose building — a $9 million LEED Gold structure approved by South County voters as part of Proposition O in November 2006. Speakers praised the 25,729-square-foot building as setting the standard for future projects. The building includes a 700-seat theater, large dance studios and rooms for choir, mariachi and band. The music rooms feature acoustic panels made from recycled materials. The hardwood flooring in the dance rooms is made of lumber cut in sustainable forests. Construction is scheduled to be complete in the first quarter of 2011. Though obtaining a LEED Gold certification is quite a challenge, some of the extras, like the carbon dioxide sensors in the green classrooms, impressed visitors. If levels are too high, air conditioning units will automatically circulate more fresh air in the room.

“Studies show students learn better; they’re less likely to fall asleep when there is the correct amount of fresh air in a room,” Jaime Ortiz, the district’s program manager, said. “I think that’s about the coolest aspect of all the high technology we’re implementing in every room.” Also scoring high are the eno boards in every classroom. Eno boards are like typical white boards that can be marked by teachers with a dry-erase pen, but anything written on the board is automatically stored electronically in a computer. The boards are made from recyclables. The building also has solar panels.

PCBs Will Be Removed from University of Massachusetts Residence Complex
Sydney Lupkin , Boston Globe
July 08, 2010

MASSACHUSETTS: The University of Massachusetts Amherst has less than two months to remove toxic PCBs from one of its residence complexes, but officials said they are confident the work will be complete before students return.
The Southwest Residential Area, where the polychlorinated biphenyls are located, houses 5,500 students in five high-rises and 11 low-rises during the academic year, which begins Sept. 7. It was erected in 1966, when PCBs were an ordinary part of the construction process because they were not flammable, had high boiling points, and were chemically stable, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s website. PCBs were banned in 1979 but remain in some old buildings. Now considered an environmental and health foe, PCBs are believed to harm the immune and reproductive systems, among others. Studies have linked them to cancer, according to the EPA.

People who have been in the area in the past 40-odd years can rest easy, however, according to Kim Tisa, the EPA’s PCB coordinator for the region. Tisa said humans can come into contact with PCBs in three ways: touch, hand-to-mouth, or inhalation. Because PCBs were mostly in the caulking of the concourse of the UMass complex, not the rooms, the likelihood of PCBs making their way into students’ systems is slim, she said. Tisa said PCBs are not volatile like gas, but they do tend to “migrate’’ to items surrounding them such as the concrete and granite touching the caulking. Blaguszewski said soil has been tested and contaminated granite will be removed and cleaned off-site.

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Illinois Suburban School Districts Invest in Wind Farm to Save $2 Million a Year
Editorial Board, Daily Herald
July 08, 2010

ILLINOIS: What do you get when you cross a school funding crisis with a clean-energy initiative? Officials with three suburban school districts hope the answer lies in a downstate wind farm that could save them $2 million in a year in electric bills. And we think they are on to something.
It's natural for tension to accompany new ideas that have such public impact, but we have been impressed with the way Carpentersville-based Community Unit District 300, Keeneyville Elementary District 20 and Prospect Heights District 23 have brought about their plan to build a 19.5-megawatt wind farm in Stark County, 140 miles southwest of Chicago. The electricity generated will offset energy bills, perhaps leaving money that can fill gaps caused by the state budget mess. Put in perspective, a wind farm that size could provide electricity for about 5,000 homes annually. Three years in the making, the proposal had to be reworked again and again as school officials sought a financial model that would comply with state laws and protect taxpayers from losses.

The breakthrough came in legislation sponsored by state Rep. Fred Crespo, a Democrat from Hoffman Estates. It allows school districts to form consortiums that can issue bonds and opens the way for schools to fund renewable energy projects. Now the school districts can proceed. They plan to use a federal grant, tax credits and cash from the sale of the electricity to pay off private investors and bond holders.

In the coming weeks each district will vote on formalizing the consortium. We urge officials to forge ahead on what appears to be a promising effort. Risks are inherent in any new venture, and any savings from this project wouldn't be realized right away. But with Illinois still far from financial solvency, longer-term solutions make good policy for schools.
The legislation was designed to push this particular project along, but it's certainly not limited to the school trio. School officials throughout the suburbs should be watching closely. This experiment is one way we'll begin to determine whether these forms of renewable energy and intergovernmental cooperation are solid options for the future.

Improving School Facilities Has More Effects on Education Than Just Giving Schools Nicer Classrooms
John Crace, The Guardian
July 08, 2010

ENGLAND: Michael Gove risks self-inflicted injury after cancelling the Labour government's £55bn Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme and suspending projects in 715 schools. For Gove might just find attainment levels slip and pupil behaviour gets worse.
Last year the government's favourite auditor, KPMG, published a report on the effects of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) – a key component of many BSF programmes – on educational outcomes. The headline findings were that the rate of improvement in student attainment was 44% higher in PFI schools than in conventional schools and that unauthorised absences were decreasing in PFI schools and increasing in conventional ones.
The KPMG report backs up a 2002 study in the US conducted by the National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities. Its report, Do School Facilities Affect Academic Outcomes?, found that spatial configurations, noise, heat, cold, light and air quality obviously bear on students' and teachers' ability to perform. This can be achieved within the limits of existing knowledge, technology and materials; it just requires adequate funding, competent design, construction and maintenance.

Chris Husbands, dean of faculty at the Institute of Education, is rather more reluctant to make a direct causal link between new school buildings and student performance. "The available research is variable and often of poor quality," he said. "We do know that bad school buildings impact negatively on learning: what we don't know is just how much good buildings improve the quality of learning. "However, it's not difficult to hypothesise that the quality of the school environment must have an impact on student achievement. Back in the 60s and 70s, most school buildings were of a higher standard than the homes of their students. This sent a clear message about the importance society placed on education. "By the 80s many school buildings were a great deal worse than the homes of their students – something the Labour government tried to put right when it came to power in 1997. It would be disastrous to return to the levels of capital funding of the 80s and 1970s." Husbands also points out that, though research also suggests a good teacher can offset an unsatisfactory classroom with good pedagogy, there's been no studies done on the average teachers who make up the vast majority. "Again, it's not hard to imagine that an average teacher is going to be less effective taking a lesson in a classroom that's no longer fit for purpose than in one that's modern and fit for purpose. At the very least, you have to say Gove is taking a gamble on student attainment."

Kentucky School Districts Use Stimulus Dollars to Hire Energy Managers
Jim Warren, Herald Leader
July 07, 2010

KENTUCKY: With 92-degree heat pushing up electrical demand, officials from Kentucky school districts met in Lexington to start working on ways to help their schools cut energy costs. The session opened three days of orientation and training for 35 newly hired school energy managers who will be charged with helping up to 130 Kentucky public school districts use energy more efficiently, and incorporate energy conservation into student curriculums. The effort could reach more than 1,000 schools, officials said.

The energy managers — most of whom are starting work this week — were hired with federal economic stimulus dollars funneled through the Kentucky School Boards Association and the Kentucky Department of Energy Development and Independence. Some of the managers will work for individual districts, but most will work with multiple districts. Officials hope school districts will continue the effort after the initial $2.5 million in federal funds runs out in two years.

John Davies, state deputy commissioner of energy development and independence, said the program will allow Kentucky to manage school energy use on a comprehensive basis for the first time. The need is critical, Davies said. He noted that Kentucky schools paid about $183 million to transport, heat, cool and provide lighting for students in 2008, about $93 million more than in 2000. Overall, he said, the state's schools now spend about $272 per student, per year on energy needs.

Arizona School District Saves $292,000 in Energy Costs By Lowering Energy Use
Susan Randall, Arizona City Independent
July 07, 2010

ARIZONA: Kelty said the district lowered its energy use by more than 1 million kwhs between June 2008 and May 2009, saving roughly $70,000 in energy cost over the previous year. It did this by completing an energy audit; developing an energy management policy; installing basic energy-management equipment at three campuses that did not already have them; changing from single-campus, dial-up systems to a districtwide, Web-based system of control; upgrading the energy management software on some campuses; and creating control zones for gyms, administrative areas, music rooms and other areas.

Between June 2009 and May 2010 the district reduced its energy usage by 3.4 million kwhs, saving $222,200, even with rising energy rates. It did this with equipment upgrades: replacing classroom units and piping at Casa Grande Middle School; replacing the evaporative coolers on the CGMS auditorium with energy-efficient air-conditioning units; retrofitting 40-watt magnetic ballast lighting with 32-watt electronic ballasts and bulbs; installing energy management control upgrades at the rest of the campuses; installing variable-speed drives on all large motors districtwide and on the air-conditioning units at Desert Willow and Evergreen schools; and installing a pulse meter at Saguaro School to help regulate demand usage. It will be a pilot for possible installations at all the schools. “It has the potential to save a lot of money,” Kelty said.
The district also changed to large-team summer cleaning to shut down multiple campuses when not being cleaned, saving $40,000 last summer. It established after-hours settings in zones for evening cleaning and is refining a large-team approach for daily cleaning.

Kelty said that during this two-year period, the district added square footage and energy use at the transportation and administration buildings and the gymnasiums at Cholla and Cottonwood schools and still saved “considerable amounts of energy.” “Our EPA Energy Star average rating has increased from 12 to 41 on a scale of 1 to 100. Seven of our buildings are now at or exceed the national average of 50 for schools.” Board President John J. Klein Jr. said energy savings will free up more money for academics.

Stadium Lighting Poles Recalled; Many Defective Structures Along School Playing Fields
Eric Dexheimer , American-Statesman
July 06, 2010

NATIONAL: The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced a nationwide recall of stadium lighting poles manufactured by Whitco Co. LLP, the Fort Worth company that designed and sold about a dozen of the giant towers that have crashed without warning during the past three years.
Most of the accidents occurred at public schools in Texas; two, in Hays County and in Round Rock, were in Central Texas.

The federal agency's recall follows the American-Statesman's reporting last year linking the now-bankrupt Whitco to defective poles across the country. In addition to the poles that have toppled, nearly 100 more were found to have developed potentially dangerous cracks at their bases, most only a few years after their installation.

No one has been hurt because of the faulty towers, although there have been several close calls. In March 2009, when a 125-foot pole at the Hays school district's Bob Shelton Stadium toppled and slammed onto a high school gymnasium, about 60 people were in the stadium at the time, waiting to watch a soccer game. The Whitco pole that fell a month later at a playing field in Uniontown, Pa., crushed bleachers and crashed across a field that, if it were not for bad weather, would have been bustling with school children.

The product safety commission's announcement follows a warning it issued in August, recommending that owners of stadiums with Whitco poles should have them checked for cracks. Tuesday's recall, for poles 70 feet and taller made by Whitco, states that "consumers should immediately stop using recalled products until they are inspected and repaired. "The poles can fracture or crack and fall over, posing a risk of serious injury or death to patrons and bystanders from being hit or crushed." In a news release, the agency estimated the recall would involve more than 2,500 poles. Many Texas school districts have already checked their athletic field light towers and, where necessary, removed or added support to their Whitco poles.
Whitco's poles have toppled in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Mississippi and South Dakota. A few fell at minor league baseball stadiums. But many of the defective structures were located along playing fields at Texas high schools.

Because Whitco is defunct, the school districts and other stadium owners have had to bear the cost of replacing and repairing the one- to four-ton towers themselves. Hays County spent nearly $700,000 replacing its light poles and repairing damage from the fallen tower. The Carroll school district in Southlake, outside of Dallas, spent nearly $300,000 inspecting and replacing its four Whitco poles.
Forensic reports delving into the cause of the poles' failures have reached different conclusions. While several have cited rapid vibrations caused by winds, others have blamed design or welding flaws.

Historic Designations Sought for Dozens of Detroit Schools
Marisa Schultz , Detroit News
July 05, 2010

MICHIGAN: Nearly 90 Detroit Public Schools buildings are nominated for the National Register of Historic Places, an honorary designation that can lead to tax credits for redevelopers but may do little to prevent the demolition of some of the vacant structures. The effort to preserve the schools was led by Detroit's Historic Designation Advisory Board, whose planners spent $33,000 and more than a year surveying all the city's schools built before 1960 and cataloging their histories.

The state Historic Review Board approved 88 of the schools for the national register and will submit the nomination to the federal government as soon as this week. Federal officials are expected to finalize the designation this summer. The designation comes as nearly 150 Detroit Public Schools have closed since 2003, the result of thousands of students leaving the district each year. Some of the nominated schools are ones that are to close this year, such as Cooley High, built in 1927, and Hanstein Elementary, built in 1918.
Janese Chapman, a city planner who is part of the effort, hopes the designation will spark greater appreciation of the buildings and their potential uses. Instead of demolishing the community anchors, Chapman hopes the conversation will turn to: "How can we repurpose them?"

England's School Buildings Redevelopment Scheme Scrapped
Hannah Richardson, BBC News
July 05, 2010

ENGLAND: Hundreds of school building projects are being scrapped as England's national school redevelopment scheme is axed by the government. Education Secretary Michael Gove said 719 school revamps already signed up to the scheme would not now go ahead. A further 123 academy schemes are to be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. His department has been reviewing Labour's Building Schools for the Future scheme since the election. It concluded that all local authority schemes that have not reached financial close would not go ahead, saving "billions" of pounds. This means 706 schools in the existing BSF programme which have reached financial close will continue, but officials will see how savings can be made within them. Another 14 projects in local authorities further down the BSF priority list would be considered to see if a small number of revamps could be brought forward.

Some 180 schools have been rebuilt or revamped since the programme was introduced by Labour in 2004. And building is about to start in 231 schools. But 1,100 schools have already signed up to the scheme, investing time, energy and money into drawing up plans for redevelopment, but have not reached financial close. Originally all of England's 3,500 schools were to be revamped by 2023. The plan was to replace out-dated buildings with facilities that suit modern education.

Garden Becomes Classroom
Lindsay Vanhulle, Record-Eagle
July 04, 2010

MICHIGAN: The idea that students learn at a desk in a classroom is hard to break. American children have learned that way for centuries, since the days of one-room schoolhouses. Some educators today believe the practice is antiquated. What would happen, they wonder, if students left the school building to apply their knowledge in the real world?
Administrators in Traverse City Area Public Schools plan to install a community garden this summer at Traverse Heights Elementary with the hope it will do that. Ideally, it would generate fresh ingredients for school meals and serve a curriculum that weaves throughout students' subjects. "It's a complementary relationship," school board member Gary Appel said. "The garden is strengthened by the classroom knowledge."

Creating school gardens goes beyond a traditional field trip. It borders on immersion, with students involved in planting and cultivating. Rotary Charities of Traverse City awarded the district a one-year grant worth $5,000 to develop its plans. Students attending a Traverse Heights summer camp likely will help with the setup. Additionally, administrators met with the North Traverse Heights Neighborhood Association to discuss the possibility of providing garden plots for residents. At least 30 percent of the 450 residences in the neighborhood are rentals, said Larry Gerschbacher, the association's president. "This would give them the opportunity to have a garden," he said. "Everyone said it's a good idea."

District administrators in May outlined a three-phase plan when applying for the Rotary grant. The first phase, to start this summer, involves preparing the site. A school curriculum would be developed in the fall or winter. And efforts to include neighbors in the project will be ongoing. Rotary has supported other school gardens, including one at Concord Montessori and Community School near Alba in Antrim County. It is about the length of a football field and roughly 70 feet wide, school Director Steve Overton said. In TCAPS, vegetables could be sold or used in school meals to add fresh produce to students' diets, said Kristen Misiak, food service director. Organizers haven't decided what to plant, since students are on vacation during much of the growing season.

But the academic benefits are what Appel is most eager to see. He thinks a garden can help students understand ecology, the water cycle and the scientific method while incorporating Michigan's grade-level content standards.

Missouri School District's Repairs Financed with Interest-free Bonds
Don Norfleet, Fulton Sun
July 02, 2010

MISSOURI: After coping with recent state school aid cuts that forced a 2011 school employee salary freeze and other budget reductions, the North Callaway R-1 School District finally got some good news from the state. North Callaway Superintendent Bryan Thomsen said he has been informed by the state that the district qualifies for interest-free bonds to pay the entire cost of the district's $2.5 million school maintenance bond issue, which was approved last Nov. 3. The bonds will be used to pay for new air conditioning in all elementary and high school buildings in the district as well as numerous other maintenance projects.

Last month Thomsen said North Callaway had received authority to issue $1.12 million in interest-free Qualified School Construction Bonds. Then Thomsen learned the state also had approved the remaining $1.38 million of the $2.5 million bond issue in another interest-free plan known as the Qualified Zone Academy Bond (QZAB) program. Both bonding plans allow school districts to apply for an allotment of bonds on which the federal government pays for all or nearly all of the interest.
Thomsen said North Callaway is eligible for the QZAB program because it has more than 35 percent of its students qualifying for free or reduced-price meals. The QZAB program also requires qualifying districts to provide a 10 percent match from a business or non-profit partner to prepare students for college or the workforce. Thomsen said North Callaway was able to meet this federal qualification by placing a value of at least $138,000 in contributions and services provided to the district by the North Callaway Booster Club.

British Gas to Give 15 Million Pounds Sterling of Free Solar Panels to British Schools
Staff Writer, PR Newsire
July 01, 2010

ENGLAND: British Gas unveiled an unprecedented 15 million pounds Sterling investment in solar technology for the nation's schools. The company will donate and install solar panels - worth between 20,000 and 40,000 pounds per school - in up to 750 schools. Each school will be able to generate its own free, green electricity, cutting as much as 20% off its annual electricity bill.

The energy produced by the panels is anticipated to create around 1.3m pounds per year for the next 25 years. This will be reinvested in installing solar panels on yet more schools. This means that, in the next five years alone, British Gas could install free solar panels on a total of 1,100 schools. The panels will also help the selected schools to meet their carbon reduction targets, reducing emissions by up to 1,400 tonnes per year, equivalent to taking almost 400 cars off the road.
The schools receiving solar panels will receive a British Gas smart meter, offering real time information so pupils can see the difference their solar panels are making. Specially created Generation Green lesson plans will help teachers engage their pupils in learning about renewable energy, and schools will be able to track their performance against others and share tips and advice via a specially designed website.

Based on a formula created by the University of Bath's Centre for Research in Education and the Environment to measure the impact that teachers can have beyond the classroom, up to 1.8 million parents and family members could learn about renewable energy as a result of the initiative.

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Connecticut Law Ensures Green School Playgrounds by Prohibiting Pesticides
Eileen FitzGerald, News Times
July 01, 2010

CONNECTICUT: Public and private schools across the state that have children in eighth grade or lower will no longer be able to use pesticides on their lawns or playing fields, in accordance with a state law that took effect July 1. The law, passed this winter by the General Assembly, expanded the prohibition of pesticides on school grounds to the playing fields. It says, "No person shall apply a lawn care pesticide on the grounds of any public or private preschool or public or private school with students in grade eight or lower." The law would allow pesticide use to eliminate an immediate threat to human health.

Bethel schools took steps three years ago to eliminate pesticides. "We made the switch a number of years ago," Superintendent of Schools Gary Chesley said. "It's a big deal. You don't want to introduce poisons to the children. We follow the regulations to the letter, and we have a company we respect doing our work." The park and recreation departments in Danbury and Brookfield maintain the grounds of their schools and have been updated about the new policy. Newtown Superintendent Janet Robinson said her district has been free of pesticides for about three years. "We knew it was inevitable," she said. "The law requires us to keep a list of students whose parents must be notified if you use a pesticide, and it alerted us to a future ban of pesticides. We've been paying attention."

Nancy Alderman, president of the advocacy group Environment and Human Health, said the bill prohibited pesticides on school grounds, but it's taken years to make it effective on school playing fields. "It's important that the park and recreation departments that take care of the fields, and for PTAs that monitor what goes on in schools, to know about the law,' she said. "This is ground-breaking legislation."

A New Crop of School Gardens
Krista Simmons , Los Angeles Times
July 01, 2010

CALIFORNIA: While most schools sit like dormant ghost towns during the summer, a few are breaking up the asphalt, planting seeds that will be sprouting edible gardens come September.
It may seem counterintuitive to start new programs in this economic climate. Summer school was canceled at many campuses this year, the $1.7-million California Instructional School Garden Program grant to the Los Angeles Unified School District has expired, and the budget crisis has left countless teachers unemployed. But this groundswell, largely sparked by parent and community interest -- and perhaps some inspiration from Michelle Obama's White House garden -- is finding support in all the right places.

Ben Ford, chef-owner of Ford's Filling Station, and Akasha Richmond, chef-owner of Akasha, both restaurants in Culver City, spearheaded the recent work day at Farragut where parents, grandparents, children, chefs and politicians worked to lay the ground for a green space for students.
The organizers at Farragut hope they'll soon be able to tap Alice Waters for an Edible Schoolyard (ESY) certification, which will bring not only publicity but a seasoned veteran's perspective. Waters' ESY program is known for her implementation of seed-to-table gardens within the Berkeley school district, and has recently gone national, helping schools throughout the country execute curriculum-based gardens and locally sourced school lunch programs.

This summer, the Garden School Foundation, led by master gardener Nat Zappia, hopes to change that. On the first garden cleanup day, dozens of community members, former students from Food From the Hood, teachers and volunteers from Starbucks showed up to re-till soil, planting the seed for the soon-to-be student gardeners returning in the fall.
Bill Vanderberg, dean of students at Crenshaw High, plans to use the garden as a vehicle for learning within the newly created Smaller Learning Communities (SLCs). He hopes the Business SLC will be able to model off the Garden School Foundation's 24th Street School garden, where the fifth-grade children have struck a deal with Pitfire Pizza Co. to trade their herbs for pizza.

It appears that Angelenos from all walks of life are interested in lending a hand to advance the school garden movement, regardless of tough times. The Environmental Media Assn. and Yes to Carrots have partnered with LAUSD to sponsor 10 new school garden projects, one of which will be at Saturn Elementary in L.A.. Actor Jake Gyllenhaal will be their mentor, and architect Rogerio Carvalheiro, who worked on the Getty Villa and Union Station, will work pro bono on the design. Once completed this fall, they hope to add a "scratch kitchen," where children will prepare the food they grow.

School Gardening Project Makes Every Day Earth Day
Harold Egelna, Brooklyn Daily Eagle
July 01, 2010

NEW YORK: Getting back to the garden and to the roots of natural beauty and bounty is the mission of “Nature’s Classroom at P.S. 102,” a one-school-year-old gardening project that brings learning and fun to students at the “grassroots” level. “Transforming the school garden into ‘Nature’s Garden at P.S. 102,’ a name chosen by a school-wide vote, has been a highlight of the school year,” said Parent Coordinator Margaret Sheri. The garden project started last September with 15 parents and developed through weekly parent meetings. The fenced-in garden is on the 72nd Street block between Ridge Boulevard and Third Avenue on the east side of P.S.102. There is a flagpole in the garden’s center and school play yard behind the garden. “The children really love their time in the garden, and it’s exciting to see them take ownership of it,” Sheri said. “Almost all of them have a memory of planting a bulb, seed or earth-box, passing around a sprig of mint leaf to smell, reading the unusual names of cactus plants, letting butterflies go, or finding a favorite garden spot to read.”

The project is affiliated with the Green Thumb and Green Bridge programs and became a certified nature sanctuary through the National Wildlife Foundation. It is funded in part by a Parents As Arts Partners (PAAP) grant from the nonprofit Center for Arts Education, achieved with the help of art teachers from the Socrates Sculpture Park Annex in Astoria. “Our third graders are growing edible vegetables in ‘earth-boxes’ thanks to ‘The Growing Connections’ program of the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization, which gives the garden international flavor and support,” said Sheri.

During the past year there were not only fundraising events, she said, but also outdoor readings, walk-through garden observations, an Earth Day celebration, and the planting of 450 bulbs by third graders last fall. The garden includes herb, native plant, butterfly and cactus gardens, as well as nature-inspired artwork by third graders that adorns the garden gate. Future plans, Sheri said, include planting vegetables and joining the School To Café program, now awaiting application approval, that would bring wholesome edible vegetables to the school’s cafeteria lunches.

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