WASHINGTON D.C. Area: All over Fairfax County and in most other Washington suburbs, the indoor gym has become highly prized as prime real estate. Once boys' basketball was king of the school gymnasium but today it must jostle for space with an array of other activities: girls' basketball, volleyball, badminton, dodge ball, indoor lacrosse and soccer, cheerleading, wrestling, baton twirling, flag and drum corps, and even competitive jump-rope. And that smorgasbord is vying with scouts, school bands, drama clubs, table tennis, martial arts, Jazzercise, and other pastimes that are turning schools into round-the-clock community centers.

The passion for sports in booming suburbs is pushing the limits of outdoor playing fields. But now the crunch is moving inside, into still-smaller spaces. With more than 1 million people and a surge in school-age children, the number of young gym users in Fairfax has exploded by 40 percent over six years. But the county's inventory of gym space grew by just 6.7 percent during that time. Coaches and school principals are clashing over who has rights to the neighborhood school, a public space that has never been booked with so many back-to-back activities.

ILLINOIS: The village of Homer Glen may impose a new impact fee on developers to help pay for future schools. The village board is expected to consider requiring a school facilities fee that would be in addition to the school site contribution fee assessed on all new development. Site contribution fees are limited for purchasing land and paying off the cost of land. The new fee would be used for building schools, Mayor Russ Petrizzo said. The proposed impact fee is based on Will County legislation that many area communities already have adopted.

OHIO: For the past six months, Akron leaders have been imagining a middle school with a focus on math, science, and technology inside the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Representatives from the Akron school district, the Inventors Hall, the University of Akron, and the City of Akron -- which owns the museum and leases the space --are committed to seeing the school move from concept to reality. Local leaders are hoping the Ohio School Facilities Commission will agree to pay for 59 percent of the school, the same percentage the commission is funding much of the Akron school district's overall $800 million construction program. The remainder would be covered by an Akron income tax hike that voters approved for the required local portion of the project.

The district outlined three ways to integrate the school and the Inventors Hall. The first has the school completely inside the Inventors Hall, the second would situate the two buildings side by side, with no shared space, and the third, which appears to be the most popular, involves using part of the Hall for the school, along with an addition that would be built in the courtyard between the Hall and the Akron Health Department.

MARYLAND: Baltimore County plans to focus its legislative lobbying on the construction needs of its aging schools amid predictions that money from the state for school projects will be severely limited again next year.

FLORIDA: Portable classrooms, once considered a quick fix for school crowding, have become part of the permanent landscape on school campuses. Even though the Palm Beach County School District spent $1 billion dollars for construction projects to relieve crowding and replace outdated schools, it has more portables than ever. This year, the school district has 1,809 portable classrooms, up from 1,789 last year. Five years ago, when the district faced far more severe crowding problems, there were 1,501 portables. Portables used to be the main indication that a school was crowded. But today, a school can operate at half its capacity and still have portables. This is largely due to the requirement for smaller classes.

Concrete portables cost about $100,000 each, roughly the same as building permanent classroom space. But the portables have advantages. They can be installed quickly and are easy to move if the needs of a school change, and they're considered to be just as good as regular classrooms.

CALIFORNIA: The Coronado school board's recent vote to spend $230,000 for adding 1,000 lockers to the ongoing $55 million reconstruction of Coronado High is an anomaly. Most California high schools built in recent years have not included student lockers, which are often seen as havens for weapons and contraband, targets for thieves and vandals, administrative problems when it comes to replacing lost locks and deciding who gets a locker when there aren't enough for everyone, and corridor spacewasters with banging doors. Still, students without lockers must carry their books around all day and home at night. Two years ago, the California Legislature passed a law requiring maximum weight standards for textbooks because of reports linking heavy backpacks to back pain in children.

DELAWARE: The Christina School Board has passed a measure to create 29 new security positions to spread among the district's five middle schools and three high schools. Christina has already moved ahead on other security measures and recently became the first district in the state to establish an Office of Safety and Security. Other safety initiatives have included a security hot line for students and a Web-based camera monitoring system at Newark High School. The monitoring system allows administrators to observe what's going on inside and outside the building 24 hours a day. Similar systems are planned for the district's two other high schools, and the technology will eventually be brought to the middle and elementary schools. So far, Christina, the state's largest district, is the only one in the state taking these measures.

MASSACHUSETTS: Since voters in November rejected a $5 million school construction and maintenance package that would have met classroom and maintenance needs at the Southwick-Tolland Regional School District's three schools, officials are now considering using portable classrooms, moving grade-four pupils, and converting space at both the middle and elementary schools to meet space needs for five to seven years. This option does not address the estimated $3 million in maintenance and repairs needed in the district.

The use of portable classrooms will be a temporary solution, and officials have a choice: purchase new portable classes at an estimated $475,000 or accept three used structures from Suffield, Connecticut, for $1 each and an estimated $80,000 cost to relocate and retrofit them for Southwick-Tolland. The district is awaiting information on whether the Suffield portables meet Massachusetts code requirements for school use. The plan to locate portable classes at the middle school is required, officials said, because there is no adequate location available at the elementary school. Also, the use of portables at the elementary would stress electrical, heating, and plumbing services at Woodland School.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: Although school elections in Bedford are more than two months away, the campaigns for two competing high school construction proposals are already heating up. This year's debate over the issue boils down to building a public high school or paying tuition for students to attend a yet-to-be-constructed private high school in town. Some here hope the politically charged atmosphere doesn't become as divisive as in previous unsuccessful votes on the issue, but others believe it could be the worst yet.

Bedford, one of the most affluent communities in the state, does not have its own high school. The town has been sending its older students to West High School in Manchester for decades, but with approximately 800 Bedford students going there now, many in town believe it's time to build a school of their own. The town has been torn over the issue for the last several years, with nearly a half-dozen special interest groups weighing in. A strong faction in town remains in favor of a long-term tuition contract with Manchester, while proponents of a private high school have not given up.

KENTUCKY: The bids came in lower than expected and the interest rates are favorable. Those two factors made the Simpson County Board of Education’s decision easy. They voted unanimously to issue bonds to launch a $10 million construction project that includes major renovations at the middle school and lesser ones at Simpson Elementary. "In the words of our fiscal agent, we hit a grandslam," said Superintendent Jim Flynn. "This thing fell right into place."

The School Board will spend $7.5 to $8 million on renovations and additions at the F-S Middle School and Simpson Elementary. In addition, another $2.4 million derived from performance contracts through guaranteed savings on utilities is to be bonded by the local school district. Additional monies realized by the district through the lower-than-expected costs will be used to complete other priorities on the school’s facilities needs list, such as a new roof for the high school and a parent dropoff loop for the middle school. Flynn said upgrades designed to save on utilities and thus free up more money for bonds will begin in January 2005.

KENTUCKY: The bids came in lower than expected and the interest rates are favorable. Those two factors made the Simpson County Board of Education’s decision easy. They voted unanimously to issue bonds to launch a $10 million construction project that includes major renovations at the middle school and lesser ones at Simpson Elementary. "In the words of our fiscal agent, we hit a grandslam," said Superintendent Jim Flynn. "This thing fell right into place."

The School Board will spend $7.5 to $8 million on renovations and additions at the F-S Middle School and Simpson Elementary. In addition, another $2.4 million derived from performance contracts through guaranteed savings on utilities is to be bonded by the local school district. Additional monies realized by the district through the lower-than-expected costs will be used to complete other priorities on the school’s facilities needs list, such as a new roof for the high school and a parent dropoff loop for the middle school. Flynn said upgrades designed to save on utilities and thus free up more money for bonds will begin in January 2005.

WYOMING: Cheyenne school officials still hope to get an extra gymnasium along with their new high school, and Sweetwater County School District 2 isn't being required to demolish Granger's elementary school just yet, allowing people in Sweetwater to continue using the school's auditorium and gymnasium. In both cases, the school districts initially appealed decisions of the state School Facilities Commission. But they dropped those actions after reaching compromises until courts rule on questions about the school facilities system. A statewide school coalition's lawsuit is challenging school finance reforms over whether the state school construction guidelines are legal and appropriate.

MASSACHUSETTS: The plan to upgrade security in Burlington's public schools with cameras, video monitors, and door buzzers has run into a critical obstacle -- money. School and law enforcement officials have estimated it could cost as much as $539,000 to install the security measures. Until recently, officials had planned to draft a warrant article for the Janurary Town Meeting to request funding for the equipment. At the School Committee meeting, the board voted to postpone the funding request until the annual Town Meeting in May. The School Committee's decision follows several weeks of debate among administrators, police, and parents over the adequacy of school security. Police Chief Francis Hart said he would like to see the schools immediately institute a locked-door policy. "At a minimum, that's something that should be done," said Hart. "Even if the town agrees to pay for the security cameras, the doors should still be locked. It would go a long way toward reassuring people about the safety of the schools."

CALIFORNIA: Colton Joint and Rialto unified school districts can reach 15,000 parents in less than 15 minutes after contracting with Connect-Ed Emergency, Attendance, and Public Interest Phone Notification Services. The technology can be used during emergency lockdowns or to issue an Amber Alert, inform parents that their child missed a class, or remind families about school photos. About 15 percent of California schools use this notification technology, including 60 percent of Orange County schools and half of San Diego schools. Connect-Ed messages can be sent via the Internet, regular phone, or cell phone. The cost is $5 per student, but schools can lower that to $3.60 if they work with a local corporate sponsor. In the first year, Rialto Unified will spend $112,519 for setup, support and the annual message fee. The district is paying for it through its School Safety and Violence Prevention fund.

MONTANA: Armed with cameras monitoring hallways and parking lots, staff who keep an eye out for unexpected visitors, and partnerships with police and fire officials, Flathead Valley schools seem prepared for most anything. But, as evidenced by a November 15 bomb threat that cleared the building at Flathead High and an incident that involved real-looking plastic guns during an evening harvest party October 29 at Swan River School, unsettling situations still arise. Administrators across the Flathead Valley have contingency plans in place for those times when awareness must turn to action.

Bigfork schools began focusing on a security regimen about five years ago - locking all but one or two entry doors, installing closed-circuit television at the high school and middle school, doing FBI-fingerprint background checks on staffers and volunteers who may supervise children, issuing picture-identification badges to staffers and requiring visitor passes. Last year, a crackdown on bullying and abusive language became part of the school policy manual. Bigfork was among the first Montana schools to assign a law officer to its school, something common to local districts now. "Security is an issue over here because we can be as much as 20 minutes away from law enforcement response," school superintendent Kinzer said. Bigfork relies on sheriff's protection dispatched out of Kalispell.

NEW YORK: They are popping up all over, in the most unexpected places: an old salami factory in the Bronx, the boxy remains of a defunct department store in Harlem, a warehouse vacated by Sotheby's on the Upper East Side, the 13th floor of a downtown skyscraper. These days in New York City it is possible to find a public school almost anywhere that can hold a few hundred students and accommodate a redesign for classrooms and a cafeteria. The schools, with their loftlike spaces and sleek modern décor tucked inconspicuously into the cityscape, are a world away from the mammoth, often monumental but sometimes dreary-looking school buildings that had become the face of public education over the last century. And the Department of Education plans to spend more than $1 billion over the next five years creating more of them, turning on its head the traditional - some say outdated - notion of what a public school should be.

CALIFORNIA: Both the Rancho Buena Vista and the Vista High School campuses, each built for 1,800 students, now have 3,200 students and any relief is at least two years away. District officials say the crowding at these two schools was brought on by years of enrollment growth and little money to build new campuses. The district has a solution – a plan to build two magnet high schools – and it has $79 million to build them on land near state Route 76 and Melrose Drive. The money comes from a $140 million bond package voters approved two years ago. But Vista Unified doesn't have the legal clearance to purchase the land and start construction. A judge ruled last month that the district did not get proper approval before filing to seize the 66 acres. While the district prepares an appeal and awaits a January hearing on an undecided portion of the case, students and teachers know that they must live with the crowded conditions at least two more years.

IOWA: Members of the Fairfield Community School District's School Infrastructure Committee learned it could cost about $26 million to make needed improvements to six school buildings. A company hired to help the district with its long-term facilities planning inspected the school's facilities and its architectural, mechanical, and electrical systems. "These numbers are staggering," said committee member Warren Wechsler.

ARKANSAS: A citizens committee of bankers and educators voted to recommend that legislators first consider raising property taxes when deciding how to find money for improving school buildings. Members of the Ad Hoc Finance Committee, formed to help advise the legislative Joint Committee on Educational Facilities, described the state’s property tax codes as backward and said that the state can’t capitalize on property value growth in part because of constitutional limits on property tax increases. A member of the committee said that whatever funding source is chosen will likely hinge on further debate over the $2.3 billion estimate to bring school facilities in Arkansas up to code. Of that amount, $87 million was deemed to be needed for emergency safety issues. School superintendents differ over that estimate and claim their schools aren’t as bad as assessors hired by the state have estimated.

MARYLAND: State police estimated that vandals caused more than $60,000 worth of damage to Parr's Ridge Elementary in Mount Airy. The school, which is under construction, is scheduled to open next fall with about 440 pupils in kindergarten through second grade. Spray-painted nicknames and a distinctive drawing of the cartoon character Scooby-Doo scrawled across classroom walls, hallways, and other surfaces led police to five Mount Airy residents who are suspected in connection with the Thanksgiving weekend burglary and vandalism at the school.

School officials are assessing the damage in an effort to determine what can be salvaged and what must be replaced. According to Ray Prokop, facilities director for the school system, "The spray paint was on many different surfaces, and that's what we're struggling with now." Eighty percent of the school - including classrooms and corridors - has been affected to some degree. From the main corridor, one can see damage along the entire length of the hallway that leads to the classrooms. Erasing the damage isn't necessarily as simple as repainting all the surfaces. Prokop is awaiting word from the manufacturer of the damaged door frames because they were produced with a protective powder coating to make them maintenance-free. He is also waiting to hear from the manufacturer of the damaged cabinets to ensure that the paint can be properly removed without harming the finish. Crews have had trouble removing paint from some of the floor tiles, which will have to be replaced.

FLORIDa: The Town of Palm Beach said farewell to two historic schoolhouse buildings to make way for the construction of a new $13.4 million Palm Beach Public elementary school. But the project will attempt to honor the site's legacy by containing a $1.1 million replica of the 1921 and 1925 structures, which will hold administration offices when the new school opens in January 2006. Town Council members approved the demolition after Palm Beach County School District officials told them it would cost close to $1 million more to preserve the heavily damaged landmark buildings. Within hours of the vote, the structures that had stood for eight decades at Cocoanut Row and Seaview Avenue were gone.

FLORIDa: The Town of Palm Beach said farewell to two historic schoolhouse buildings to make way for the construction of a new $13.4 million Palm Beach Public elementary school. But the project will attempt to honor the site's legacy by containing a $1.1 million replica of the 1921 and 1925 structures, which will hold administration offices when the new school opens in January 2006. Town Council members approved the demolition after Palm Beach County School District officials told them it would cost close to $1 million more to preserve the heavily damaged landmark buildings. Within hours of the vote, the structures that had stood for eight decades at Cocoanut Row and Seaview Avenue were gone.

OKLAHOMA: A Checotah school bond was approved for the first time since 1986, passing by one vote. Voters previously had rejected seven bond issues in a row. The $1.7 million bond will fund new roofs at the elementary and intermediate schools, repairs that officials said are long overdue. For years, students have been dodging drips at Marshall Elementary School. After a heavy rain, trash cans collect water in the halls and classrooms. Rain trickles down the walls, sometimes onto books and computers, and the classrooms smell musty. "We had to cover the computers with plastic garbage bags," said Mary Sellers, a reading specialist at the elementary school. The bond also will pay for four new classrooms, which will be shared by high school and junior high students. More than 30 air conditioners will be replaced at the elementary school, which was built in 1977. The athletics locker rooms will be repaired.

NEW JERSEY: Capping a year that started slow but ended in a mad rush, New Jersey voters approved two-thirds of their local school construction referenda in the state's largest day yet of school building votes. Thirty-three school districts went to the polls December 14th to ask their voters to approve nearly $700 million in projects, virtually all of them repairs, renovations, and expansions. By the end of the evening, 25 of the proposals had won approval, for more than $500 million in work.

The votes capped an up-and-down year for the state's $8.6 billion school construction program. Including the latest results, voters this year have approved more than $1 billion in projects in 48 of the state's suburban districts. Under the act, the state pays for up to 40 percent of the costs of these projects. More than $600 million in projects also have been cleared so far this year in New Jersey's neediest cities and towns, under the Abbott vs. Burke ruling. Those projects, for which the state pays the full amount, do not require local voter approval.

TEXAS: Nine school districts in Travis County recently joined forces to strengthen school emergency response and crisis management plans. The Travis County School Safety Consortium is teaching educators and administrators how to prepare for emergencies. "The concerns ranged from everything from your natural hazards: fires, floods, tornadoes, those sorts of things. It also includes human-caused events. Not only those events that occur inside the walls of the school or campus, but things in the vicinity - anything from hazardous materials to accidents," Jo Schweikhard Moss of the School Safety Consortium said.

ARIZONA: The Willcox School District hopes to spend an average of more than $500,000 per year over the next five years in building renewal funds at its three campuses. The state would provide nearly 90 percent of the $2.6 million funding for the renovation projects. One of the first items on the district plan is surveillance systems for the high school, middle school, and elementary school. For each system, the district would chip in $5,000 and the state would pay the remaining $25,000 of the cost.

WISCONSIN: Janesville Superintendent Tom Evert told the school board that a citizens committee studying expansion plans for Janesville's high schools should consider opening new facilities to the community. New gymnasiums could be made available for senior citizens for fitness walking, and new sports facilities could be used to host outside events. Such events might contribute to the city's economy by bringing in visitors. Evert said the committee might also look at whether the community could make use of academic areas of the high schools.

LOUISIANA: A lawsuit seeking to have Louisiana amend its formula for funding schools to include money for buildings and other school facilities has been dismissed by State District Judge Duke Welch, who said that there are several rulings handed down over the years that keep judges from telling the Legislature how it should spend state money. One of the them is a 1998 decision by the 1st Circuit Court of Appeal that prohibits the judiciary from forcing the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to include buildings in the funding formula for school districts. Suing the state were school systems in Livingston, East Baton Rouge, Lafayette, East Feliciana, Assumption, St. Helena, Tensas, and Union parishes. Attorney Tom Jones, representing the districts, said they will decide later whether to appeal.

FLORIDA: Crawfordville County's school bus compound behind Wakulla High School is getting a security fence, thanks to the federal government. The Wakulla County School Board was presented a $17,000 check by Leon County Schools Superintendent Bill Montford. The award is part of $379,772 in federal money from the Law Enforcement Terrorism Grant. Montford, who is chairman of the North Florida Regional Domestic Security Task Force Education Group, will present checks to the other 12 counties in North Florida that are a part of the Florida Task Force area. The money must be used to secure school facilities, which include precautionary devices like fences and security cameras. Wakulla officials chose the fence option. Rather than divide the money per pupil, the counties explained how the money would be used in their applications, Montford said. This way it gave smaller counties a better chance to get the money they needed.

ARKANSAS: The Community Safe Room at Peake Elementary School has been used several times already this year, but not for dangerous weather. The facility has been used for meeting space by the school district, parents, students, and faculty at Peake. If the district continues to grow, the building can also be divided into four spaces and used for classrooms. Built to withstand severe weather conditions, the main purpose of the building is to serve as a community storm shelter. The facility, located on Peake's campus as a separate building, was constructed using federal Hazard Mitigation Funds and local school funds.

NEW JERSEY: Figures released last week by the New Jersey's Schools Construction Corporation indicate that a significant number of women and minorities are helping to build new schools and winning construction contracts in Hudson County. In Jersey City, for example, where the SCC has completed three years worth of health and safety work and five new schools are under construction, minority workers accounted for more than 38 percent of the "total work hours" at the majority of new school construction sites. The state's goal for small businesses participation at a given construction site is 25 percent, SCC’s regional director, Raffat said, adding that most minority- and women-owned companies fall into this category.

FLORIDA: When they approved a half-percent sales tax last month to pay for $560 million worth of school construction, Palm Beach County voters may have thought they were taking care of all the district's school construction needs. But Palm Beach County schools still face up to $400 million in construction spending to reduce class sizes to state-mandated levels. The voter-approved money for school construction only will cover population growth and renovating older buildings. The sales-tax money, with a few exceptions, could not be used to build the additional classrooms needed to lower class size, district officials said.

Under a constitutional amendment passed in 2002, academic classes eventually must shrink to as small as 18 students for early elementary grades, 22 for middle grades, and 25 for high school grades. School districts must lower class size by two students every year until the targets are met or face penalties. District officials say the requirement for smaller classes initially created $500 million worth of building needs. The state has provided about $50 million for construction and the district has been able to raise almost $50 million more.

FLORIDA: When they approved a half-percent sales tax last month to pay for $560 million worth of school construction, Palm Beach County voters may have thought they were taking care of all the district's school construction needs. But Palm Beach County schools still face up to $400 million in construction spending to reduce class sizes to state-mandated levels. The voter-approved money for school construction only will cover population growth and renovating older buildings. The sales-tax money, with a few exceptions, could not be used to build the additional classrooms needed to lower class size, district officials said.

Under a constitutional amendment passed in 2002, academic classes eventually must shrink to as small as 18 students for early elementary grades, 22 for middle grades, and 25 for high school grades. School districts must lower class size by two students every year until the targets are met or face penalties. District officials say the requirement for smaller classes initially created $500 million worth of building needs. The state has provided about $50 million for construction and the district has been able to raise almost $50 million more.

MINNESOTA: The three boys ages 12, 13, and 14 who crept into a new science building at the University of Minnesota-Duluth last month intended to do damage. Not content to turn on dozens of faucets in the building, they connected tubing to the taps and ran the tubing past sinks so water would pour onto the floors, where it pooled on floors and soaked into walls and ceilings for 36 hours. By the time the vandalism was discovered, the $33 million building had sustained an estimated $8 million in damage. Photos show floors swimming in water covered in yellow scum, the residue from fire extinguishers. Water ran down three stories and leaked out onto the building's exterior through window sills. Laminate on cabinets warped. All the drywall and ceilings on the ground and first floors will have to be removed and replaced, as will electrical equipment, fume hoods, wiring, insulation, and cabinets. Research labs and offices, which span three floors and were within two weeks of completion, will have to be gutted to the studs and rebuilt.

Massachusetts: Boston school officials will spend at least $3 million next school year to rid schools of pests and to contend with leaky roofs, but they lack the money to immediately repair every problem cited in a recent environmental inspection report, an district administrator said. The report showed that 90 percent of the city's public schools had at least one environmental problem that could worsen asthma or allergies. Repairing everything at once, from poor ventilation to rodent infestation, would cost the school system about $200 million; Boston schools expect to receive only $30 million from the city to pay for building maintenance the next school year, said Michael Contompasis, the school system's chief operating officer.

Universities are starting to break down the walls that divide scientists -- literally. Over the past several years, dozens of new laboratory buildings have been constructed with large open spaces containing row upon row of laboratory benches. More are under construction around the country. These new lab designs represent a radical shift away from the long-held tradition that scientists work best in small rooms operated as private fiefdoms. In the new laboratories, professors no longer control their own work areas or lock others out at night. Instead, several investigators share a larger space, as well as much of the equipment and supplies within it.

FLORIDA: The new district facilities chief, Rose Diamond, has a five year construction plan for Miami-Dade schools that aims to eliminate school overcrowding and portable classrooms by 2010. The plan includes purchasing 20 new school sites, constructing 47 new schools, adding to 22 existing schools, and demolishing and rebuilding 16 aging schools.

MASSACHUSETTS: After receiving bids from general contractors, officials warned that the town can expect a $10.7 million estimated overrun for the $51.3 million high school renovation and addition project. The original estimate included an inflation rate between 3 and 4 percent; however, there has been an unexpected 24 percent increase for structural steel and 41 percent increase for reinforcing bars. According to the construction industry publication Engineering-News Record, price increases for metal products look to be steadying. "But while escalation is slowing, prices remain stuck at historically high levels."

NEW YORK: School districts across the country are replacing their blackboards and overhead projectors with interactive whiteboards. These oversized projection screens are hooked up to laptops with access to the Internet and can be written on using special markers or electronic ink through touch screen technology. Entire presentations - with notes specific to each class - can be printed out, published online, or saved for students who are absent or seek additional help. The New York City Department of Education says that it has interactive boards in 231 schools. This year, about 45,000 units are expected to arrive in American classrooms, up from just 10,000 in 2000.

NEW YORK: The Pawling Schools Enrollment Committee is studying student population growth and the impact of that growth on current and future facilities. Russ Davidson, an architect working with the committee, said that if the school district settles on a course of action, the public vote could be held as early as October of 2005. Davidson said that it is not possible to simply add classrooms to existing buildings because the parking, fields and common areas may not be adequate for the increased number of students. Four possible ways to expand the capacity of the public schools have been provided, with the cost of the various options ranging between $27 and $40 million.

ILLINOIS: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has poured billions of dollars into public education and millions into creating and redesigning high schools in troubled districts like Boston, New York, Chicago, and Oakland, California. While there's no single "Gates model," the foundation leans toward scrapping traditional high school behemoths for small schools with focused missions,good interaction between students and faculty, and designs that can be reproduced in other places. Chicago recently announced a plan to shut dozens of failing schools and open 100 smaller new ones. New York has also signed on to the small-schools approach.

More recently, the foundation has been active at a broader policy level. Because its funding strategy has been so focused, it has had an effect on the direction of school reform even greater than the billions spent. Wielding that kind of private influence over a public arena is a tricky business, and some people question whether it's a good idea. Chicago and New York may have initiated their reforms even without Gates; the foundation is certainly just one of many factors, including the accountability movement, pushing change, and both cities had done some experimenting with small schools on their own. But it can be hard for a district to say no to extra money. The foundation's checks have arguably pushed a specific reform strategy - small schools - front and center, even though there's still little data on their success.

MARYLAND: Twice a year, Churchville Elementary teachers use an air quality checklist provided by the EPA from it’s “Tools for Schools” air quality program. The school's effort has paid off in more ways than one. Churchville Elementary has twice won the American Lung Association's Excellence Award for its efforts to improve air quality, and it was cited for its success last week at the EPA's fifth annual Indoor Air Quality Tools for Schools Symposium in Washington. One in five of the nation's 110,000 schools have reported unsatisfactory indoor air quality, according to studies by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Elizabeth Cotsworth, director of the EPA Office of Radiation and Indoor Air, said that more than 10,000 schools have used the Tools for Schools kit since 1995.

CALIFORNIA: Residents of Banning - and Sun Lakes Country Club retirees in particular - contributed heaviest to the defeat of Beaumont Unified School District's proposed $54 million school bond measure, according to figures released by the Riverside County Registrar of Voters. The measure, which would have generated funds to build classrooms and other school facilities, fell more than six points short of the required 55 percent approval rate. Jim Love, who co-chaired the Classrooms for Kids Committee that spearheaded the bond effort, said his group did its best to get the yes vote out. "But basically, it's the people of Sun Lakes not caring about children, about them living in a gated community and not being part of the larger community. The people of Sun Lakes basically voted against children," he said.

CALIFORNIA: Residents of Banning - and Sun Lakes Country Club retirees in particular - contributed heaviest to the defeat of Beaumont Unified School District's proposed $54 million school bond measure, according to figures released by the Riverside County Registrar of Voters. The measure, which would have generated funds to build classrooms and other school facilities, fell more than six points short of the required 55 percent approval rate. Jim Love, who co-chaired the Classrooms for Kids Committee that spearheaded the bond effort, said his group did its best to get the yes vote out. "But basically, it's the people of Sun Lakes not caring about children, about them living in a gated community and not being part of the larger community. The people of Sun Lakes basically voted against children," he said.

RHODE ISLAND: Narragansett's students may be high performing, but its schools are just barely getting by. Those were the findings of a Connecticut-based architectural firm hired to examine the state of the town's school facilities. The firm presented the results during a joint meeting of the Town Council and School Committee, recommending nearly $12 million in renovations to the town's three schools, transportation facility, and the school department's administrative offices. Though many of the recommended changes appear to be pressing -- some relating to health and safety, and others to bringing the schools into accordance with state regulations -- officials were hesitant to move quickly. After the presentation, members of the council and School Committee reached a consensus to form a committee to look into the conclusions and explore options.

ARKANSAS: Arkansas’ public school buildings need about $2.3 billion worth of immediate upgrades, including $86.7 million for repairs critical to the health and safety of students and teachers. The price tag grows to $4.5 billion when it includes the need to add space in crowded schools, account for population growth over the next five years, and make the repairs expected over that time.

The numbers were in the long-awaited final report assessing the needs of Arkansas school facilities that was released during a meeting of the legislative Joint Committee on Educational Facilities. The report showed that statewide, excluding temporary structures, Arkansas’ 254 school districts have 5,766 buildings containing 78.8 million square feet, about 8 million more than needed to teach the districts’ 455,000 students. "There’s a few buildings where there may be 100 students or 150 students in a 60,000- or 70,000-square-foot building," said Bill DeJong of Dublin, Ohio, the consultant hired to lead the study. "It’s just not efficient, not effective."

GEORGIA: Fulton school officials are saying they won't pay another dime to solve county infrastructure issues surrounding schools. Over the past eight years, the school system has paid more than $20 million to widen roads and add traffic signals, including $3.7 million around Alpharetta High, which opened this year. But the district is slamming shut the purse, stating that road improvements are the responsibility of the county and city.

INDIANA: Take a client with multiple problems, a complex fast-track simultaneous construction plan involving more than 20 aging buildings, a make-or-break deadline, and an out-of-town contractor and mix them all together under the watchful eyes of a small town school board and what do you get? The word disaster might spring to mind, but the community of South Bend, Indiana, hopes it is a recipe for a major success story. The untried, the unusual and the unorthodox all came together as the South Bend Community School Corporation banked on a new superintendent–and design-build–to jumpstart the school system’s fortunes.

FLORIDA: The St. Lucie County school district is risking lawsuits -- and the safety of teachers and students -- by not testing for mold resulting from water damage caused by hurricanes, a national expert says. Meanwhile, a female teacher could face disciplinary action for bringing in an unauthorized firm to test her classroom's air. The incident is still under investigation.

TENNESSEE: Principal Butch Vaughn used to think Rutherford County Schools provided maximum safety but changed his mind after a recent meeting that included the county's sheriff's department, emergency management agency, emergency medical services, and La Vergne and Smyrna Police. "It's one of the best meetings I've ever been to," Vaughn said. "It really opened my eyes to find out how insecure we really are." The principal said the district needs to provide schools with more satellite communications equipment that transfers messages when regular phone lines and cell phones are not working; install emergency generators in case schools lose power; adopt a uniform way to respond to emergencies; and increase faculty and staff training to carry out emergency response plans. "We need to be proactive," Vaughn said. "We hope that nothing ever happens. But if it does, we need to be prepared. We don't want to be like Columbine."

MINNESOTA: You don't just name a school. It's an important decision. There might be pillars of the community, dead or alive, waiting to be immortalized for generations of students. Bucolic suburban types like to celebrate a nearby grove of oak trees or river. Neighborhoods and communities lobby hard for schools of their own. One thing's certain: You've got to get people involved in coming up with a name that fits. That's just what the Robbinsdale School District is doing. The latest among Twin Cities school districts to wrestle with naming a school, the district has set up a Web page and hot line so residents can send in their suggestions for naming the new middle school.

GEORGIA: A new group called the Impact Fees for Education Coalition is starting a crusade to put on the ballot a proposed Georgia state constitutional amendment that would allow local school boards to impose impact fees. Several states, such as California and Florida, levy impact fees on new houses to help pay for schools. In Georgia, impact fees pay for growth-related infrastructure such as new roads, sewer lines, or parks. But current state law doesn't allow the fees to be used for new schools, which generally are paid for with property taxes, bond issues, or local-option sales taxes for education. The Georgia School Boards Association has long supported impact fees for schools, but developers and real estate groups have fought them, arguing that the cost of the fees would be passed on to home buyers, who would have to pay more for houses.

VIRGINIA: The recent siege of a school in Russia that left more than 300 people dead served as a reminder that schools could be a terrorism target. So did the U.S. military’s recent discovery of a computer disc in Iraq that contained photos and floor plans of schools in six states – none in Virginia. Federal dollars are flowing in to help local school divisions develop community-wide plans for responding to emergencies, including terrorism.

Terrorism has added a new dimension to an issue that took on a nationwide urgency after a series of school shootings in the late 1990s, the worst at Columbine High School in Colorado in April 1999. “When you have Columbine and 9/11 and Beslan, Russia, it kind of changed the playing field for everybody,” said Richard Ponti, Virginia Beach’s director of safe schools and risk management. Most high schools and a growing number of middle schools in Norfolk now have police officers who patrol the halls, handheld metal detectors, and security cameras. Most schools keep doorways locked during school hours. Portsmouth has begun installing security locks that require an ID card to open, said Carrie Kearney, the division’s interim security chief. “I believe it’s a sign of the times,” Kearney said.

VIRGINIA: As homes, schools, and businesses pop up across the rapidly developing suburbs, many religious institutions are a step behind, unable to build facilities to house their growing congregations. Now they are turning to local school systems to rent classrooms. In the 2003-04 school year, more than half of Loudoun County's then-61 schools hosted church services. "Our buildings are very heavily used," said Wayde Byard, a spokesman for Loudoun County public schools. He said principals decide whether to accommodate churches as they juggle similar requests from county parks and recreation programs, Boy and Girl Scout troops, English as a second language classes, senior citizen groups, and arts organizations. "It's not that we exclude anybody -- it's just that there's a lineup for space," Byard said.

The space crunch is not confined to the outer suburbs. Congregations are springing up in areas that are mostly built out. In Arlington County, for example, four churches meet regularly in three elementary schools and a middle school. In Fairfax County, churches needing space usually request middle or high schools; elementary school classrooms generally are off-limits because students keep their belongings in unlocked desks, said Amy Craig, who coordinates community use of school facilities. As a result, nearly all the county's middle and high schools not under renovation host a church meeting on weekends. Craig estimated that the roughly 90 churches that meet weekly at school facilities are charged $60 to $100 an hour, including custodial fees.

VIRGINIA: As homes, schools, and businesses pop up across the rapidly developing suburbs, many religious institutions are a step behind, unable to build facilities to house their growing congregations. Now they are turning to local school systems to rent classrooms. In the 2003-04 school year, more than half of Loudoun County's then-61 schools hosted church services. "Our buildings are very heavily used," said Wayde Byard, a spokesman for Loudoun County public schools. He said principals decide whether to accommodate churches as they juggle similar requests from county parks and recreation programs, Boy and Girl Scout troops, English as a second language classes, senior citizen groups, and arts organizations. "It's not that we exclude anybody -- it's just that there's a lineup for space," Byard said.

The space crunch is not confined to the outer suburbs. Congregations are springing up in areas that are mostly built out. In Arlington County, for example, four churches meet regularly in three elementary schools and a middle school. In Fairfax County, churches needing space usually request middle or high schools; elementary school classrooms generally are off-limits because students keep their belongings in unlocked desks, said Amy Craig, who coordinates community use of school facilities. As a result, nearly all the county's middle and high schools not under renovation host a church meeting on weekends. Craig estimated that the roughly 90 churches that meet weekly at school facilities are charged $60 to $100 an hour, including custodial fees.

MASSACHUSETTS: Is Sever Hall, a red brick classroom building in Harvard Yard designed in 1878 by the great architect Henry Hobson Richardson, the best building in America?According to Philadelphia architect Robert Venturi, it is. Sever Hall is an example of "the validity of architecture as generic shelter rather than abstract-expressive sculpture and as flexible loft for accommodating evolving functions." "I love Sever Hall also for its aesthetic tension deriving from its vital details. I could stand and look at it all day. Thank you, H.H. Richardson." Translated into the vernacular, Venturi is saying he likes buildings with simple shapes and plain interiors, but fancy wrapping on the outside. That way they can accommodate changes of interior function over time without losing their architectural presence.

CALIFORNIA: A financier tasked with building a public schools headquarters in Chula Vista believes he can do it at no net cost to taxpayers. The plan relies on financial alchemy that would turn $17 million in school district property into $847 million in tax revenue and property value for Chula Vista through land swaps, zoning changes, and home construction.

FLORIDA: Members of the media got a sneak peek at the new $38.5 million Forest High School in Ocala. The two-story school contains more than 40 classrooms, 14 vocational labs, a media center, a 500-seat cafeteria, and a 700-seat auditorium with music and band rooms. The campus also has a sports stadium, complete with a press box, baseball and softball fields, and other athletic fields, as well as covered walkways between all buildings and greater safeguards against intruders.

CANADA: Dozens of schools in Greater Victoria fall into a "high risk" category and are likely to be seriously damaged in the event of a significant earthquake in the region. To deal with the problem, the district's board of trustees and its operations committee have drawn up a five-year, $108,264,026 capital plan for 41 schools in the district. Thirty of the schools listed in the five-year plan have been earmarked to receive upgraded "resistance to seismic loading." The government also announced it is committing $89 million to pay for seismic upgrades at 11 high-risk schools over a three-year period and that it intends to have all B.C. schools receive seismic upgrades within 15 years.

CALIFORNIA: The Los Angeles Conservancy and a coalition of other local organizations announced that they have filed two lawsuits seeking to stop the Los Angeles Unified School District from razing a significant portion of the historic Ambassador Hotel. The school district wants to build a $318-million campus for 4,200 students on the hotel property. In October, the Los Angeles Board of Education narrowly voted to back a plan that calls for saving the Cocoanut Grove nightclub, a coffee shop designed by noted architect Paul Williams, and parts of the ceiling of the Embassy Ballroom — but little else. That preservation would cost the district about $15 million. The district billed that plan as a compromise aimed at appeasing preservationists and those calling for the district to knock the hotel down altogether in favor of expediently building schools on the site.

NEW JERSEY: New Jersey's program to build new schools in its 30 poorest school districts -- the largest single public works project in state history -- will need $2 billion more in 2006, state officials said. The state's top education official, however, said the state needs to find new ways to pay for the construction, which will have put state taxpayers $8.6 billion in debt by the end of next year, not including local contributions in many districts. Education Commissioner William L. Librera said poor school districts might need to pay for a portion of the future construction costs. The state also may decide some poor districts have become more financially sound and no longer need extraordinary aid.

CALIFORNIA: Using a combination of aggressive real estate negotiations, political gamesmanship, and eminent domain, the Los Angeles Unified School District is scooping up hundreds of acres of land in a $14-billion campus building program that will result in enough new classroom seats to fill Dodger Stadium three times over. When the program is completed in 2012, officials say, they will be ending overcrowding in the district, boosting academic performance, and remaking neighborhoods.

In an area where open space is scarce, schools are being built on formerly vacant commercial lots, in industrial zones, and on residential plots. About 1,200 families and 400 businesses have been displaced so far. "The impact on this town is monumental," said schools Superintendent Roy Romer. "It is literally going to change the face of Los Angeles." Construction sites are springing up from San Fernando to Lomita. The angular, contemporary buildings will have courtyards and spacious classrooms, and some will have community centers.

FLORIDA: After years of fighting with Dade school officials, an oversight board praised Superintendent Rudy Crew's building plans and hinted they might soon release $46 million in construction funds. The oversight board was created in 2001 by the Legislature after scandals in the departments that buy and develop land for new schools. It was given the power to freeze tens of millions of dollars in annual state construction funding.

ARKANSAS: The 7/8-cent Arkansas sales tax hike that was adopted and targeted to education this year should have enough muscle to help pay for school facilities improvements, the state's chief financial officer said. State lawmakers will be presented a letter from Gov. Mike Huckabee's administration telling them that collections from the tax should be higher than previously expected and could help with the court-ordered building improvements, said Richard Weiss, Department of Finance and Administration director. The letter is in response to the Legislative Council/Joint Budget Committee, which has threatened $80 million in across-the-board spending cuts because the governor's proposed two-year budget failed to account for the court-ordered facilities' upgrades. Lawmakers figure it might cost about that much to finance a bond issue for the improvements.

RHODE ISLAND: The physical conditions at Providence's Mount Pleasant High School cited in a highly critical accreditation report have resulted from decades of neglect because school maintenance is chronically shortchanged, Mayor David N. Cicilline said. Earlier this year he commissioned a plan for the long-term maintenance and renovation needs of the city's 55 public school buildings -- something that hasn't been done in at least 20 years. The mayor said he visits one school a week and cannot fail to notice "a different kind of energy" in buildings that are new or newly renovated. Most of the school buildings are more than 50 years old, Cicilline said. "It's shameful that we've allowed these facilities to be ignored for so many decades." He acknowledged that financing the recommendations of the report will be a major challenge.

RHODE ISLAND: The physical conditions at Providence's Mount Pleasant High School cited in a highly critical accreditation report have resulted from decades of neglect because school maintenance is chronically shortchanged, Mayor David N. Cicilline said. Earlier this year he commissioned a plan for the long-term maintenance and renovation needs of the city's 55 public school buildings -- something that hasn't been done in at least 20 years. The mayor said he visits one school a week and cannot fail to notice "a different kind of energy" in buildings that are new or newly renovated. Most of the school buildings are more than 50 years old, Cicilline said. "It's shameful that we've allowed these facilities to be ignored for so many decades." He acknowledged that financing the recommendations of the report will be a major challenge.

GEORGIA: Citing a need for more effective oversight, Fulton County is following a national trend by outsourcing management of its school construction program. The county school board made the decision after encountering problems with the new $65 million Alpharetta High School, an architectural landmark that is among the most expensive schools in Georgia.

Choosing an outside manager for a construction program does not necessarily save money, however, said Jerry Rochelle, director of school facilities for the state Department of Education. Generally it is more expensive, he said, because there is little incentive for companies to keep costs down. "In my opinion, the boards of education feel it provides them with expertise in the field and someone who would assume responsibility for things that are difficult to manage in a construction project," he said. "It's less problematic for the board."

MARYLAND: Forget equipping principals with cell phones and walkie-talkies, improving school lighting, and repairing broken door locks. They're just bandages for this fall's increase in violence and disruptions. The long-term solution to the fights and fires of Baltimore's schools, officials and experts say, is simply a matter of size.

The city's hulking, impersonal middle and high schools -- built in the 1970s, when Baltimore embraced the notion that large schools were more efficient -- are rapidly being transformed into smaller schools with higher academic standards and more support for troubled students. Over the past two years, school system officials have divided three of their biggest high schools into 10 smaller schools, while opening four other small magnet high schools. Although violent incidents across the system are up 40 percent in the first two months of this school year compared with the same period in 2003, other statistics show signs that the smaller schools tend to be calmer places. And a study last year shows that students report feeling safer in small schools.

MASSACHUSETTS: Parents count on their children's schools to be stocked with proper fire safety equipment. But many schoolhouses throughout Massachusetts lack one of the most basic firefighting tools -- a sprinkler system. And perhaps more surprising is that many older schools are not required to install them.

In 1997, the state building code was amended to require sprinkler systems for any new school, renovation, or addition over 12,000 square feet. Schools built before 1997 were grandfathered under previous regulations but are still required to have alarms and heat sensors or smoke detectors, according to Stow Fire Chief David Soar.

MARYLAND: Because of a string of violent incidents at Baltimore City public schools since the beginning of this academic year - shootings, fires in classrooms, fights broken up by school officers firing pepper spray into combatants' faces - students worry that they might find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. Parents, school officials, and experts blame the violence on the dilapidated condition of city school buildings, as well as recent budget cuts to staff, resources, and security personnel. "We know that deteriorating school conditions are linked with more violent activity in schools," said William Lassiter of the Center for the Prevention of School Violence, in Raleigh, N.C.

MASSACHUSETTS: Ninety percent of Boston's public schools have at least one environmental problem that can trigger asthma attacks or allergies, such as a leaky roof, excessive dust, poor ventilation, mice, or cockroaches, according to a systemwide inspection done during the last school year. While none of the environmental findings are major, the school system needs to investigate them to protect the health of children and staff, said John Shea, director of the environmental hazards program for the Boston Public Health Commission. Environmental problems, including pest dander and mold, may "increase the frequency and severity of asthma attacks and cause hayfever-like symptoms that can make people miserable," he said.

ILLINOIS: School officials in unincorporated areas hope new Lake County, Illinois regulations regarding school impact fees will mean a boost for education funding, but some real estate developers question the fairness of the new rules. Lake County Board members approved an amendment to the county's unified development ordinance addressing the financial contributions developers pay to schools in unincorporated areas for costs associated with new residential developments. County officials hope the new rules will provide some help in funding schools, which account for more than 60 percent of a taxpayer's total tax bill.

VIRGINIA: The Chesapeake City Council voted unanimously to seek voluntary cash contributions for school-construction projects from developers who want to build new homes in the city. Under the city’s new formula, developers could be asked to pay nearly $14,000 for every new single-family home and about $11,000 for a new townhouse. Developers have said the extra expense would be passed on to the home buyers.

MASSACHUSETTS: Just six months after voters nixed building a new Littleton Middle School, town officials are talking about posing the question again, perhaps as early as January. Project supporters are hoping better communication, a less complex ballot with fewer requests for tax increases, changes in the state's School Building Assistance program, and expanded tax breaks for seniors will change voters' minds. The present school, built in 1957, is a "financial disaster waiting to happen." The roof and all the major systems of the building -- heating and ventilation, plumbing, and electrical -- need to be replaced.

PENNSYLVANIA: The Philadelphia School District plans to invest $75 million in the next year to create "classrooms of the future" in 50 of its 270-plus schools. Funding for classroom modernization will come from the district's capital plan and cost about $1.5 million per school. The plans call for wireless clocks, digital cameras, interactive computerized "whiteboards," modern desks, and marker boards to replace slate boards. Audio-enhancement systems will allow students in the rear of classrooms to hear as well as those seated up front. District officials envision a wireless environment, and each student will get some kind of computational device, likely a hand-held system that can connect to a keyboard.

NEVADA: After years of urging by educators and community members, the Clark County School District is poised to replace Kermit Booker Elementary School with a $16.7 million facility that combines the latest in architecture with the community's demands for a safer learning environment. The first step was to design a more secure entry that limited access by outsiders, said architect Jess Perez, and the challenge was to emphasize safety without turning the building into a fortress. The school's main entrance, the school bus lanes, and parking areas will be situated to keep students away from the streets.

NEVADA: After years of urging by educators and community members, the Clark County School District is poised to replace Kermit Booker Elementary School with a $16.7 million facility that combines the latest in architecture with the community's demands for a safer learning environment. The first step was to design a more secure entry that limited access by outsiders, said architect Jess Perez, and the challenge was to emphasize safety without turning the building into a fortress. The school's main entrance, the school bus lanes, and parking areas will be situated to keep students away from the streets.

ILLINOIS: Even as it struggles with its own budget pressures, Chicago public schools are preparing to pay for its garbage pickup as part of a cost-shifting effort by the city. The district is expected to approve a two-year, $8.4 million contract that will cover all 620 school sites. For decades the city had provided free garbage pickup to most public schools, a task it now estimates as costing $3.7 million a year. Newer schools and some using special equipment paid for their own pickup, totaling $1.8 million last year. The new trash contract calls for schools to recycle at least 50 percent of their waste, most of which would be paper. Individual schools that don't cooperate by separating their paper waste could be penalized by having to pay a portion of their own trash costs out of their discretionary funds.

CALIFORNIA: The Los Angeles Unified School District's Department of Emergency Services has asked administrators and teachers in eight hundred and six K-12 schools to practice a new "shelter in place" drill instead of more traditional drills. The exercise is an opportunity for students, teachers, and administrators to learn what to do if toxic materials are released in the air near a school. Some schools in industrial areas where gas leaks or spills are more likely to occur already have started conducting the drill. But the district-wide week of practice is aimed at ensuring that all schools know how to handle such an emergency.

IOWA: By switching off lights, turning thermostats as low as 50 degrees at night, and shutting down buildings during summer and spring breaks, the Ames Community School District saved more than $180,000 last year in utility costs.

TEXAS: Hoping to prevent the loss of a child through kidnapping or more innocent circumstances, a few schools have begun monitoring student arrivals and departures using technology similar to that used to track livestock and pallets of retail shipments. The Spring Independent School District in Texas is equipping 28,000 students with ID badges containing computer chips that are read when the students get on and off school buses. The information is fed automatically by wireless phone to police and school administrators.

A Phoenix school district is starting a project using fingerprint technology to track when and where students get on and off buses. Last year, a charter school in Buffalo began automating attendance counts with computerized ID badges - one of the earliest examples of what educators said could become a widespread trend.

VIRGINIA: The Daily Press, in conjunction with WAVY-TV 10, reviewed records of mold outbreaks and removal efforts in the area's schools. The investigation revealed that many local school districts, including Newport News, Hampton, Suffolk, and Poquoson, have mold problems that left ceiling tiles black and discolored, carpet musty, or furniture and walls covered with a green film.

MISSOURI: Parents and students at Poplar Bluff High School reacted strongly to a new rule that all students and staff must wear ID badges while on school grounds. Some called it Orwellian, citing Big Brother and his omnipresent eye; others declared it a nuisance, saying only visitors should have to wear badges. One father even pulled his two daughters from the school in protest.

Across the country student IDs are fast becoming the norm - while far more invasive security measures have already been implemented, such as random drug testing, cameras, and metal detectors. Many experts are left wondering: Why the fuss in Poplar Bluff?

VIRGINIA: Fairfax County school officials propose to move most of the district's 1,300 administrative workers from nine school-owned administrative buildings and four leased offices across the county into a new Falls Church office complex, a consolidation they say would save about $5 million in the next 30 years. Under the plan, the school district would purchase an office building for an estimated $39.8 million. The district also would buy an adjacent parcel for about $6 million and build an identical building for about $43.9 million.

County staff members said the project probably would be funded by bonds issued by the county's Economic Development Authority. The debt would be paid with money that has been used to lease office space, savings from the travel budget, and funds that would have been used to renovate and maintain existing administration buildings, many of which are decades old.

MARYLAND: Baltimore's Planning Commission narrowly approved the school system's construction and renovation plan for the next five years, but chastised school officials for doing too little to fix decrepit buildings and for failing to provide a clear financial accounting of construction projects.

OREGON: Hillsborough voters rejected a four-year, $31.3 million local option school levy that would have raised money to reinstate positions that were cut, including custodial and maintenance staff. So with fewer custodians, tasks that would have been completed daily are being done weekly or not at all. And because fewer workers are cleaning more areas, some jobs are put off altogether, which could exacerbate health problems.

MASSACHUSETTS: A more rigorous approach to conducting security at Burlington schools seems to be in the town's future. The question is, how do schools balance the need for people to feel secure about the safety of their children, with the very real worry that strict measures may change the atmosphere of a learning environment?

MASSACHUSETTS: A more rigorous approach to conducting security at Burlington schools seems to be in the town's future. The question is, how do schools balance the need for people to feel secure about the safety of their children, with the very real worry that strict measures may change the atmosphere of a learning environment?

PENNSYLVANIA: For $5 million, the Philadelphia school district plans to sell naming rights for a new high school being built in partnership with Microsoft Corporation which is scheduled to open in September 2006. And it also will sell naming rights for individual classrooms (about $25,000 each), the auditorium, and other sections of the school. Collectively, the effort could raise $15 million to support the project.

FLORIDA: Site cleanup delays for a Doral high school have increased the campus' construction costs by $1.7 million, Miami-Dade school district leaders said. The project's $31 million price tag is a bargain by district standards, because the land was sold at a deep discount by a developer building a residential community nearby. The additional expense, however, raised specters of the cost overruns that plagued the district in recent years and prompted unprecedented oversight of its spending.

FLORIDA: The swipe of an electronic card soon will be the only way staffers can get through the door at six Palm Beach County middle schools. Taking a cue from office buildings and school district headquarters in Palm Springs, the middle schools will require teachers, office staff, custodians, and cafeteria workers to give up their keys and carry access cards that must be read electronically before doors will unlock. The cards will allow entrance only to doors the staffer typically needs. A cafeteria worker, for example, would have no access to classrooms.

VIRGINIA: Over the next five years, the Loudoun County school system will grow by more than 19,200 students and will need 19 more schools in which to educate them, Superintendent Edgar B. Hatrick III told the School Board. Hatrick recommended funding five new schools next year alone: three elementary schools that would open in 2007 and a middle school and high school in western Loudoun that would both open in 2008. The recommendations are contained in Hatrick's five-year, $833 million Capital Improvements Program. The CIP, which is revised each year, predicts when and where new students will arrive in the county over the next several years and proposes building projects to keep pace.

NEW YORK: At a hearing on school bathroom supplies, City Councilwoman Eva S. Moskowitz said she hoped to elicit a clear answer to a simple question: How can a school system with a nearly $14 billion budget not provide students with the most basic of services? Although Ms. Moskowitz has long contended that improper bathroom maintenance is one of the most frequent complaints she hears from parents, Department of Education officials testified that as far as they knew, there was no problem.

NEW YORK: Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced yesterday that New York City will expand its partnership with the Robin Hood Foundation to rebuild elementary school libraries, with the goal of rebuilding twenty-five by September 2006. The Robin Hood Foundation, a nonprofit organization that fights poverty in New York, has already refurbished or built thirty-one elementary school libraries across the city. The new libraries are designed by award-winning architects and are stocked with thousands of new books as well as new computers. Typically, the new libraries include a classroom area for group lessons, a casual storytelling area, and a section of tables, desks, and study nooks for individual reading. And, of course, new wooden shelves stacked with new books.

Mr. Bloomberg said the city would spend $10 million on the next twenty-five libraries, and education officials said the Robin Hood Foundation would contribute $6.5 million, including a $1 million donation by the investment bank Credit Suisse First Boston, in addition to millions of dollars in books donated by two publishers, Scholastic and HarperCollins.

CALIFORNIA: Three years after using eminent domain to take possession of a 24.7-acre parcel in Kearny Mesa, the San Diego Unified School District is selling the vacant land to Home Depot for $11.2 million more than it paid. District officials said the site is unsuitable for a school and there is no other school district use for it. The district bought the parcel in 2001 to build a central food processing and distribution facility, with plans to also consolidate other operations. A year later, the project was scrapped when the district decided to improve its existing facilities.

PENNSYLVANIA: From baby boom to suburban sprawl, districts in Philadelphia's suburbs face challenges as their facilities age and enrollment ebbs.

NEW JERSEY: It will take more than a year to tally a shortfall in the state's school-construction funds, but the New Jersey School Construction Corporation has the money to cover projects scheduled for early 2006, the corporation's leader said. With the state's $8.6 billion school-construction fund expected to run dry before many urban and suburban districts receive funds, officials are poised to outline expenditures to date and projects in the pipeline.

SOUTH CAROLINA: University of South Carolina officials and students are celebrating the official opening of Carolina's "green dorm," the largest residence-hall complex of its kind in the world. The 172,000-square-foot complex includes three four-story buildings with the latest technology and environmental features for conserving water and energy for the 500 undergraduate students who call it home. It also boasts an outdoor amphitheater, a learning center that is powered partly by a hydrogen fuel cell, a turf roof, and a cafe that sells healthy foods.

SOUTH CAROLINA: University of South Carolina officials and students are celebrating the official opening of Carolina's "green dorm," the largest residence-hall complex of its kind in the world. The 172,000-square-foot complex includes three four-story buildings with the latest technology and environmental features for conserving water and energy for the 500 undergraduate students who call it home. It also boasts an outdoor amphitheater, a learning center that is powered partly by a hydrogen fuel cell, a turf roof, and a cafe that sells healthy foods.

NEW JERSEY: It took more than 25 years of litigation before the state of New Jersey agreed to equalize public school funding in rich and poor communities. Two years after a single state-run school construction agency was formed and funded at $8.6 billion, new facilities gleam in the state’s oldest and densest neighborhoods. But the story is far from over as the New Jersey Schools Construction Corporation copes with unforeseen costs and political uncertainty over dwindling funds for hundreds of facilities yet to be upgraded.

MARYLAND: Exasperated by deteriorating school buildings and crowded classrooms, Maryland's local governments are banding together to ask state officials to increase funding of school construction by more than a billion dollars over the next several years. Baltimore's mayor and county executives and commissioners statewide are waging a letter-writing campaign as a first step toward bringing the issue to the forefront of subjects to be debated in the legislative session that will start in January. They say the time has come for the state to pay a much larger share of the $3.85 billion in building needs that its own task force has identified.

CALIFORNIA: The new $10.5 million Student Services Center, a glass and concrete building in the heart of the Southwestern College campus, is popularly known as the One-Stop Center. The student services equivalent of a food court, it houses the offices of admissions, financial aid, student employment, disability support and veterans services, the cashier, the career and transfer centers, and eleven other departments.

NEW JERSEY: State and federal military investigations are taking place after it was disclosed that an F-16 warplane had strafed an elementary school with cannon fire. The Air National Guard warplane, flying a night training mission out of Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, fired a burst of 27 rounds from its 20-millimeter cannon shortly before 10:15 p.m. as it streaked over Little Egg Harbor Township, 20 miles north of Atlantic City, New Jersey military officials said. At least eight of the bullets - non-explosive lead slugs more than 2 inches long - crashed through the roof of Little Egg Harbor Intermediate School, and five slugs were found in the school parking lot, three miles south of the target range. No one was hurt, and the damage was minor.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Without consulting with District officials, Congress approved legislation last month that requires the city to offer any surplus school property to public charter schools for at least 25 percent less than its appraised value before offering it to anyone else. Eleanor Holmes Norton and several D.C. Council members complained that they were never told about the measure, which was introduced by Senator Mary Landrieu (D-La.) as an amendment to the D.C. Appropriations Act. They said the law is poorly written and has left in limbo the sale of some surplus properties.

The legislation was proposed by charter school advocates who have complained for years about problems in obtaining vacant school buildings from the District's government. The city's charter schools, which receive public funds but are run independently of the public school system, have experienced rapid enrollment growth, and several are housed in cramped facilities.

MARYLAND: If St. Mary's County has its way, nearly a quarter of the 836-acre Southern Maryland forest the state bought recently with land-preservation money will become home to a seven-building school and recreation complex. County officials have written the Ehrlich administration asking for 200 acres of the parcel to build an elementary, middle, and high school, a fine arts center, a swimming pool, an early childhood center, and a recreation and parks day-care center. The proposal would solve St. Mary's school needs for the next decade while still partially preserving an environmentally significant tract. But others familiar with the proposal said it imperils the state's plans to create "Green Infrastructure" -- a system linking corridors of green space to protect wildlife in the face of growth pressures

FLORIDA: Palm Beach County consumers won't have to wait long to see what their extra half-cent on the dollar sales tax buys. After a much-anticipated referendum victory, the school district wants to accelerate its five-year, nearly $1.1 billion construction program. By securing the half-percent tax, officials say, they can start construction within the next five years on 14 new schools, 26 replacement school, and 27 classroom additions. Since 1998, the district has opened 32 new schools and replaced or renovated 25 schools. Another ten new and replacement schools are under construction and are due to open in August.

FLORIDA: Palm Beach County voters appeared to overwhelmingly pass a referendum to raise the sales tax by a half cent on the dollar for the next six years to build new public schools and replace older buildings. The school district's victory comes after a campaign driven by strong business community backing and public forgiveness of misspending from a 1986 property-tax referendum. Thanks to the extra sales tax -- it adds a quarter to a $50 purchase of taxable items -- officials say the system will avoid a "catastrophic" scenario of overcrowded schools, deteriorating campuses, and even classes held year-round.

ILLINOIS: A blockage in a chimney's flue at an elementary school on Chicago's Northwest Side sent 39 children and two adults to area hospitals with minor carbon-monoxide poisoning. After the boiler was fired up at the private Catholic school, students in the four-story brick building began to notice a gaslike smell and experienced headaches. Bricks and mortar in the chimney fell inward and blocked the flue, said Dan O'Connell, the Fire Department's chief of the hazardous materials team. The buildup likely occurred over many years, he added.

NEVADA: A unique joint-venture partnership has created the new $32.5 million, 52-acre Bishop Manogue Catholic High School in Reno, Nevada. Q&D Construction Inc., Reno, helped the Catholic Diocese of Reno, owner of Bishop Manogue High School, to develop, finance, design, and construct the new state-of-the-art facility. Q&D Construction partnered with the Catholic Diocese to assist in a land swap with the University of Nevada, Reno, in exchange for a joint fund-raising effort for the school's new site. Q&D guided the land search, purchase, and development. It then helped sell portions of the property to generate the initial capital needed for construction. UNR's pledge to buy the existing site for its sports programs was contingent on state funding not yet passed by lawmakers.

NEVADA: A unique joint-venture partnership has created the new $32.5 million, 52-acre Bishop Manogue Catholic High School in Reno, Nevada. Q&D Construction Inc., Reno, helped the Catholic Diocese of Reno, owner of Bishop Manogue High School, to develop, finance, design, and construct the new state-of-the-art facility. Q&D Construction partnered with the Catholic Diocese to assist in a land swap with the University of Nevada, Reno, in exchange for a joint fund-raising effort for the school's new site. Q&D guided the land search, purchase, and development. It then helped sell portions of the property to generate the initial capital needed for construction. UNR's pledge to buy the existing site for its sports programs was contingent on state funding not yet passed by lawmakers.

WASHINGTON: Seattle has among the most lead-contaminated water in schools nationwide but could address the problems economically through new technology, a national expert said. Richard Maas, co-director of the Environmental Quality Institute at the University of North Carolina-Asheville, said the levels of lead in Seattle schools are higher than 90 percent of 3,000 schools the organization has tested across the country. But he added, "I feel very strongly that you could basically eliminate lead in Seattle schools for under 2 million dollars." The district, Maas said, can avoid the need for additional pipe replacement through a combination of reverse osmosis water coolers, which contain a semi-permeable membrane that removes all impurities from water, and a magnesium anode system that coats the inside of pipes with a layer of magnesium to prevent corrosion and cover lead surfaces.

NEW YORK : Buffalo's school maintenance system is about to come under the microscope, and experts ultimately might be asked whether a private company can do the job better and more economically. A consulting firm is to examine a maintenance and cleaning arrangement that dates to the Civil War and which critics contend is secretive, costly, and antiquated. It provides the operating engineer at each city school with a lump sum of money to spend on maintenance and cleaning. They can keep what they don't spend.

COLORADO: Windows on the fourth floor of a dormitory where a Colorado College student fell to her death have been fitted with safety devices, a college spokeswoman said. The "window limiters" installed on the double-hung windows at Bemis Hall will prevent them from opening more than 12 to 13 inches. To add safety measures to the exterior of the building, the school would have had to undergo a review from the Colorado State Historical Fund, which granted the college $150,000 in 2002 for repair and restoration of the exterior trim, windows, and doors of Bemis Hall.

CONNECTICUT: In an attempt to keep schools warm this winter, the Berlin, Connecticut, Board of Education has recommended a freeze on all discretionary spending to pay for heat. The district has about $900,000 budgeted for utilities, a 6 percent increase over last year, but record oil prices coupled with the already high cost of natural gas have administrators concerned. Most of the schools heat with gas, but oil is used as a backup when the temperature drops below certain levels.

CALIFORNIA: A megalist of voter-approved school construction projects in the San Ramon Valley is being threatened by the price of steel, school district officials said. Though stressing they will continue to pursue projects "aggressively," San Ramon Valley Unified's board members acknowledged that high inflation and mounting material costs could dent the district's ability to complete every project taxpayers were promised two years ago. In 2002, voters passed the $260 million school facilities bond, Measure A. Bonds are being sold in phases and are supposed to pay for improvements at nearly all 28 campuses, including new classroom buildings and parking lots at the district's high schools.

NEW YORK: The chairman of the New York State Assembly Education Committee charged that New York State health and education officials failed to follow up on reports that dangerous levels of lead had been detected in drinking water at 120 schools and day care facilities. State officials disputed the charge and said that problems had been corrected at all but eight of the schools.

NATIONAL: Total U.S. construction spending in 2005 is expected to grow by 2 percent to $586 billion as more offices, hotels, and schools are built, offsetting a decline in single-family housing, according to a McGraw-Hill report released on Thursday. Interest rates will continue to rise, and costs of construction material are not expected to level off before early 2005. School, hospital, and other institutional spending is expected to rise 7 percent on a dollar basis and 3 percent on a square-footage basis. "The gradual improvement in the fiscal health of some states combined with money coming from huge volume of bond measures passed in recent years will help school construction turn upward," the report said.

MINNESOTA: Minneapolis school board members signaled that they're unlikely to make changes in a consultant team's recommendation to close programs at 19 schools but that they're open to ideas for filling the empty buildings. The question of what happens next is likely to take several years to answer. A spokesman for the consultants said the options are using the buildings for other school purposes, such as new programs, offices, or storage; sharing them with other public agencies; or declaring them surplus property for sale.

NEW YORK: Mayor Michael Bloomberg has abandoned plans to pay for as much as $1 billion in school construction projects through budgeting rather than borrowing as he seeks to find more money to close large projected deficits. The mayor's decision to jettison the pay-as-you-go approach to financing school construction and use the $200 million in annual savings to balance the budget was disclosed in documents the city submitted to state fiscal monitors. It seemed to signal an end to a short-lived experiment in fiscal prudence that Mr. Bloomberg had pointed to with pride only a few months ago.

ALABAMA: The Kershaw County School District Board of Trustees is jumping on the re-financing bandwagon alongside many homeowners, hoping to save money on the district`s debt payments by refunding an approximate $33 million debt service balance on outstanding bonds. "The window of opportunity has once again opened for the district to refinance two bonds," Chief Financial Officer Wilson said. "The bond market has shifted again, and interest rates are at a near 40-year low."

ALABAMA: The Kershaw County School District Board of Trustees is jumping on the re-financing bandwagon alongside many homeowners, hoping to save money on the district`s debt payments by refunding an approximate $33 million debt service balance on outstanding bonds. "The window of opportunity has once again opened for the district to refinance two bonds," Chief Financial Officer Wilson said. "The bond market has shifted again, and interest rates are at a near 40-year low."

WASHINGTON: Less than two months after water fountains were declared safe in 38 Seattle schools, district officials may be instructed to turn many of them off again and bring back bottled water. The move, which could affect more than 20 schools, is being prompted in part by inconsistent lead test results and concerns about potential health risks posed by small amounts of cadmium found in the school water.

VIRGINIA: The Fairfax County School Board agreed to sell 35 acres of wooded land near Springfield to a developer and use the $12 million in revenue to speed new construction and building renovations throughout the system. Board members said the infusion of cash from the sale of the site would allow a new elementary school to open in 2006, three years ahead of schedule and at a savings of $1.5 million. Renovations at Woodson High School and at a middle school and 10 elementary schools also would be finished months sooner than planned, officials said.

GEORGIA: Since June, 112 laptop and desktop computers worth more than $150,000 have been stolen from 30 schools in north and south Fulton County. The superintendent said the burglars' knowledge of school security systems appears to be sophisticated. He speculated that adults could be working with some students. In the latest incidents, the burglars successfully sidestepped interior corridor motion detection alarms, indicating a knowledge of the security system. Similar knowledge has been apparent in other break-ins. When thieves hit the front office of Haynes Bridge Middle School in Alpharetta at the beginning of the school year, they broke through the only window not wired for security and stole a computer.

NATIONAL: A challenge for districts across the country is knowing how and when to restrict access to information such as emergency procedures and school floor plans. In most states, those documents are typically available by law to anyone who requests them, experts on public-records law say. And in some cases, accessing detailed school designs is as easy as searching the Internet, a cursory review of Web sites by Education Week showed. Some officials say, however, that limiting access to certain school information is necessary, when safety concerns outweigh the public’s right to know.

NEW JERSEY: Trenton Central High School, completed in 1931, is too small for the city's high school population and lies in grave disrepair, its glory consigned to the past. It requires everything from a full renovation of its deteriorated, water-damaged auditorium - including replacement of broken, graffiti-marred wooden seats - to a larger gymnasium and repairs to cracked concrete facing and battered lockers. The estimated $133 million overhaul, tied with a Union City high school for costliest school construction project in New Jersey to date, represents a microcosm of the challenges and problems in providing new and rebuilt schools in urban settings where students have grown accustomed to disrepair. In fact, when it comes to price escalation, it is one of the most glaring examples of how poor a job the state did in estimating how much it would cost to provide adequate schools. [Part four of a four-part series]

MARYLAND: Governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. plans to set aside $100 million for school construction for fiscal 2006, school systems across Maryland have learned in a letter from the state's Interagency Committee on School Construction. There is broad support among school administrators and elected officials for the state to take on more debt to pay for school construction needs, a step Maryland could take without sacrificing its good standing with lenders. But a state committee last month recommended that Maryland look at alternatives before it pledges more bond money to meet the ever-increasing demands for new schools.

NEW JERSEY: With $6 billion in the pipeline to bring an end to dilapidated, ill-equipped schools in New Jersey's poorest districts, officials have allowed themselves the luxury of the grandest dreams. But for all its ambition, the program is evidence that the more complicated the plans, the more difficult they are to get off the ground. And now, many of those projects might wind up not being fully funded. [Part three of a four-part series]

NATIONAL: Mimicking professional and collegiate sports teams that routinely sell naming rights to stadiums and arenas, elementary, middle, and high school are selling naming rights for their gyms and football stadiums to corporate sponsors. These deals, worth millions of dollars, are being made around the country with companies as large as Nike and as small as a tire shop. Everything seems to have a price. Advertising is appearing increasingly on tickets to high school sports events, scoreboards, billboards in end zones, gym walls, locker rooms, and the buses carrying teams to games.

MARYLAND: The Anne Arundel County school system is exploring options to avoid installing more than 100 portable classrooms to house all the children who will attend county schools by 2007 because of all-day kindergarten and other early childhood programs. Each portable classroom costs about $100,000, which would bring the total close to $11 million, according to estimates in the capital budget. To meet state mandates, the school system planned to add 35 portable classrooms this year at 18 schools. But school officials now estimate they will need 74 additional classrooms at 26 schools over the next two years. Four schools are expected to have enough space without additions or other rooms.

MAINE: A two-year program originally designed to get mercury out of Maine schools has uncovered stockpiles of potentially dangerous chemicals, including agents used in chemical warfare, that could cost millions to clean up. So far, 6,500 pounds and more than 1,000 gallons of hazardous waste have been removed from science labs, maintenance departments, art and vocational classrooms, and nurses' stations in 80 Maine schools. More than 700 pounds of mercury have been removed, making Maine schools the second-largest source of mercury in the state. The clean-out program, run by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, has discovered radioactive materials in more than a dozen schools.

MAINE: A two-year program originally designed to get mercury out of Maine schools has uncovered stockpiles of potentially dangerous chemicals, including agents used in chemical warfare, that could cost millions to clean up. So far, 6,500 pounds and more than 1,000 gallons of hazardous waste have been removed from science labs, maintenance departments, art and vocational classrooms, and nurses' stations in 80 Maine schools. More than 700 pounds of mercury have been removed, making Maine schools the second-largest source of mercury in the state. The clean-out program, run by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, has discovered radioactive materials in more than a dozen schools.

NEW JERSEY: From the beginning, the task of improving school facilities in New Jesey's poor school districts has been a complex morass of court battles, competing political interests, and governmental operations. [Part two of a four-part series.]

NEW JERSEY: Shock waves reverberated last month when state Schools Construction Corporation chief John Spencer revealed that New Jersey's $8.6 billion school construction fund will run out in early 2006, far earlier than many expected. But as legislators ponder whether to spend billions more, they may find their frustration mounting as they try to grapple with the critical question of whether the state has spent its money efficiently or encountered waste. [Part one of a four-part series]

COLORADO: The old William Smith School gymnasium, built in 1931, has fallen into disrepair and has been targeted for demolition by Aurora Public Schools leaders who want to make room for more classrooms, a cafeteria, and a school kitchen for West Middle School. But some residents think Aurora should do more to preserve its historic past. “You will not find another monument like this left in the city,” says Rolla Rissler, a former principal and science teacher at the school.

FLORIDA: A suspected gunman hid inside an Opa-locka Catholic school, prompting a dramatic police evacuation -- and the angst of hundreds of parents -- before he was caught. Hialeah police arrested the man in a school bathroom and captured an alleged accomplice a few blocks away. Police said no weapon was found in or near the school. Dozens of frantic parents rushed to the scene, some after local and national television news went live broadcasting Columbine-like images.

PENNSYLVANIA: The Downingtown Area School District board is debating whether to convert the vacant Ninth Grade Center into a school administration building, with district educational programs or community groups using the excess space, a proposal that would likely cost the district millions of dollars.

The 116,000-square-foot building shares the same campus as Downingtown West High School and Downingtown Middle School. It was Downingtown's high school from its construction in 1932 until 1960, when a new high school was built. It was a junior high school from 1960 to 2000. It housed the district's ninth graders from 2000 to June 2003 during renovations that led to the creation of two high schools. It has been empty and mostly unused since then. A recent district study put the appraised value of the building and the 3.5 acres it stands on at $1.45 million. But if the building were to be sold, it would be hard to find a use compatible with the center's location near school buildings, district officials said. It could be demolished for about $350,000 and converted to a parking lot, but that would spell the end of a historical building that has great sentimental value and other potential uses, they said.

CALIFORNIA: The Los Angeles Board of Education narrowly voted to build a $318-million school for 4,200 students on the site of the historic Ambassador Hotel, once frequented by celebrities and politicians and the site of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. The plan for the Ambassador, approved on a 4-3 vote, was backed by schools Superintendent Roy Romer. Under the plan, one of five being considered by the board, the Los Angeles Unified School District would preserve the hotel's arcade of stores, a coffee shop designed by architect Paul Williams, and the historic Cocoanut Grove nightclub, while razing most of the hotel, including its lobby, hotel rooms, and adjacent bungalows.

MINNESOTA: Facilities consultants have recommended a plan for downsizing Minneapolis schools that would end programs at 21 schools over the next three years, leaving the fate of the buildings housing them unclear. All of the affected programs are at the K-8 level; some would be shifted to nearby schools, while others would cease. The consultants suggested that other programs in the district or the broader community might use the vacated buildings. For example, some sites could become early childhood education centers or schools could be used for district administrative offices. There are also options for inviting other governmental, corporate, nonprofit, or educational agencies to use the vacated space, perhaps in combination with the district.

NATIONAL: Security concerns have led a small but increasing number of school districts and counties to move polling sites off school campuses. Seven of the 12 schools in Ohio’s 6,800-student Gahanna-Jefferson district, for example, will no longer double as polling places after educators and parents successfully petitioned the local board of elections earlier this year to make the change. In Florida, the Pinellas County elections board supervisor moved polling places originally slated for 11 public schools to local churches and community centers.

Many other districts and county and state officials say such worries are overblown: throughout recent history, schools have been used as polling sites and they perform an important civic duty. Schools provide the needed parking and other facilities for polling, as well as access for people with disabilities, required under federal law. And, those educators and officials say, there’s never been any serious threat to the safety of students in schools with polling sites. Some states and districts simply close their public schools on Election Day to remove potential problems.

CALIFORNIA: Joining a national trend among urban school districts, the Los Angeles board of education approved a plan to scale down the district’s secondary schools into smaller units of 350 to 500 students apiece. The policy sets up a framework for how the nation’s second-largest school district will start new schools from scratch and break down existing large ones. Two years in the works, the policy is being billed as a milestone on a journey expected to take a decade or more.

CALIFORNIA: Some school construction projects in San Diego have uncovered hazardous materials in the soil. Such remnants of the city's past are raising health concerns among some residents and environmentalists. Webster Elementary School, where a library and classroom building are being built, sits atop an old dump. In Logan Heights, elevated arsenic and lead levels have been found at the proposed Laura Rodriguez Elementary School. In Scripps Ranch, before construction can begin for Thurgood Marshall Middle School's replacement campus, the district must scour the property for projectiles because it was once part of a military base's firing range and tank course. Cleanup plans are being developed by school district officials for each of the campuses, as required by state law.

CALIFORNIA: Some school construction projects in San Diego have uncovered hazardous materials in the soil. Such remnants of the city's past are raising health concerns among some residents and environmentalists. Webster Elementary School, where a library and classroom building are being built, sits atop an old dump. In Logan Heights, elevated arsenic and lead levels have been found at the proposed Laura Rodriguez Elementary School. In Scripps Ranch, before construction can begin for Thurgood Marshall Middle School's replacement campus, the district must scour the property for projectiles because it was once part of a military base's firing range and tank course. Cleanup plans are being developed by school district officials for each of the campuses, as required by state law.

WASHINGTON: The renovation of Cottage Lake Elementary School in Woodinville this fall will help shape the budding "sustainable schools" movement in Washington, offering legislators a window into new design and construction practices said to improve student performance and cut down on energy costs.

The goal of the sustainable-schools movement is to create a new generation of buildings that are healthy for people and the environment. In practical terms, that means special attention is paid to everything from air quality to water conservation, from heat sources to the use of daylight.

ILLINOIS: For as long as anyone could remember, the 2-acre rubble-strewn lot that is part of the Evanston Township High School campus was unused and unloved. But to science teacher Craig Smith, the eyesore beckoned as an outdoor laboratory, where students could take water samples from a wetland or count grasshoppers in a savanna. Smith's goal was to put hands-on experiments within a five-minute walk from class instead of a 50-minute bus ride to a forest preserve. Seven years later, work on the $236,000 Environmental Education Demonstration Project, better known to students as the Nature Center, has been completed.

MARYLAND: After a year in the making, students at Mount Hebron High School in Ellicott City unveiled their video investigating the poor building conditions at their school during a public hearing on the school system's capital budget. The video takes viewers on a tour of the school, showing broken ceiling tiles, locker doors that are bent or rusty, ragged curtains in the auditorium held up by duct tape, and mouse droppings. The video also shows two temperature readings inside the school the same day -- one is 52 degrees; the second, 94. "Our physical plant here is crumbling," a student says in the video. "To say it doesn't reflect our spirit and pride is quite an understatement."

CALIFORNIA: Over the next four years, the Elk Grove Unified School District plans to open 20 new schools - a feat unmatched in the Sacramento region in almost half a century. Building the 14 elementary schools, three middle schools, and three high schools will be a monumental job costing almost $500 million. It will mean thousands of desks, chairs, and blackboards for almost 1,000 classrooms. It will mean hiring at least 600 teachers, not to mention janitors, secretaries, and librarians.

FLORIDA: Public schools could be pulling their floor plans off the Internet after soldiers in Iraq found a computer disc full of information about American campuses, some of it from Southwest Florida. The disc had photos, floor plans and other information downloaded from the Internet about schools in Florida, California, Georgia, Michigan, New Jersey and Oregon. U.S. government officials said Friday that there is no terrorist connection to the disc, which was made by an Iraqi man who was doing research and had no connections to al-Qaeda or the Iraqi insurgents battling U.S. forces. So the episode may have sparked more discussion about school security than concern about imminent danger to schoolchildren.

NATIONAL: Federal officials said there is no terrorist connection to a computer disk found in Iraq that contained information about schools in six states. The disk was made by an unidentified Iraqi man who was doing research and had no connections to al-Qaida or the Iraqi insurgents battling U.S. forces, according to the FBI.

Some material on the disk appeared to be randomly downloaded from a publicly accessible Education Department Web site and included such things as manuals on workplace safety, crisis management studies, student codes of conduct, and building security diagrams. It also contained an Education Department report on school crisis planning that was published in May 2003.

Although there was no indication of a terror threat, the FBI decided to contact local officials out of an abundance of caution.

LOUISIANA: New Orleans schools Superintendent Tony Amato is moving to fire the system's janitorial services contractor, one of the area's most politically connected companies, which school officials say has left campuses filthy while costing millions of dollars a year. The termination of the contract with AME services, tentatively set for the end of the month, would close a period marked by performance complaints, political maneuvering, and escalating costs. The complaints about AME's performance -- uncut grass, filthy schools, and a constant lack of cleaning supplies -- are similar to those that drove a failed attempt to fire the company in 2000 under the administration of former schools chief Al Davis.

NEW YORK: Revelations that a computer disk found in Iraq had diagrams and photographs of some American schools have prompted school officials in several states to review security procedures and assure anxious parents that they are doing all they can to protect their children. While Homeland Security and F.B.I. officials insisted Friday that they did not believe the material found in Iraq represented a serious threat, some school officials conceded that news of the discovery had unnerved parents already rattled by the school siege in Beslan, Russia, five weeks ago in which 330 people died, 172 of them children.

NATIONAL: Education officials in six states were put on notice last month that a computer disc found in Iraq over the summer contained photos, floor plans and other information about schools in their districts, two U.S. government officials said. The downloaded data the U.S. military found in July -- all publicly available on the Internet -- included an Education Department report guiding schools on how to prepare and respond to a crisis, one official said Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity. The officials said it was unclear who downloaded the information and stressed they had no evidence of any specific threats involving the schools. The districts mentioned were in California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New Jersey and Oregon, officials said, adding that the FBI alerted local education and law enforcement authorities of the finding about three weeks ago.

OHIO: Potentially dangerous lead-contaminated soil soon will be removed from an abandoned shooting range in Mason. The site will be fenced off and the air monitored to protect the health of residents in two adjacent neighborhoods, federal environmental officials say. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Ohio Department of Health and Mason school officials announced that recent soil testing of a 47-acre site for a new Mason elementary school - scheduled to open in 2006 - revealed that about four acres of the open, unfenced field had lead levels considered unsafe for humans.

OHIO: Potentially dangerous lead-contaminated soil soon will be removed from an abandoned shooting range in Mason. The site will be fenced off and the air monitored to protect the health of residents in two adjacent neighborhoods, federal environmental officials say. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Ohio Department of Health and Mason school officials announced that recent soil testing of a 47-acre site for a new Mason elementary school - scheduled to open in 2006 - revealed that about four acres of the open, unfenced field had lead levels considered unsafe for humans.

NATIONAL: The U.S. Department of Education has alerted school leaders nationwide to watch for people spying on their buildings as a possible sign of a higher terrorist threat. The warning is based on an analysis by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security of the school siege that killed nearly 340 people, many of them students, in Beslan, Russia, last month. The alert was meant to protect schools and but not because of "any specific information indicating that there is a terrorist threat to any schools or universities in the United States," Deputy Secretary of Education Eugene Hickok said in a letter to school leaders.

FLORIDA: Crews are building the new Spring Hill K-8 facility to withstand hurricane winds so that it can be designated as a community shelter. The school is estimated to cost about $34 million, and after the experience Florida has had this season, no one is complaining about the extra cost. All new Florida school facilities must be designed to serve as hurricane shelters according to a 2003 state law. Schools must be constructed with high-strength concrete frames, steel reinforcing to make the walls more wind resistant, and impact-resistant windows strong enough to withstand winds of up to 132 mph.

ARKANSAS: Work will begin on calculating the cost of improvements to schools across Arkansas following the tentative endorsement of proposed school building standards by a legislative panel. An overview of the standards, which affects all 6,400 school buildings statewide, was presented to the Joint Committee on Educational Facilities. As one group begins the cost calculations for each building, another group will begin to look for ways to pay the cost of improvements and new construction.

CALIFORNIA: Every middle school and high school in the Los Angeles Unified School District will be divided into smaller clusters of 350 to 500 students within five years under a plan approved by the Board of Education. Los Angeles is one of the last large urban school districts to move to small "learning communities," a reform intended to provide more personalized education. Districts in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., embraced the small-schools movement after research had indicated that students in smaller schools are more likely to finish high school and attend college. To create smaller schools, districts have sometimes divided campuses into separate units that share the gymnasium or cafeteria.

PENNSYLVANIA: Day-Glo green tennis balls that have lost their bounce are acquiring a second life in school classrooms. Sliced open and stuffed onto the feet of chairs and tables, the balls serve as inexpensive low-tech noise reducers and keep the metal feet on chairs from marring floors. For most children, the screeching of chairs is "not a big deal if it happens only occasionally," said David Lubman, a California expert on acoustics. But, he said, it can interfere with learning for students who have hearing or attention deficits, or are learning English as their second language.

GEORGIA: Fulton school officials will submit a $20 million bill to the county and city of Alpharetta for an 8-year improvement plan for roads around new schools. School officials say the cost of widening roads, putting up traffic signals and other off-site improvements needed to open a new school is the responsibility of local governments. But, so far, the school system has been stuck with the bill. The county and city have not paid for the road improvements, but have held the school system over a barrel by refusing to issue building permits or certificates of occupancy for new school facilities until road improvements were made, said Superintendent Michael Vanairsdale.

INTERNATIONAL: An unidentified man taken into custody by U.S. authorities in Iraq had a computer disc containing a publicly available federal report on school emergency planning, according to a San Diego school official, who said the district was notified of the incident because the report describes some of the district’s crisis-response procedures. The descriptions are incorporated into "Practical Information on Crisis Planning: A Guide for Schools and Communities," published in May 2003 by the U.S. Department of Education’s office of safe and drug-free schools. The FBI notified the San Diego district of the situation, Steven S. Baratte, a spokesman for the school system, said in an interview.

NATIONAL: More than 100 school districts have been awarded $28.6 million in grants to strengthen their emergency preparation and response plans, U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige announced. The Emergency Response and Crisis Management program supports local school districts' efforts to improve school emergency response and crisis management plans, including training school personnel and students in emergency response procedures.

NATIONAL: Examples of athletic "arms races" trickling down to high school football include Louisiana's West Monroe High School installation of a $2.3 million football field house — with training facilities downstairs and coaches offices and meeting rooms upstairs. Pittsburgh's North Hill High spent $10 million on the renovation of 65-year-old Martorelli Stadium in 2001, installing synthetic turf and a six-lane track and building a new press box and a 13,000-square-foot field house. Jefferson High in Lafayette, Indiana, just moved into a stadium that has synthetic turf, a video scoreboard (with instant replay) and a 10-lane, natural-rubber track. The second phase of the $8 million project will add a 22,000-square-foot athletic complex with locker, weight, and training rooms, coaches offices, and classroom space.

VIRGINIA: Architects have a role in designing schools that encourage strong academic performance, though they need to do a better job selling school administrators and the public on their ideas. That was one of the messages delivered to about 100 school architects and district facility planners who met in Charlottsville, Virginia, September 26-28 for a twice-yearly conference sponsored by the Washington-based American Institute of Architects to discuss ways that architecture can influence learning.

VIRGINIA: Architects have a role in designing schools that encourage strong academic performance, though they need to do a better job selling school administrators and the public on their ideas. That was one of the messages delivered to about 100 school architects and district facility planners who met in Charlottsville, Virginia, September 26-28 for a twice-yearly conference sponsored by the Washington-based American Institute of Architects to discuss ways that architecture can influence learning.

TEXAS: Not many people would expect the hurricanes that have ravaged Florida to affect a school district in North Texas, but Mansfield officials are bracing for impact -- financial impact. As the second-fastest-growing district in North Texas, Mansfield expects to continually build new schools until at least 2007. With construction costs already on the rise, the district is pushing up bidding deadlines to lock in prices before rebuilding in Florida begins and the demand for materials and further outpaces supply. Labor may also become an issue as contractors go to Florida to help rebuild.

ARIZONA: Last winter, Deer Valley school district officials realized that homes in Anthem were selling faster than anyone predicted. For the already fast-growing district, it meant more students, sooner than expected. Plans were under way for a third elementary school to open in Anthem in 2005, but school officials needed classroom space for the 560 pupils coming this school year. The answer was a temporary school that could be constructed quickly but still look and feel like a real school. Using money saved from bond projects, Deer Valley spent $3.5 million on 35 modular buildings, including 900-square-foot classrooms, a cafeteria, offices and a library. The modular buildings have sprinkler systems and steel-frames, and they are stuccoed. Some districts have used these buildings as permanent schools, but Deer Valley may be the first district in the area to use the movable school concept, keeping an entire school available just to handle growth.

MICHIGAN: Detroit schools are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to upgrade security by buying video monitoring systems and alarms and hiring security guards to patrol hallways. Schools are conducting role-playing exercises in which school officials plot ways to respond to threats, and taking part in lockdown and evacuation drills.

School officials say they recognize that most emergency situations will deal not with terrorists, but with far less ominous events like tornadoes or accidental chemicals spills. However, security experts regard most school buildings as soft targets, or civilian locations with many people that are not well secured.

WASHINGTON: While it is safe to lock people out of a public building, it is not safe to lock people in. People need to leave a building when the building is burning. The Seattle School District uses heavy chains to lock exit doors from the inside at various hours of the day and night. In case of fire, no child or adult could force the doors open. Chaining shut fire exits, puts children at risk.

MARYLAND: The town of Middletown and the Maryland Department of the Environment signed an agreement that will allow the water-strapped town to restart a stalled elementary school construction project. But nothing else can be built until Middletown finds more water. State officials said the Frederick County town had ignored warnings for years that its growth was outstripping its water supply and in June, Environment Secretary Kendl P. Philbrick issued a building moratorium.

CALIFORNIA: A social studies classroom at Lowell High School has been turned into a science lab, of sorts. Science department faculty have been measuring the carbon dioxide levels in that room and in three nearby classroom after students and teachers complained of feeling dizzy and exhausted and seeing spots. The classrooms were just refurbished but they don't have windows and the ventilation system is malfunctioning. The original building, completed in 1962, didn't include windows for these classrooms, and during the recent remodeling it was determined that adding them would require major structural modifications and be too costly.

MINNESOTA: Blackboards are gradually giving way to whiteboards and computer projectors at the University of Minnesota as it pushes to eliminate chalk dust, which can foil today's expensive classroom technology. In rooms where chalkboards are used, machine filters have to be changed twice as often as usual and equipment breakdowns are more frequent. According to the director of classroom management, "Chalk dust gets sucked in, adheres to equipment, clogs it and causes it to overheat. We are trying really hard to keep classrooms clean and have a bright, friendly environment that is conducive for students to learn in and faculty to teach in. Whiteboards help us do that."

NEW YORK: New York City real estate brokers say that educational institutions, both public and private, represent one of the most active industry groups looking to lease Manhattan office space, particularly in areas where prices are relatively low, like downtown, Hudson Square, Midtown South, and parts of TriBeCa. However, fitting an office building for a school or college is not always easy.

GEORGIA: The Clayton County school system is redesigning its long-term capital improvements plan now that the flow of 1-percent sales tax revenues for new school construction will continue for another five years. Voters last week approved a third special purpose local option sales tax that is expected to add as much as $269 million to the district's coffers through 2010. The money would go to build six schools, additions at 20 others, and fund other capital improvements as well.

FLORIDA: Preliminary damage assessments from hurricane Jeanne at St. Lucie County schools left district officials with a sense of deja vu. "Basically everything we tried to fix last time got broken again," said Marty Sanders, executive director of facilities. Recently replaced windows blew out, and schools that had been professionally cleaned of mold and mildew in the weeks since Hurricane Frances suffered water damage again when the windows broke. Cleaning crews with generators and dehumidifiers were to begin the cleanup process Sunday, Sanders said. After Francis, schools were plagued by mold and mildew in buildings that sat without power for as many as nine days. The district spent about $2 million to hire professional environmental hygienists and cleaning crews to get rid of the growths. That cleanup process was nearly complete by the end of last week and schools would have reopened today if Jeanne hadn't arrived.

FLORIDA: Preliminary damage assessments from hurricane Jeanne at St. Lucie County schools left district officials with a sense of deja vu. "Basically everything we tried to fix last time got broken again," said Marty Sanders, executive director of facilities. Recently replaced windows blew out, and schools that had been professionally cleaned of mold and mildew in the weeks since Hurricane Frances suffered water damage again when the windows broke. Cleaning crews with generators and dehumidifiers were to begin the cleanup process Sunday, Sanders said. After Francis, schools were plagued by mold and mildew in buildings that sat without power for as many as nine days. The district spent about $2 million to hire professional environmental hygienists and cleaning crews to get rid of the growths. That cleanup process was nearly complete by the end of last week and schools would have reopened today if Jeanne hadn't arrived.

CALIFORNIA: Seven schools that left the Los Angeles Unified School District to become charters contend that the district is shortchanging them of $7 million in facilities funding and state money needed to educate poor, minority, and special education students. The seven schools pay the district $2 million a year for the use of district facilities and for oversight fees. They say the district has never justified the oversight fees, adding that they pay for maintaining district facilities themselves. Los Angeles officials say that the district had a right to charge charter schools for using its facilities, and it had a responsibility to maintain them.

MARYLAND: Howard County, Maryland plans to celebrate the completed restoration of Pfeiffer's Corner School, a renovated 120-year-old wood-frame one -room schoolhouse. The restored building, relocated to Rockburn Branch Park, will become a historical exhibit portraying the rural origins of the county's schools.

The building's $442,000 makeover this year incorporates some original flooring and exterior wood siding, along with such modern amenities as air conditioning, ceiling sprinklers, and accessibility ramps. But even spiffed up, it seems humble compared with its modern-day neighbor, the 85,000-square-foot, $8 million Rockburn Elementary School that houses 535 students.

ILLINOIS: As the Chicago Public Schools system launches a massive initiative to overhaul its worst schools, a new study reveals both painful lessons and the seeds of promise at the district's earliest venture in this direction--an effort beginning in 2002 to remake three troubled high schools into 12 small learning communities. The findings in this report--good and bad--mirror what small-school advocates are seeing in urban systems nationwide, with the central message being that it is not enough just to break a big school into smaller pieces.

TEXAS: A Humble Independent School District middle school was evacuated when an apparent pesticide made its way into the school's air conditioning system. About two dozen students and a teacher were treated for breathing problems and eye and throat irritation after they were exposed to the fumes. A school spokeswoman said the incident occurred after two boys dumped trash from a classroom into the waste bin outside the school. In the trash was a bottle containing the pesticide. The bottle broke and the boys complained to their teacher that their eyes were burning. Fumes from the bottle made their way into the air conditioning system in the school's cafeteria and, as a precaution, the children were taken out of the school building.

NATIONAL: Ellie Goldberg, founder of Healthy Kids: The Key to Basics, fights for school health, advocating regulations that ensure buildings are constructed and maintained with health in mind. "A sick school sabotages a child's education," Goldberg said. "The same way steps are a barrier to those in wheelchairs, bad air is a form of discrimination."

NEW YORK: Onteora school board members agreed to seek bids for reinforcement of the roof over the Onteora Middle-Senior High School auditorium. The Board of Education approved the project following estimates that it will cost up to $40,000 to replace an I-beam that officials said has become twisted from the load-bearing weight of the roof and stage rigging.

The problem turned up during building inspections made in response to a school roof collapse in the Washingtonville, New York, school district, and a subsequent advisory from the New York State Education Department asking all districts to examine their buildings' structural systems to make sure they didn't have a similar situation.

OHIO: The Ohio School Facilities Commission has, to date, funneled over $3 billion to Ohio school districts to renovate or replace out-of-date and unsafe buildings. Yet there is a continuing debate over its policies and funding methods concerning the decision to renovate existing schools or to build new ones. There are no easy answers to the controversy because it's difficult to achieve a balance between the desire to preserve historic neighborhood schools and the changing educational needs of students.

FLORIDA: Hurricanes Charley, Frances, and Ivan have hurt Florida's economy to the tune of billions of dollars. Now local education officials wait to see whether damage cost will filter down to kids throughout Florida. Although Sarasota County School officials approved the 2004-2005 annual budget based in part on expectations of state revenue, the state may have to pull back educational funding to cover clean-up expenses from the three hurricanes.

Because of Hurricane Ivan, the most recent storm, Escambia County schools will be closed for at least three weeks. Early estimates of damage to county schools alone are in the range of $80 million. Charlotte County Schools will need $200 million to repair the damage from Hurricanes Charley and Frances.

MASSACHUSETTS: Along with kidnappings, suicides, and natural disasters, Wilmington school officials are reviewing emergency protocols and adding terror scenarios to the catastrophes they must prepare to respond to. "The situation in Russia was tragic, and it could happen anywhere," Wilmington Superintendent William McAlduff said. "It raised our awareness, and we are working to make sure our public safety protocols are in place."

The current emergency guide provides steps to take in the event of accidents, natural disasters, fire, explosions, kidnappings, bomb threats, or sexual assaults. It also provides guidelines for dealing with missing children, custody procedures, child abuse reporting, suicide and suicide symptoms, or bites from dangerous animals. The updates will provide procedures for mass evacuations, McAlduff said, and the district is currently working on what to do for acts of terrorism. McAlduff said he hopes to have the new procedures in place within the next few months.

ILLINOIS: As workers at St. Joseph Elementary School, a Catholic school in Libertyville, hustled to finish installing a $125,000 fire sprinkler system before classes began, officials and parents at nearby Libertyville High School have debated whether sprinklers are worth the expense. Outraged parents reject arguments from some school officials and safety experts that the risk of a school fire causing injury or death is minimal.

ILLINOIS: As workers at St. Joseph Elementary School, a Catholic school in Libertyville, hustled to finish installing a $125,000 fire sprinkler system before classes began, officials and parents at nearby Libertyville High School have debated whether sprinklers are worth the expense. Outraged parents reject arguments from some school officials and safety experts that the risk of a school fire causing injury or death is minimal.

MASSACHUSETTS: Hundreds of construction items like heating system components, gutters, and alarm systems in three new Waltham school buildings have not been installed or are already broken. While everyone agrees that many of problems are relatively minor and readily fixable, at issue is who should pay for them -- the city or the general contractor.

Five years after Waltham's $161 million citywide school reconstruction project began, work is starting to fall behind schedule. Three schools are built and three are under construction, but the last two have yet to be started. While officials say they have overhauled Waltham's aging school buildings largely at state expense, the sheer size and speed of the undertaking may have cost the city in other ways.

CALIFORNIA: The glamorous hallways and marbled ballrooms of Los Angeles' Ambassador Hotel that once hosted the rich and famous are to be demolished by the Los Angeles Unified School District, which has plans for a state-of-the-art campus on the site. Indeed, much of the crumbling and peeling six-story building will be leveled as part of a plan school officials announced.

FLORIDA: Mold and mildew growing inside roofs, walls, and carpets continue to plague the St. Lucie County School District, as staff members and private companies work to get schools ready to reopen after Hurricane Frances.

NATIONAL: A number of new initiatives for school facilities will improve children's health, enhance their learning, and leave a lighter footprint on the environment. In the Los Angeles Unified School District new schools will, among other things, conserve energy, use less water in cafeteria food preparation and dishwashing, install low-flow toilets, and have enhanced ventilation to ensure healthy indoor air quality.

PENNSYLVANIA: Philadelphia school district's proposed $46 million 700-student high school near Fairmount Park will be the first area building nationally certified as a "green building" by the U.S. Green Building Council.

The Philadelphia School District provides an ideal opportunity to experiment with green thinking. Schools are generally a good target because there are environmental, as well as human, benefits. Philadelphia's five-year $1.5 billion school capital plan is an ideal platform as a market transformer, even if green buildings take more planning and thought.

HAWAII: According to the state Department of Education, Aliamanu Elementary School and Kalihi-Waena Elementary School were the only Hawaii public schools to receive overall unacceptable ratings for their facilities during inspections of 255 schools last school year. The inspections, conducted by volunteers, examined school grounds, buildings, and equipment for safety and sanitation. The ratings have long been considered subjective by the Department of Education, but do provide an annual look at school conditions.

ILLINOIS: The homebuilders whose new subdivisions are sending more students to local schools every year will be asked to pay more for the classrooms that house them, Mokena officials said. The crush created by a rapidly growing school population and limited school resources has been a continuing problem in the southwest suburbs of Chicago.

COLORADO: The Mapleton School District will convert its five elementaries, two middle schools, and single high school into mini-schools, each offering a different philosophy and curriculum choice for students and parents.

NATIONAL: The Chicago and Detroit school systems have received failing grades in a report from a New York City-based nonprofit group on their preparedness to respond to possible acts of terrorism in or near their schools. But officials from those districts challenged the methodology used in the report, released this month by the America Prepared Campaign, saying that the evaluations of their school emergency plans weren't comprehensive.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: District public schools have serious security weaknesses, including unguarded doors, broken surveillance equipment, and too few guards, according to a D.C. inspector general's report. The report, which was based on visits to 15 elementary, middle, and high schools, also concluded that school officials have failed to create a comprehensive security plan or conduct risk assessments to address the needs of each school.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: District public schools have serious security weaknesses, including unguarded doors, broken surveillance equipment, and too few guards, according to a D.C. inspector general's report. The report, which was based on visits to 15 elementary, middle, and high schools, also concluded that school officials have failed to create a comprehensive security plan or conduct risk assessments to address the needs of each school.

WASHINGTON: Preliminary data at one Seattle school strongly suggest that the methods used to prepare water for sampling in May resulted in misleadingly high lead levels at some Seattle public schools, according to the school district's water consultant.

NEW YORK : Educators feel that middle school is an idea whose time has passed. One reason cited by many administrators is the idea that middle-school-age children don't always do well with change; by keeping them in the same building they don't have to cope with a new environment and all of the new faces in the faculty and staff. A K-8 school, on the other hand, provides the same neighborhood, building, and staff for parents and students alike.

MINNESOTA: Over the past five years, more than a dozen former church schools in the Twin Cities area have been resurrected as public charter schools. State law and state financial aid encourage charter schools to lease existing space, rather than build new facilities.

Some within the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and in parishes see such transformations as win-win situations for cash-strapped parishes and space-needy charter schools. And for neighborhoods long used to having a school, others praise the preservation of a place for children to learn.

CALIFORNIA: After years of debate over the fate of the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles schools Superintendent Roy Romer has selected a plan to save some historically significant elements of the hotel but demolish most of it in favor of a new k-12 school on the 23-acre site.

TEXAS: Austin voters approved the largest bond package school officials have ever put before them, a $519.5 million referendum that includes money for eight new schools, campus renovations, and safety and security equipment.

MARYLAND, VIRGINIA: A new study ranks Fairfax and Montgomery counties as best prepared among the nation's largest school districts to keep children safe during a parent's nightmare: terrorism at school. On the heels of the latest reminder of the vulnerability of schools -- the hostage crisis that left more than 300 people dead at an elementary school in Beslam, Russia -- the study was conducted by the America Prepared Campaign, a nonprofit group that works with the Department of Homeland Security and advocates readiness for terrorist attacks.

MARYLAND, VIRGINIA, D.C.: Area school officials say the siege and massacre at a school in Beslan, Russia, last week is unlikely to happen here because of security measures that have been implemented in the wake of the September 11 attack in 2001, the sniper shootings in 2002, and subsequent threats of terrorism.

CALIFORNIA: Los Angeles Unified School District administrators, teachers, and students have celebrated the opening of eight new schools. Seventeen schools are scheduled to open this academic year as part of a $14-billion building plan that calls for 160 new schools over the next eight years.

NATIONAL: In the days after a terrorist siege at a Russian school, President Bush asked his top advisers to determine how US authorities would handle a similar attack on an American school to ensure adequate coordination in the "unlikely but possible" chance of such an event here, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Two centuries ago, almost all American children were home-schooled in some fashion. A century later, far fewer learned at home, and the modern school building became a symbol of the 20th century. Today home schooling is making a comeback, with one federal survey indicating that as many as two million children are learning at home.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Two centuries ago, almost all American children were home-schooled in some fashion. A century later, far fewer learned at home, and the modern school building became a symbol of the 20th century. Today home schooling is making a comeback, with one federal survey indicating that as many as two million children are learning at home.

MISSOURI: Smith-Cotton High School students soon will fall under the gaze of 10 security cameras mounted in hallways on the second and third floors that can view student activities in two directions. The cameras will connect to a monitor in the office of the school's security officer and will be stored digitally. The cameras cost $4,500 and were funded by federal money for safe and drug free schools.

NATIONAL: The U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS)announced grants totaling $35.2 million to add 285 additional School Resource Officers (SRO) to the nation’s schools. These grants are being awarded to 73 law enforcement agencies in 30 states. Including today’s grants, the COPS In Schools program has provided more than $747.5 million to fund and train over 6,567 SROs.

OHIO: Surging steel prices have caused budget problems for school district construction projects across Ohio, according to a spokesman for the Ohio School Facilities Commission, the state agency coordinating and co-funding new schools. Price increases have occurred just as some of the state's largest urban districts are getting started on multibillion-dollar building projects.

NEW YORK: New York state officials are advising districts to inspect the roofs of school buildings, following the recent collapse of an elementary school roof that is being blamed on faulty steel roofing joists. The massive structural failure was blamed on a particular type of steel joist and the fact that it had deteriorated because of a leaky roof.

National experts say the collapse is an extreme example of the need for routine structural inspections and maintenance for school buildings.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Sallie Mae, the student loan corporation, announced that it is awarding $28 million to help charter schools in the District of Columbia acquire or lease facilities and expand their enrollment. This is one of the largest financial commitments to date to help the space-strapped charter schools, many of which are housed in overcrowded and makeshift facilities.

The Sallie Mae Fund, the Reston-based company's charitable arm, is providing the $28 million to Building Hope, a nonprofit organization created by Sallie Mae in November to provide D.C. charter schools with loan guarantees, low-interest loans, grants for technical assistance, and help in such areas as site selection and lease and purchase negotiations.

ILLINOIS: Administrators of a condemned Ingleside elementary school sued the architect and contractor for more than $5 million, the estimated cost of repairs. Gavin Central was closed in March after workers found that 55 of the 201 roof supports in the building's single-truss system were cracked. Engineers also discovered the design called for a double-truss system.

MASSACHUSETTS: The Boston suburb of Newton is wrestling with the question of how to choose an architect for its new $100 million high school -- whether to open the project to a design competition or stick with the city's existing system, under which the mayor chooses from a short list of firms culled by a designer selection committee.

NATIONAL: In light of the school hostage crisis in Beslan, Russia, school administrators are considering what changes might be made to prevent a similar disaster in the United States. Hear NPR's Michele Norris and Edward A. Clarke, director of school safety and security in Montgomery County, Maryland.

NATIONAL: Events in Beslan, Russia have illustrated that no ground is sacred as far as terrorism is concerned and we must very seriously consider the safety of schools in the United States. In our concern for greater border, transportation, or municipal security we may be forgetting our most vulnerable and precious resource, our young.

FLORIDA: It's hard to hold class when you have a thousand storm refugees crowding your school. That was the dilemma for Florida school officials in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco and Polk counties, who chose to close schools to students in part so the buildings could stay open as shelters.

FLORIDA: It's hard to hold class when you have a thousand storm refugees crowding your school. That was the dilemma for Florida school officials in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco and Polk counties, who chose to close schools to students in part so the buildings could stay open as shelters.

CALIFORNIA: Los Angeles Unified School District has teamed up with California Safe Schools, a parent group dedicated to eliminating environmental health threats on school campuses, to develop a "safety-first milk cartons" campaign that will feature safety messages on the milk cartons distributed at schools. "Every lunch-hour of every school day, our kids see all these milk cartons on cafeteria tables. Why not use the cartons to reinforce simple safety messages that might make a difference in some young lives?"

ILLINOIS: Chicago Public Schools fail in preparing schools, teachers, and children for a terrorist attack, according to a report from a nonprofit group that rated the nation's 20 largest public school systems.

Chicago and Detroit had the only two school systems in the "failing" category in the report issued by New York-based America Prepared Campaign, which advocates that each district have a comprehensive plan to respond to a terrorist attack or major natural disaster. The group also pushes for schools to conduct monthly drills of the plan and communicate details to parents.

BESLAN, RUSSIA: Interviews with the survivors give a coherent account of the 52 hours of killings and captivity at the hands of masked gunmen. At least 1,200 people had been crammed into the school gymnasium, with no food and little water, and with a frightening network of bombs laced overhead.

PENNSYLVANIA: According to a new national study, the 20 largest school districts in the United States - including Philadelphia - often are not doing enough to protect children in the event of an attack. Suburban schools in this region also are in varying stages of readiness.

Authors of the report, titled "Preparedness in America's Schools," say Philadelphia's public schools need more emergency drills to prepare for possible attacks on the region's chemical and pharmaceutical plants, and better information for parents on the district's emergency plans.

BESLAN, RUSSIA: The siege of a school in southern Russia ended in panic, violence and death 52 hours after it began. At least 250 people - most of them students, teachers and parents - died, according to official reports and witnesses, after two large explosions set off pitched battles between heavily armed captors and Russian forces that continued for hours.

TEXAS: Poor school building conditions, such as inefficient air conditioning and noise, can be harmful to student achievement in the classroom, said Glen Earthman, a Virginia Tech professor who prepared an expert report for the plaintiff school districts in a trial challenging the way Texas funds public education.

MARYLAND: Increasing state debt could be one way to pay for school construction projects across Maryland. State Treasurer Nancy K. Kopp proposed raising the state's debt annually by $150 million until 2013 to fully fund the state's share of school facility needs. A state task force that assessed the adequacy of public school facilities and the equity of the state's school construction program identified the needs.

The state would need approximately $15 million annually to service the additional debt generated by Kopp's proposal. But the growth in revenue gained through property assessments over the next eight years should cover the additional cost.

ILLINOIS: Lots of windows, two distinct classroom wings, naturally lit concourses, and landscaped courtyards create an intimate feel in the big, new Bolingbrook High School. The school is a 562,000-square-foot, three-story brick, concrete, and masonry structure built on a 72-acre tiered site, and one of the largest high schools to open in the United States this year.

The new school also features a video system that, among other things, links classrooms with the principal's office and a solar-sensor system that automatically adjusts lighting in the building based on outdoor light levels. The building is equipped with a security monitoring system that allows administrators to keep tabs on what happens throughout the school. Among its amenities are lounges where students can study or relax between classes; a spacious cafeteria with restaurant-type booths, as well as conventional tables and chairs; an athletic center with six courts and an indoor track; and a 910-seat auditorium comparable to professional theaters found in Chicago. The building is also touted as the most environmentally friendly school in the state.

PENNSYLVANIA: An eco-friendly elementary school near Pittsburgh serves as a landmark example of how efficient design can save costs. Among features that keep the building efficient are recyclable modular carpeting, recycled steel siding, and recycled cement block construction.

ILLINOIS: Bent and broken steel trusses installed above the gym and lunchroom at a condemned Ingleside elementary school has forced district officials to consider demolishing the building and starting from scratch. Engineers have discovered that the single-truss roof support system was not built to the building's design, which called for a double-truss system. And 10 of those trusses were installed backward, they said.

School officials said the district would sue the architecture firm and construction company, if the companies do not offer to repair the damages and compensate the district for the lease of temporary classroom space. Repairs could cost up to $3.5 million.

ILLINOIS: Bent and broken steel trusses installed above the gym and lunchroom at a condemned Ingleside elementary school has forced district officials to consider demolishing the building and starting from scratch. Engineers have discovered that the single-truss roof support system was not built to the building's design, which called for a double-truss system. And 10 of those trusses were installed backward, they said.

School officials said the district would sue the architecture firm and construction company, if the companies do not offer to repair the damages and compensate the district for the lease of temporary classroom space. Repairs could cost up to $3.5 million.

When it comes to home prices, school matters. Buyers will pay a premium to live near top schools. In real estate, a healthy school often begets a healthy housing market.

That houses near good schools sell for a premium is widely accepted. What is unclear, however, is whether top-notch schools boost housing values or whether rising home values (and property tax revenue) boost school performance.

NEW YORK: The collapse of the school roof at Taft Elementary School in Washingtonville, New York, constructed with a steel support beam common to older school buildings, has raised concerns among experts about potential problems nationwide. School design and other experts now say officials at schools around the country -- over half of which were built before 1970 -- should be on the lookout for potential problems with that type of joist.

MARYLAND: Montgomery County, Maryland has yet to replace any of the thousands of school plumbing fixtures found to have high levels of lead and might not begin remediation of the problem until the end of the school year, officials said last week. The county has spent the past five months testing lead levels in every public school water source, including drinking fountains, janitors' sinks and hose bibs. Initial results show that at least some sources in every school have impermissibly high levels and that fixtures, not pipes or the water itself, are the cause of the contamination.

CALIFORNIA: Instead of building schools from the ground up as is traditionally done, the San Diego Unified School District is saving time and money by using modular factory-built components. The district has built new classroom additions or libraries on five campuses using modulars, and has seven new campuses planned that will integrate modulars with site construction. Using modulars is expected to save the district up to $15.8 million.

one of the great advantages of modular construction is that it significantly cuts down on construction time, noise, and pollution on campus. The property is graded and prepared for utility hook-ups while the modulars are made in a factory. When the modulars arrive, they are stuccoed, cabinets are installed, and other finishing touches are added. A project that would typically take a year to finish is completed in six months.

"The only thing negative is that the schools are not architecturally significant, but that's not what a school is about. It's about teaching and learning," said one school principle. However, Professor T.C. Chan of Kennesaw State University in Georgia, who is a leading scholar on the link between school aesthetics and student achievement, said architectural beauty should not be sacrificed to save money. If modulars impose unacceptable aesthetical limitations, he said their use should be debated with voters when school bonds are on the ballot.

MARYLAND: Montgomery County has yet to replace any of the thousands of school plumbing fixtures found to have high levels of lead and might not begin remediation of the problem until the end of the school year. The county has spent the past five months testing lead levels in every public school water source, including drinking fountains, janitors' sinks, and hose bibs. Initial results show that at least some sources in every school have impermissibly high levels and that fixtures, not pipes or the water itself, are the cause of the contamination

MICHIGAN: Jackson area schools are beefing up their school safety programs, fueled by state and federal programs such as the Homeland Security Grant Program. Some schools have added security cameras, keyless entry systems, ID tags for students, and a closed-campus lunch in an attempt to bolster school safety and improve discipline. All schools will get emergency buckets equipped with first-aid supplies, class lists, and other emergency supplies. Schools have also added school lockdown and school shooting drills to the traditional mix of fire and tornado procedures.

CALIFORNIA: The new $50 million Science Center School, a joint venture between the Los Angeles Unified School District and the California Science Center, will let students focus on science, math, technology. Once a National Guard armory, the building has been reinvented as the school's "Big Lab" and is part of an architecturally unusual campus.

The project's architect, Thom Mayne, said that the school's buildings were "meant to ask questions, to be didactic, to demand inquiry." In the Big Lab, a stainless steel walkway rings the second-story atrium, connecting to classrooms, a library, meeting rooms, and a bamboo forest that will eventually reach the roof. Subterranean classrooms are separated by glass walls from laboratories and research centers. High towers at one side of the building will allow students to explore the properties of gravity. A wading pool in the Big Lab will be used for water experiments, and an elevated garden awaits its first student project.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Its $75 million modernization completed, McKinley Technology High School in the District of Columbia has officially opened. The project is a major achievement for the city, fulfilling a campaign promise of Mayor Anthony A. Williams and, more significantly, lending hope to a school system in which academic performance among high schoolers has been one of the system's most critical problems.

It is also probably the loveliest school in the city, with warm terrazzo floors, a soaring light-filled atrium, and five circular "common areas" where students will mingle and check their e-mail accounts on their laptop computers. The school has separate band and chorus rooms, an art studio, and a greenhouse, and is now the most technologically sophisticated in the city.

NATIONAL: U.S. Department of Education Secretary Paige has announced a new emergency response and crisis management brochure with practical information designed to assist schools and communities prepare for a crisis.

ILLINOIS: The Chicago Board of Education is poised to pass a $369 million capital budget --the smallest since Mayor Richard Daley took over the schools in 1995. The budget includes $110 million in state funds that the legislature hasn't yet approved, and is notable for what it lacks: no funding for new school construction projects.

ILLINOIS: The Chicago Board of Education is poised to pass a $369 million capital budget --the smallest since Mayor Richard Daley took over the schools in 1995. The budget includes $110 million in state funds that the legislature hasn't yet approved, and is notable for what it lacks: no funding for new school construction projects.

COLORADO: Mold has taken over Elizabeth Middle School and forced its 640-some students to stay home. The fungus took hold this month after rain and hail storms pounded the Elbert County town while the roof was being repaired. School district officials decided to close the school as a precautionary measure after some teachers who were preparing for classes complained about headaches after being in the building.

MASSACHUSETTS: According to an auditor's report, because of its lax oversight, Massachusetts overpaid cities and towns by as much as $20.5 million for school construction and renovation projects that came in under budget.

The state covers an average of 70 percent of school construction costs, basing payment on the estimated bill for replacing or refurbishing a building. The Department of Education is supposed to follow up later to make sure the final cost matches the estimate, but the auditor's report says the department failed to examine the projects in a timely manner, contributing to the fiscal woes of the School Building Assistance Program. In many cases, state officials also failed to do on-site inspections.

MASSACHUSETTS: Massachusetts revamped school construction assistance program runs the risk of wasting millions of dollars per year unless oversight is toughened, state Auditor Joseph DeNucci said. His audit of school construction projects over the past four years found that the Department of Education missed opportunities to save up to $20 million by challenging estimates of final costs. And with the state owing close to $13 billion to cities and towns for hundreds of projects, every little bit helps.

While the Legislature this year overhauled the system -- creating a School Building Authority charged with clearing a list of 420 projects within four years -- the new program could still waste taxpayer funds unless officials closely scrutinize projects.

WASHINGTON: Water from Seattle school fountains may not be as contaminated with lead as initially thought. Experts are trying to find a plausible reason for the wide variation in levels of lead, which leaches into water from corroding pipes and fixtures. The complexity of interpreting the test data and explaining it to nervous parents also has proved challenging for district officials. And although half of the 24 fountains at AE2 that failed district tests in May passed retests in July, the district still plans to replace them.

TEXAS: Wilmer-Hutchins School District officials were told two years ago that nearly all their schools suffered from such poor maintenance that they should be abandoned and razed. The August 2002 report, prepared by the Texas Association of School Administrators, said only 6 percent of classrooms in the district met minimum standards, and some had significant safety problems.

District officials said they know Wilmer-Hutchins' schools are not in good shape, and they hope to address some of the problems with a $68 million bond issue that goes before voters in September.

The National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (NIAAA) is promoting an ambitious sports field improvement campaign among its 5,800 members, most of whom are high school athletic directors. Through its Sports Turf Committee, it's drawing upon the support of a growing number of sports turf equipment/material suppliers and the expertise of some of the industry's most knowledgeable professionals in an effort that will shortly begin producing and distributing educational material, including "how-to" videos to its membership.

OHIO: The small schools reform movement has come to five Northeast Ohio school districts, although none has had the luxury of building facilities. Instead, they've relied on reconfiguring existing buildings into several smaller schools. More than two years have passed since the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched its small schools effort by giving millions of dollars in grants to schools. In Ohio, the grants are administered by the KnowledgeWorks Foundation, the state's largest public education philanthropy

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: New D.C. Superintendent Clifford B. Janey toured three schools that have been criticized for deteriorating conditions and maintenance problems. He described the problems as 'totally unacceptable' and vowed to open the buildings on time.

ARKANSAS: Parents expect that schools will take care of their child as well as, or better than, they do. Schools, realizing this, have responded by planning for several contingencies, including school violence, chemical spills, fires, tornados, and terrorist attacks.

CALIFORNIA: A forensic investigation into the structural integrity of Julian High School's buildings has found that improper supports and flimsy connections between beams and walls will give way in an earthquake. The district made the discoveries in May when considering further renovation of the school. The work in question was completed in a 1999 modernization project, which was funded by a $2.5 million bond voters approved in 1997. When the district discovered the problems, it moved students and teachers into modular classrooms, where they will remain over the next two years while the school is being prepared.

CALIFORNIA: A forensic investigation into the structural integrity of Julian High School's buildings has found that improper supports and flimsy connections between beams and walls will give way in an earthquake. The district made the discoveries in May when considering further renovation of the school. The work in question was completed in a 1999 modernization project, which was funded by a $2.5 million bond voters approved in 1997. When the district discovered the problems, it moved students and teachers into modular classrooms, where they will remain over the next two years while the school is being prepared.

TEXAS: Houston's Bammel Middle School is one of a small but growing number of public schools that are equipped with the kind of wireless infrastructure typically seen in offices, airport lounges, and coffee shops. These wireless networks are providing Web access in the cafeteria, in other common rooms, and under trees in the quad, as well as in all classrooms, through laptop computers and other mobile devices.

The wireless system at Bammel is part of an ambitious multiyear effort throughout the Houston school district. As part of the project, 2,000 teachers and other staff members are receiving their own wireless laptops.

HAWAII: Students who have complained about foul restrooms at Hawaii's public schools may soon get some relief. The state Department of Education plans a pilot project at four schools to find out how best to restore restrooms and hopefully keep them clean.

Students have reported broken fixtures, missing doors on stalls, and no soap and toilet paper. The state Legislature approved an additional $1 million this year for restroom supplies, and better restrooms are part of the DOE's broader repair and maintenance and classroom renovation plans.

CALIFORNIA: Construction on Julian High School was so shoddy, district officials contend, it forced them to place students in the safety of portable classrooms. The contractor, however, says the work on the high school was under constant inspection, as is all construction on schools, and the company followed changes in the plans made by the engineer.

PENNSYLVANIA: State officials praised the Philadelphia district for having safer schools last year, removing 13 schools from the list of those deemed persistently dangerous. While there have definitely been positive changes in some schools, the district is still monitoring 50 schools for violence and disruption. All 27 schools on the state's list last year, along with 23 others, are getting special attention that includes more programs for parental involvement, a safety plan, and increased security.

Under the federal No Child Left Behind law, states must compile a list of persistently dangerous schools each year but can set their own standards for which violent incidents to include. Parents must be informed if their child's school is persistently dangerous and given the right to transfer the student.

ARIZONA: Building a high school has been a goal of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community since the 1970s. Opening Monday, the $22 million high school, complete with a cafeteria and an auditorium, is funded largely by the tribe's gaming revenues. Community leaders said they hope Salt River High School, which will serve students in the seventh through twelfth grades, will attract the many reservation teenagers who attend Mesa Public Schools and provide them with a secondary education that emphasizes Native American studies.

In 2000, the tribe started designing the school with their Native American culture in mind. Shaped in a half-moon, the building is a clay-red with sand-yellow stripes to signify the desert and Red Mountain near the reservation. Windows throughout are etched with basket designs. The culture extends to the school's curriculum, which includes Native studies, including history and crafts such as beading. The native language, O'Odham, is mandatory.

FLORIDA: To prepare for the start of school, the Broward School District made an unusual purchase: dozens of five-foot partitions, the type usually found in office buildings. The dividers are earmarked for about a dozen schools where this year, some single classrooms will host two classes and two teachers. Hundreds of returning students will find themselves and their classmates squeezed into half a classroom, with only a flimsy barrier separating them from a different class.

Some schools have simply run out of space and options for meeting the second-year goals in Florida's multiyear program to limit class size. In 2003-04, the first year of mandatory reductions, the job was relatively easy: Art and music rooms were seized for additional space. Portables were plopped down on playgrounds. But that low-hanging fruit has been plucked.

CALIFORNIA: Ten years in the making, Delta View Elementary is still not ready for prime time. The two-story building, with soaring ceilings and airy atria, will be spectacular, and its new playground will be ready the first day of school. But plywood covers its windows, hiding expansive views of river, marshes and flyways of wild fowl, and bulldozers and construction crews are working feverishly to finish the school.

Construction delays are just the latest obstacle on a path that has been fraught with litigation, negotiation and complications for the property donated by a developer on a wind-buffeted hillside. The plan to build Delta View stemmed from a 1994 lawsuit concerning developer fees, which all builders pay to soften the impact of new homes' residents on a community's streets, emergency services, schools and quality of life.

Developers may tout their largesse in donating land or money for schools and neighborhood greenswards, but the reality is hardly a walk in the park. How developer deals play out can vary dramatically from district to district. San Ramon Valley is getting seven state-of-the-art, developer-built schools in the Dougherty Valley development. At the other extreme, Hercules is still waiting to build a single, desperately needed school, years after the first lot that developers donated was nixed by state officials as too close to petroleum storage tanks for safety.

WEST VIRGINIA: Basketballs and biscuits won't be required to mix again under a new policy the West Virginia School Building Authority has adopted for elementary school construction. Under the former policy, gyms and cafeterias shared the same space. The policy change also calls for separate art and music rooms to be built in new elementary schools with student enrollment of 400 or more. Smaller schools will still be required to share space.

The change comes at a cost. New elementary schools for Berkeley, Morgan, Monongalia, and Wayne counties will cost the SBA an additional $2.5 million in construction costs, said SBA Director Clacy Williams. The extra money will add 600 square feet to each 1,800-square-foot multipurpose room to create separate areas for eating and exercise.

Four campuses rated top billing at the 2004 SCUP/AIA-CAE Awards, a joint effort of the Society for College and University Planning and the AIA Committee on Architecture for Education. The juried competition recognizes collaborative state-of-the-art planning and emphasizes excellence in higher education environments and settings. This year’s trends included shifting campus focus through improvements to pedestrian spaces, closing roads and parking, and establishing new campus centers or gathering places, usually outdoor spaces related to new or renovated buildings. Several of the submittals were new buildings that required exploration of the campus before proceeding, and some of the final projects shifted after the planning effort.

ARIZONA: Auditors say contractors have charged Arizona about $15.5 million more than they should have to repair dozens of public schools over the past three years, and the state is fighting to get its money back. The amount of potential overcharges has nearly doubled in three months as the auditing firm of Jefferson Wells International expands its review of the Arizona School Facilities Board's Deficiency Corrections Program. Officials expect 41 audits to be conducted; 25 have been started.

ARIZONA: Auditors say contractors have charged Arizona about $15.5 million more than they should have to repair dozens of public schools over the past three years, and the state is fighting to get its money back. The amount of potential overcharges has nearly doubled in three months as the auditing firm of Jefferson Wells International expands its review of the Arizona School Facilities Board's Deficiency Corrections Program. Officials expect 41 audits to be conducted; 25 have been started.

CALIFORNIA: Although no one keeps track of all school vandalism cases countywide, school officials and law-enforcement authorities say schools are consistent targets and campuses are particularly vulnerable during holiday and summer breaks.

As recently as five years ago, school districts in California "spent more cleaning up vandalism than on textbooks," said Wayne Sakamoto, Safe Schools coordinator for the San Diego County Office of Education. More current statistics were not available. The San Diego Unified School District – the county's largest – lost $1.26 million as a result of property crime in 2002-03. That property crime includes 1,112 vandalism and 583 graffiti cases that caused at least $100 in damage, the district said. Losses from burglary, arson, and theft are included in that total.

FLORIDA: The Broward School Board tacked another $19.3 million worth of projects to the long-term construction and renovation plan for the next five years, as well as big-ticket items such as paying off bonds and buying computers. Several 24-classroom additions on the drawing boards were expanded to 36-classroom structures; three 24-classroom additions were added that were not in a plan approved last month.

Board members are designing their $2.426 billion blueprint for the next five years to cope with increasing demands of the class-size reduction amendment, a continuing influx of students, and the decades-old crowding backlog the county has yet to erase.

GEORGIA: Fulton County Schools turned over management of its multimillion-dollar school construction program to a private company. The board voted 5-2 to hire California-based Parsons engineering and construction company to oversee all remaining school building projects funded under the 1 percent sales tax program. That amounts to about $414 million worth of remaining school projects, including those already begun but not finished.

MASSACHUSETTS: In an effort to accommodate rising high school enrollments, Pelham and Windham are gearing up for another vote next month to build a high school together. Proponents are touting savings of $6.1 million in construction costs for Pelham if the town joins with Windham to build a high school instead of doing it alone. The Pelham School Board also has taken off the table for now the idea of renovating and expanding the current high school because they say it would require demolition of nearby homes and could limit future expansion of the neighboring elementary and middle schools. In addition to construction savings, proponents say the economy of scale offered by a cooperative high school would reduce per pupil costs for Pelham by $972 to $9,496.

CALIFORNIA: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration and the American Civil Liberties Union have tentatively settled a major education lawsuit that accused the state of denying poor children adequate textbooks, trained teachers, and safe classrooms. The proposed agreement would require the state to devote as much as $1 billion over a period of several years for 2,400 low-performing schools to repair deteriorating facilities and $50 million to assess such needs. It also would provide nearly $139 million this year for textbooks.

ARIZONA: Because of Arizona's insatiable growth, school districts are scrambling to accommodate a record number of students for the 2004-05 school year. Planning for the relentless stream of students is always a challenge, especially at a time when education reformists advocate downsizing schools to bolster student achievement.

While opinions differ on ideal school size, some researchers suggest that 300 to 400 students is best for elementary schools and 400 to 800 students is suitable for secondary schools. Arizona's schools are often four times as large, according to 2003-04 enrollment statistics.

School officials say large campuses address the public's push for reducing costs while increasing schools' academic offerings. Critics counter that big isn't always better, and that research shows that smaller schools encourage better attendance, fewer discipline problems, and less violence.

ARKANSAS: Teams of architects assessing school buildings across Arkansas since June have passed the halfway mark, according to the Task Force to the Joint Committee on Educational Facilities. The assessment of every school building, or roughly 80 million square feet, is to be completed by the end of September. The information will form the basis for decisions by state lawmakers this fall and winter to address court-ordered school facility improvements.

MINNESOTA: Hugo city officials are considering contributing $1 million to super-size the gymnasium in an elementary school to be constructed within their boundaries. The school district, not the city, would own the gymnasium and have sole use of the facility during school hours. But after school and weekends, the space would be open to community groups.

It will be a win-win situation, says Hugo City Administrator Mike Ericson, explaining that city officials have long talked of helping fund the $18.9 million school-construction project in "some community kind of way" and "we need the gymnasium space."

CALIFORNIA: The Orthopaedic Hospital Medical Magnet High School, the Los Angeles Unified School District's first newly constructed high school in 14 years, was recently dedicated. When classes start in September at the $41-million campus south of downtown, students will receive early preparation for careers in healthcare and special mentoring from the hospital staff next door.

For the new magnet school, Orthopaedic Hospital donated a portion of the 4.27-acre property in the shadow of downtown high-rises, in a neighborhood of large warehouses and a few old houses. Other parts of the school site had been occupied by businesses, mostly in the garment trade. The school district acquired those properties and relocated the businesses, mostly within the neighborhood.

COLORADO: Dilapidated schools in Colorado's poorest communities are still falling apart, and in some cases making students sick, four years after the state legislature pledged $190 million to improve them.

Elected officials have allocated only $51 million of that funding for about 20 major projects in poor districts. Critics say the state's budget crisis has made it easy for lawmakers to renege on promises to help mostly rural school systems repair or replace crumbling buildings.

COLORADO: Dilapidated schools in Colorado's poorest communities are still falling apart, and in some cases making students sick, four years after the state legislature pledged $190 million to improve them.

Elected officials have allocated only $51 million of that funding for about 20 major projects in poor districts. Critics say the state's budget crisis has made it easy for lawmakers to renege on promises to help mostly rural school systems repair or replace crumbling buildings.

Faced with an estimated $3.85 billion needed to bring every Maryland school up to minimum health and safety standards, Maryland is joining a growing number of states by looking for private partners to help improve school facilities. A law that took effect July 1 allows Maryland's school systems to fund school construction and renovation projects using alternatives to traditional financing, which usually comes from the sale of bonds by public agencies to banks and investors.

More extensive private investment is taking place in Denver, where developers are building several schools from the ground up. Officials struck a deal this year for the schools to be built as part of a planned community, hoping to draw families to the area by improving the image of local schools.

A model public-private partnership school opened in 2001 in Washington, D.C., when a national real estate firm designed and rebuilt a school in exchange for half the land to build an apartment complex.

WYOMING: Communities in Wyoming could save their school buildings from the wrecking ball under a proposal offered by Governor Dave Freudenthal. People in Wyoming's cities and towns traditionally have used schools as community centers, but with the state now in charge of building schools, community use is not considered. The result is that gymnasiums, pools, and auditoriums judged too large or expensive to maintain for a particular school are in danger of being abandoned or torn down and replaced with smaller facilities. While the Wyoming Constitution doesn't require schools to function as community centers, Freudenthal said the need for those facilities and the lack of local taxing authority to build them can't be ignored. His proposal outlines a program to help communities develop facilities that would improve the communities' attractiveness and promote economic development.

WASHINGTON: A Seattle School District review shows that its school-renovation programs are running deficits that could mean some projects will be delayed, trimmed, or eliminated. The Building Excellence I (BEX I) program, which voters approved in 1995, is running an $11.2 million deficit because of $23.6 million in unforeseen expenses, officials say.

Earthquake damage at West Seattle High School and a fire at Coe Elementary, both in 2001, accounted for about $3.5 million of BEX I's unforeseen costs, but the rest was due to design errors or board decisions, district records show. For example, errors in the structural design of Stevens Elementary put that project about $4.4 million over budget. A decision in 1997 to use the former Lincoln High School building as an interim site while Ballard High School was being renovated cost about $8.5 million. Land acquisitions for Ballard High and the African American Academy added $2 million. About $1.5 million in tax revenue remains uncollected. And the district tapped $4.1 million in interest from the fund to balance its operating budget in 2001-02.

TEXAS: With statistics showing an increase in collegiate crime since 2000, Texas schools have more police patrolling campuses by foot, bicycle, and in vehicles, while using everything from surveillance cameras to night-vision equipment to protect students and staff.

Beginning this fall, Baylor students will have to show identification to get into residence halls, and trained, full-time "security monitors" will be required to patrol the insides and outsides of dorms and keep the front entrance doors locked at all times.

FLORIDA: In March 2003, an building inspector ruled that the new $2.3 million, two-story, 12-classroom addition at Margate Middle School lacked firewalls thick enough to resist flames for four hours. Although the contractor made fixes to the firewall, eleven additional pages of violations have emerged, including: uneven stairway treads; second-floor classrooms more than 200 feet from an approved fire exit; fire sprinklers that have not been hooked up to a water line after two failed attempts; and fire alarms that don't function properly.

FLORIDA: Seven new schools are set to open in Palm Beach County this month, adding more than 10,000 seats to accommodate the district's booming student population. At 399,462 square feet and with a 56-acre campus, Park Vista High School is the largest high school in Florida, big enough to house 24 air-conditioned vehicle bays for its automotive-technology career academy and a 5,400 square foot, $1 million kitchen for apprentice chefs. Academies within the school will offer specialized programs in architectural drafting and design, information technology and Internet marketing, and the culinary arts.

The new Don Estridge High Tech Middle School will showcase technological advances that could be the prototype for all future schools, including video cameras in the classrooms for distance learning and biometric hand readers for teachers to use to take attendance.

WASHINGTON: School officials say an environmental challenge to plans to build an elementary school in Tacoma's South End could delay the school's opening by a year. At issue is the Tacoma School District's proposal to fill in a small wetland where the district plans to build an elementary school. In exchange for removing that wetland, the district would improve wetlands on property it owns 1 1/2 miles away. The problem, according to the Puget Creek Restoration Society, is that the sites lie in separate watersheds. "Why should one watershed be enhanced and another one further degraded?" said the society president.

PENNSYLVANIA: In an effort to permanently rid two middle schools of mold, Washington Township voters are being asked to approve spending $10.5 million to replace the ventilation systems in those schools. The district would qualify for a grant to cover 52 percent - $5.5 million - of the cost. The rest would come from local taxpayers. The action came on the advice of engineering consultants, who said the original systems are nearing the end of their operational lives and are unable to sufficiently extract humidity from the air.

NORTH CAROLINA: Community members have been so successful curbing crime through Neighborhood Watch groups that the Greensboro Police Department wants to create a similar program to help Guilford County Schools. Detectives and school resource officers would offer training to help parents, school employees, and community members recognize issues and report them before they become problems in the schools.

In the absence of government regulation, school districts across the nation have adopted different standards for how much lead in their drinking water is tolerable. In the District of Columbia, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, public schools have taken drinking fountains or sinks out of service if lead is present at more than 20 parts per billion (ppb) — the level at which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends, but does not require, remedial action. School districts in San Francisco and Portland, however, have taken a more cautious stance by setting their "action levels" at 15 ppb,which EPA considers the lowest level at the tap that can reasonably be required of public water suppliers.

In the absence of government regulation, school districts across the nation have adopted different standards for how much lead in their drinking water is tolerable. In the District of Columbia, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, public schools have taken drinking fountains or sinks out of service if lead is present at more than 20 parts per billion (ppb) — the level at which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends, but does not require, remedial action. School districts in San Francisco and Portland, however, have taken a more cautious stance by setting their "action levels" at 15 ppb,which EPA considers the lowest level at the tap that can reasonably be required of public water suppliers.

RHODE ISLAND: Rhode Island school officials will seek exemptions from the state fire code in an effort to stave off expenses by letting the youngest students continue to use the library, cafeteria, bathrooms, and other rooms that are below or above ground level. Officials hope to persuade the state that temporary compliance fixes are not necessary because a permanent solution will go before voters in November when they will be asked to approve the issue of $30.8 million in bonds for a new elementary school and renovations to other schools.

TEXAS: Although many of the children in the area attend private schools, families around Kramer Elementary School in Dallas have embarked on an aggressive campaign to fund $150,000 in playground improvements with hopes of turning it into more of a gathering spot. The fund-raising effort shows how public schools can serve as important focal points in neighborhoods, even those where significant numbers of parents choose other educational options.

The new playground will have a rock-climbing wall, a rope and fitness course, and an activity center with slides and climbing areas. Other playground plans include an area designed as an outdoor classroom and informal meeting center, and an area, dubbed the "young poets thicket," that will be tree-lined and serve as a study area.

CALIFORNIA: A federal grand jury is investigating the Los Angeles Unified School District's much-debated $74.5-million purchase of a downtown high-rise that is now its administrative headquarters.

The 29-story structure had a history of disputes over alleged construction defects before the district purchased the building from Bank of America in 2001. With an additional $73 million spent on improvements and repairs for roofing problems and poor ventilation, the district has spent about $147 million on the new headquarters, a sum that the teachers union and other critics allege has been a waste.

TENNESSEE: Somewhere underneath Germanshire Elementary in Memphis, leaky pipes are causing the $14 million school to sink. Investigators found unusually high water levels four feet under the school, but after two months, they're still searching for its source. The most likely cause is open joints in sewer lines, investigators told Memphis city school board members, but lines carrying clean water to the building may also be the cause.

Engineers said open joints in sewer lines appear to be sucking soil in and away from the building, leaving pockets of air beneath the building's foundation. The voids have caused parts of the administrative and kindergarten wings to settle anywhere from 4 to 7 inches since the school opened in 2001, experts told parents and school board members in a long-awaited report.

TEXAS: Structural defects at Stratford High School are forcing more than 2,000 students, teachers and staff to relocate to the Westchester Academy for International Studies for the upcoming school year. Last month, a building remodeling crew discovered that the 30-year-old metal clips connecting Stratford's brick veneer to its backup block walls had rusted away. The $14.7 million construction and renovation project that was supposed to be finished by the start of school on August 12th will now cost as much as $22 million and include asbestos and lead paint removal. District officials now hope to be able to reopen Stratford by the 2005-06 school year.

CALIFORNIA: Property inspections, land swaps, deals with developers, and a City Hall contribution of redevelopment money all need to happen for the Sweetwater Union High School District to get a new headquarters - without costing taxpayers a cent.

The school board has approved a $28.7 million purchase agreement for a new 23-acre site, and with an additional $55 million, the industrial and commercial buildings on that site can be converted into school district headquarters. The district will swap land with the city of Chula Vista, trading its existing 6-acre property for a 6-acre plot on F Street. Then it will solicit developers to build homes on three plots of district land: the newly acquired F Street property, a parcel at Third Avenue and Alvarado Street (a site the district previously had planned to use for a headquarters), and a site on Moss Street. The developers would lease the three properties from Sweetwater for a nominal fee – $1 per year, for example – and build homes on them. That allows the developers to avoid the upfront costs of land acquisition and property taxes while the homes are being built. In exchange, the developers must agree to share with Sweetwater profits from the sale of homes.

Laurie Madigan, community development director, confirmed that the city is in "very preliminary" talks with the district. "There's a lot of work to be done to determine if the numbers really work," she said. If the deal materializes, the district could save $260,000 a year in leases on offices scattered on Chula Vista's west side, which it would put toward paying off any loans assumed in undertaking the $84 million project.

OHIO: The construction of Lakeside High School can resume immediately under a compromise construction plan tentatively approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The district agreed to move two softball diamonds and a soccer field to another location on the parcel, and it will reconfigure the placement of two baseball fields and a practice field to avoid damaging a potential bat habitat. Work at the school was halted more than a month ago after a routine bat survey located a pregnant Indiana bat off school property. The Indiana Bat is an endangered species at the federal and state levels. U.S. Rep. Steven C. LaTourette said that “if no construction is allowed this season, the school opening would have been delayed by a year or more, costing the district at least $1 million.” The current delays have cost between $3,000 and $4,000 a day.

PENNSYLVANIA: John Wanamaker Middle School was supposed to be converted to small high school according to the Philadelphia School District's plan, but a team of engineers and architects found structural problems too expensive to repair, so the school will house only eigth graders for the 2004-2005 school year and then close. The district's school reform plan calls for creating more K-8 schools, eliminating many middle schools, and downsizing high schools.

ILLINOIS: The Lincoln-Way Community High School District has bought a 90-acre farm property in Will County for $3.9 million, even though it already owns a 100-acre parcel in New Lenox, an 80-acre parcel in Manhattan Township, and a 75-acre Harlem Avenue site. A recent study found that 12,000 homes could be built in the next five to eight years in the district, officials said. District officials will ask a citizens committee to study options for using three of the properties for new high schools. The district bought the Harlem parcel in 1996 for $3 million and now developers are interested in the site because it is in a growing part of Tinley Park, Wyllie said. If the school board decides to sell the property, the bidding process could produce a price of about $6 million, he said.

ILLINOIS: The East Aurora School District Board should build smaller schools rather than add to existing buildings, says alderman Stephanie Kifowit, who contends that smaller schools would bolster student achievement: "According to the U.S. Department of Education, school populations of 800 or more may be detrimental to the learning process. A higher percentage of students, across all socioeconomic levels, are successful when they are part of smaller, more intimate learning communities."

The district plans to put a $43 million construction referendum question on the ballot in November, but Kifowit asked the board to pursue a "larger referendum" to build the schools. Larry Malaker, board president, said the board spent "countless hours" deciding on the referendum proposal. He said. "There would be no way we could hold to the 81 cents we promised the taxpayers" if money for additional schools is sought.

ILLINOIS: The East Aurora School District Board should build smaller schools rather than add to existing buildings, says alderman Stephanie Kifowit, who contends that smaller schools would bolster student achievement: "According to the U.S. Department of Education, school populations of 800 or more may be detrimental to the learning process. A higher percentage of students, across all socioeconomic levels, are successful when they are part of smaller, more intimate learning communities."

The district plans to put a $43 million construction referendum question on the ballot in November, but Kifowit asked the board to pursue a "larger referendum" to build the schools. Larry Malaker, board president, said the board spent "countless hours" deciding on the referendum proposal. He said. "There would be no way we could hold to the 81 cents we promised the taxpayers" if money for additional schools is sought.

FLORIDA: Palm Beach County School District headquarters now requires visitors to obtain coded plastic swipe cards to gain access to offices and meeting rooms. The visitors must leave keys or driver's licenses to ensure the cards are returned. The cards only open those hallway doors that lead to the specific offices or meeting rooms being visited. But regular monthly board meetings are an exception to the card system; then, spectators are allowed to pass freely through an employee entrance without surrendering personal identification or property. "The new policy adopted by the school district may indeed be an unreasonable restriction, especially in light of the fact that its ultimate purpose, i.e., to improve security, doesn't appear to be furthered by the policy at all," says Karen Camechis, director of the Florida First Amendment Foundation. "If someone is determined to make mischief or do harm in the building, I'm not sure how a requirement to leave some old set of keys at the front desk will deter them, especially if they are allowed to enter the building without going through any kind of metal detector."

CALIFORNIA: A major spike in construction costs is causing the Lake Elsinore Unified School District to look at new strategies for building schools over the next decade. "The cost is skyrocketing," said Darrin Watters, the district's assistant superintendent of business and support services. As an example, he said, one contractor's price quotes for certain metal products increased by 20 percent in March, 20 percent in April, and 25 percent in May. So far, the district has been able to hold down the prices it will pay on schools now under construction for two reasons: the construction company contracted by the district to build those schools agreed to provide fixed prices in its contract, and district officials have been working with the company to scale back on any nonessentials in the new buildings.

MARYLAND: Effective July 1st, a new law allows Maryland schools to use alternative financing methods to fund school construction and renovation projects. Maryland school systems traditionally financed construction with the sale of bonds by public agencies to banks and investors. Now they can use public-private partnerships, whereby a private group can build a school in exchange for joint use of the property or revenue to offset construction costs.

TEXAS: To save money on its energy bills, the Burnet school system is incorporating geothermal cooling and heating in the construction of its new high school. The system includes over a thousand wells on 12 acres adjacent to the campus. Dozens of Austin schools are already using this technology.

CONNECTICUT: Schools in Bristol, Manchester, and Easton hired a mold remediation company to treat their schools. After treatment, student and staff illness continued and in some cases increased. It has not been determined what chemicals were in the remediation process used in the schools. Fraud charges have been brought against the owner of the company for using fake credentials and undocumented products and for falsifying lab reports .

FLORIDA: The Southwest Florida Water Management District's Hillsborough River Basin Board recently approved $904,717 for ongoing renovation of Nature's Classroom. The funds will help finish construction of the environmental center, the administrative building and the interpretive center. Nature's Classroom environmental education center, founded in 1969, is located on 365 acres of the Southwest Florida Water Management District-owned Lower Hillsborough Flood Detention Area property on the Hillsborough River. It is a joint project of the School District of Hillsborough County, Southwest Florida Water Management District, and Hillsborough Education Foundation and it serves the students of Hillsborough County schools.

NEW JERSEY: A building boom in China, the war in Iraq, and the declining availability of state funds to build new schools in New Jersey have all combined to jack up the cost to build new schools or renovate existing schools.

New construction in China has drained the world’s supply of steel, causing prices to rise as much as 40 percent during the past year. Steel now costs approximately $500 per ton. Reconstruction in Iraq is using the lion’s share of plywood production, making the cost of plywood increase. The escalation in oil prices is another factor in the rising cost of school construction. A lot of oil-based products are used in schools. Plastics, roofing products, and adhesives all depend on oil.

ILLINOIS: Chicago has a new initiative to convert at least 10 percent of its schools into small schools, most of which would be run by private operators. The plan, Renaissance 2010, would close up to 20 high schools and 40 to 50 elementary schools, reopening them as 100 or more small schools within six years. One-third of the new schools will be charter schools, double the current number; one-third will be operated under contracts, a fivefold increase; and one-third will be operated by the district. Most of the new schools would be housed in existing buildings. The district will pay for repairs and equipment, and business, civic, and charitable groups will assemble $50 million for other costs, half of which have already been raised.

ILLINOIS: Nine classrooms in Harris Elementary in Madison were transformed into bright, model classrooms by a company that specializes in creating organized learning spaces. Madison teachers had to stay off the premises while a team of outsiders scrubbed, tossed, and sorted boxes and boxes of old teaching paraphernalia. The school used grant money to transform the classrooms and to create a more efficient curriculum as well.

GEORGIA: According to an 11-member committee of federal, state, and local police, court, and emergency management officials, DeKalb County middle and high schools need more police officers, and access to elementary schools should be more tightly controlled. The committee recommends at least one officer for every 750 students in middle and high schools; currently DeKalb schools with more than 2,000 students just have one officer, plus security guards. According to the group's report, the system only has 60 sworn school resource officers, including drug, criminal investigation, canine and night security operations.

GEORGIA: According to an 11-member committee of federal, state, and local police, court, and emergency management officials, DeKalb County middle and high schools need more police officers, and access to elementary schools should be more tightly controlled. The committee recommends at least one officer for every 750 students in middle and high schools; currently DeKalb schools with more than 2,000 students just have one officer, plus security guards. According to the group's report, the system only has 60 sworn school resource officers, including drug, criminal investigation, canine and night security operations.

TEXAS: Some school districts are scaling back or changing plans for school building projects due to steel prices that have nearly doubled in the past year. A combination of factors such as rising energy prices, a shortage of coke (a type of coal used in manufacturing steel), the high demand for steel from China, and the lower currency exchange rate for the U.S. dollar led to the increased price of steel.

WYOMING: School construction projects already underway should not be affected by a sharp increase in steel prices, according to the Wyoming School Facilities Commission Director Jim "Bubba" Shivler. The impact of higher steel costs likely wouldn't be seen until bids come in on a couple of the newer projects, Shivler said. Steel prices were very high on a recent bid for a kindergarten through 12th grade school in Kaycee, he said. But the bid came within budget because masonry prices were down, he said. "It balanced (out) in that case."

Steel prices shot up dramatically across the country partly because of a huge demand from China. The country is in an economic and building boom.

FLORIDA: The Homosassa School District's facilities chief has found a serious construction defect in its new elementary school: its masonry walls were built without the specified reinforcing steel and grout infill that is needed to give them strength. The district-required three-way check among the design team, the contractor, and the district's inspection team should have caught the flaw, but inspections were not performed frequently enough. Now much of the masonry work will have to be redone.

NORTH CAROLINA: Federal money from the U.S. Department of Education's Smaller Learning Communities grant program will be used to design smaller learning environments in large high schools in North Carolina. With the intent of helping students with the transistion from middle school to high school, the grant money will be used to create freshman academies for ninth grade and upper school academies for grades 10 to 12.

TEXAS: The Frisco Independent School District in Texas is planning an alliance that would link school security cameras to squad car computers, allowing police to monitor schools. During emergency situations police would get access to the system through an online identification name and password. City and district officials hope to have the system in place by the beginning of the school year on Aug. 16.

OREGON: The spiraling price of steel, spurred by China's growth spurt, has been a blow to construction projects all over Oregon. Some state agencies locked in contracts, protecting themselves from fluctuations in the steel market. But others — like school districts that build multimillion-dollar projects on budgets created years earlier — are in more dire straits. For example, at the Tigard-Tualatin School District, administrators are looking for $1 million to cover increasing costs of Tigard High School improvements.

Most school construction is tied to bonds that must win voter approval. And as district planners price bond measures that could take five or more years to spend, they use an inflation factor of about 3 percent annually. However, construction materials, on average, cost about 15 percent more than a year ago.

Schools use a lot of steel and other metal components, from beams and studs to pipes, nails, kitchen equipment, and electrical equipment and conduit. Other factors have also contributed to increased costs, including more expensive plywood, a tighter labor market, higher insurance costs, and rising fuel costs.

OREGON: About half of Clackamas County schools may be at risk of damage in an earthquake, according to a study released this month by the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries. But some school officials who've seen the study urged caution about its findings, noting that much of the information is out-of-date and otherwise flawed.

The study, paid for in part by a $50,000 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, looked at factors such as a building's age, composition and condition, and the nature of nearby soil.

Officials estimated that Clackamas County schools would have to spend $107 million to become earthquake safe, and estimated the price tag for the state at closer to $1 billion.

NEW JERSEY: Long-awaited school expansion projects in New Jersey have become more expensive amid an unprecedented construction boom in China that has taxed the supply of cement, steel, and other building materials worldwide. The shortages come as New Jersey is embarking on its own unprecedented construction boom: an $8.6 billion program shepherded by the state School Construction Corporation aimed at replacing antiquated schools in the state's largest cities.

The glut of work has also given contractors plenty to do and little incentive to bid low. That's affecting price tags for construction in the state's suburban school districts, some of which have seen project costs spike by half as contractors have little incentive to bid low.

OREGON: China's building boom is costing Northwest school districts millions in higher construction bills. Costs of building materials, particularly steel, have increased dramatically over the past six months as foreign projects spur worldwide demand.

Oregon and Washington include examples: Tigard-Tualatin School District administrators are looking for $1 million to cover increasing costs of Tigard High School improvements. Canby School District leaders decided to increase the amount of a November bond measure from $36 million to nearly $40 million because of the increasing costs. A seismic upgrade of Portland's Ainsworth Elementary School, which requires substantial concrete and steel rebar, will cost about $800,000 instead of the budgeted $600,000. Vancouver School District leaders, stung by bids 20 percent over budget, recently decided to wait nearly a year to replace an elementary school.

WASHINGTON: About 3.8 percent of Seattle Public Schools' drinking water fountains tested so far show sustained lead levels considered dangerous by the federal government, according to district-wide testing ordered by the School Board.

Though the district learned of lead contamination in its drinking fountains in 1990 and some fountains have since been replaced, the problem persists in some schools. This points to the pipes as the source, but the district hasn't replaced pipes unless they are completely corroded.

WASHINGTON: About 3.8 percent of Seattle Public Schools' drinking water fountains tested so far show sustained lead levels considered dangerous by the federal government, according to district-wide testing ordered by the School Board.

Though the district learned of lead contamination in its drinking fountains in 1990 and some fountains have since been replaced, the problem persists in some schools. This points to the pipes as the source, but the district hasn't replaced pipes unless they are completely corroded.

TEXAS: An unusually rainy summer has washed out much of prime school construction season for Texas school districts. The summer construction season lasts just nine weeks, and many districts are as much as a month behind on projects.

New schools, such as those planned to open in Dallas, Frisco, Wylie, and Allen, are largely safe from major delays because construction started long before the summer and many crews had already been working on the inside of the buildings when the rain hit. But projects that take place outside or that open schools up to the elements – roofing jobs, new parking lots, and major renovations – often can't start with gusto until students leave for summer break. With rain delays, crews are working long shifts to finish all the projects they can.

CALIFORNIA: A North Carolina energy company will pay $43.1 million to settle a lawsuit accusing a subsidiary of the firm of defrauding the San Francisco Unified School District by installing faulty heating, power, and lighting systems in schools across the city, school officials announced.

The settlement will result in a $30 million windfall for the district -- $25 million of which must be funneled back into shoring up school facilities, leaving $5 million for rehiring laid-off teachers and other workers and buying classroom supplies.

FLORIDA: Eighteen new schools and scores of classroom additions will relieve crowding and cope with the class size reduction amendment under a long-range plan approved by the Broward School Board. The $2.41 billion plan includes tentative construction and renovation projects for the next five years, as well as big ticket items such as buying land, computers, and buses.

About 60 percent of the money comes from property taxes, another 28 percent from loans that don't need public approval, called certificates of participation.

FLORIDA: When teachers take attendance at a new middle school in Florida next month, they will be using high-tech biometric hand readers to do the job. The little black boxes, which take less than a second to identify students based on the dimensions of their hands, will be placed in all 61 classrooms, the cafeteria, main office, and media center. The technology also will be on school buses so the school can monitor who gets on and off at each stop.

The school's principal said she sees the hand readers as a time-saver as much as a security measure. She sees the hand readers' potential use at other sites at the school, such as checking in at the nurse's office and dispensing medication. School volunteers could log in using hand scans instead of sign-in sheets, she said.

PENNSYLVANIA: The Council Rock School District lays the blame for an asbestos "leak" during renovations at a Newtown high school squarely on a subcontractor, according to a report recently made public. But a vice president of the firm that hired the subcontractor said the only thing the subcontractor's workers did wrong was to capitulate to orders given by the district's representative in an attempt to keep the project on schedule.

Council Rock North is undergoing a $31 million renovation. It was originally built in 1969 and at that time, asbestos was commonly used for its durability and insulating properties. News of the asbestos leak upset parents and other community members, but no teachers or students have been exposed, district officials said.

NEVADA: The Clark County School District is wrapping up a frantic effort to turn off every possible light, appliance, and air conditioner at its nine-month campuses by the time Nevada Power raises its rates in July. Last year's conservation efforts shaved $2 million off schools' summer power bill, and the goal is to do at least as well this time around.

Many schools are hooked up to computerized systems that allow for automatic shut-offs and can be monitored from the district's main office. However the systems aren't foolproof, necessitating on-site inspections.

The district's energy conservation program, launched in 2002, is a year-round initiative and includes water-saving measures as well. New school prototypes are built using energy-efficient designs, display lights for vending machines have been disconnected, and campuses that cut their power bills by at least 10 percent each year receive a rebate check from the district.

OHIO: State enrollment projections predict far fewer high school students by 2013 than Dayton expects, so it will likely build much smaller high schools than originally planned. In their school construction master plan, Dayton school officials had targeted six high schools for 900 to 1,000 students each. But the state's enrollment projections may shrink that number to 645.

As public school enrollment figures have fallen, charter school enrollments have jumped from fewer than 100 in 1998 to more than 5,500 with the opening of twenty new charter schools.