University of Maryland College Park Office of Executive Programs
Newswire Week 10 (12/01-12/08)
NATIONAL
The U.S. Department of Education Seeks Evaluators for School Construction Grants National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities - November 26, 2002, Tuesday http://www.edfacilities.org/ne/news_detail2.html
	The U.S. Department of Education, Impact Aid Program, is administering a new competitive school construction grant program for which it needs knowledgeable and willing readers to evaluate the proposals. Consider offering your time and expertise if you are experienced in school facilities management.
The Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) will launch a national Educational Facilities Financing Center The Local Initiatives Support Corporation - November 2002 http://www.liscnet.org/resources/enews/2002/nov/25/enews.html
	With funding from the Walton Family Foundation, LISC will launch a national Educational Facilities Financing Center that will help neighborhood groups create or expand hundreds of community-based school facilities across the country. The primary goal of the new center is to leverage the Walton funds by helping LISC programs establish local school facilities funds across the country. To a more limited degree, the center will provide grant and loan financing to individual school projects and will assist at the policy level with the creation of federal, state and county financing mechanisms for school facilities development. The center will be based in New York City, and program activity is expected to begin in 2003.
ACROSS THE NATION
Idaho
Video displays crumbling school - Superintendent from Orofino testifies in lawsuit The Idaho Statesman - November 15, 2002, Friday http://idahostatesman.com/story.asp?ID=25597
	A decade-long lawsuit over the way school facilities are funded in Idaho resulted in a 2001 court ruling that the system is unconstitutional. Local districts pay all construction costs, yet require a two-third majority vote to raise property taxes to fund school projects. It is estimated that 351 of the state's 875 schools have serious seismic and other safety problems. Troy Junior-Senior High School, for example, has been acknowledged as the state's worst school building. Still, local voters have twice rejected attempts to replace the facility.
Arizona
Arizona flat broke for school repairs The Arizona Republic - November 22, 2002, Friday http://www.arizonarepublic.com/news/articles/1122schoolrepair22.html
	After lawmakers cut funds from the Arizona State School Facilities Board to balance the state budget, the agency is looking for creative ways to remain operational. The Facilities Board is also looking to sue contractors for shoddy workmanship. Said Director Ed Boot, "It is always darkest just before it goes pitch black." The state officials in charge of building and repairing schools are wandering from district to district, from lawmaker to lawmaker with hat in hand begging for money. They're flat broke and need $970 million to stay afloat. But there's more. They want to use some of the money they don't have to sue contractors who have left behind several million dollars in lousy work over the past four years, including $1 million worth of bad roofs.
California
As land costs rise, school plans suffer San Diego Union Tribune - November 24, 2002, Sunday http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20021124-9999_1n24land.html
	State officials may soon sanction schools located in retrofitted office buildings and shopping malls in order to assist districts trying to keep promises made to voters who passed bond measures. Soaring land prices in San Diego are $4.5 million an acre, and program managers need to reduce site size and change construction materials in order to build the number of schools communities expect.
Florida
In Florida, limit class size now, pay later Los Angeles Times - November 27, 2002, Wednesday http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-schools27nov27.story
	Constitutional amendment seeks to address overcrowded public schools, but the price tag may reach $27.5 billion over 8 years. Florida is the first state to constitutionally limit K-12 class size. Voters last month passed this amendment, leaving its reelected governor to work out implementation details. Estimates put the price-tag for compliance by 2010 between $8 billion and $27.5 billion. If implemented, schools such as Charles W. Flanagan H.S. in Pembroke Pines will see its classes reduced from 60 students to 25.
California
Tiny elementary campus a magnet for parents’ support Los Angeles Times – December 1, 2002, Sunday http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-me-santarosa1dec01,0,6848137.story?coll=la%2Dnews%2Dlearning
	The 91-year-old school, the pride of the Santa Rosa Valley, survived talk of possible closure by becoming the district’s tech education center. Santa Rosa's K-5 school may have been closed down due to low enrollment (235 students) and budget cuts, but parents banded together and the school was re-created as 'Santa Rosa Technology Magnet School.' Strong parental involvement is said to have gone a long way toward saving the school.
New Jersey
School bond plan still kicking The Record (Bergen County, NJ) - December 4, 2002 Wednesday http://www.northjersey.com/
	CARLSTADT - School officials in the earliest stages of crafting yet another multimillion-dollar bond question for school construction will have to do some major hurdle jumping to win over some voters. "They're going for a fourth one. This is bogus," said Warren Jantzen, describing his feelings about the board's latest attempt to come up with a school-construction plan that the community would support. Since December 1999, voters have defeated three plans, each of which would have borrowed about $15 million to upgrade Washington School, rebuild Lindbergh School, and close Lincoln School. Although some officials said it could be a year before the board puts together a new plan for voters, residents gathered at Washington School on Monday to talk about their concerns and suggestions. Although some residents clearly don't want to see another referendum, most speakers Monday said they want to upgrade aging facilities in the K-8 district.
California
Bill Would Give City Council Data on School Construction The New York Times - December 7, 2002, Saturday http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/07/education/07SCHO.html
	The City Council would get frequent progress reports on all school construction projects under a bill passed by the Council's education committee yesterday. The legislation would require the Department of Education to submit quarterly reports to the Council, updating the status and anticipated cost of all its capital projects. It comes more than a year after education officials disclosed a shortfall of nearly $3 billion in the $7 billion, five-year school construction budget. Since the shortfall was disclosed in August 2001, Councilwoman Eva S. Moskowitz, who heads the education committee, has called for more rigorous oversight of capital planning and spending. Many school construction projects are delayed for months or years, and end up costing far more than the original estimate.
California
Joint-Use Projects Help District Acquire School Sites Schoolconstructionnews.com http://www.schoolconstructionnews.com/newsflash/printCurrent.html#joint
	LOS ANGELES - As the Los Angeles Unified School District moves forward with a $5 billion construction program, joint-use projects that benefit communities are increasingly part of the school system's plans. The strategy is intended to overcome the scarcity of available school building sites. Voters recently passed $3.35 billion in bonds that set aside $10 million toward joint-use planning, while the state's Proposition 47, also passed in November, provides $50 million. In 2004, if voters approve another state bond issue, an additional $50 million would be made available for joint-use planning. Working with non-profit developers to create facilities that integrate community needs, LAUSD currently has about 10 joint-use projects in the works-out of a total of 120 new school projects, 79 expansions, and hundreds of modernization projects in its five year plan.
Florida
Rural Districts Lag in Small School Trend Schoolconstructionnews.com http://www.schoolconstructionnews.com/newsflash/printCurrent.html#rural
	TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Florida's recent legislative mandate for smaller schools makes it hard for communities to understand why the small schools they've relied upon for decades are struggling to stay open. Under a new law effective this summer, elementary schools will be capped at 500 students, middle schools at 700, and high schools at 900. But more than half of the state's schools with less than 500 students have lost students in the past five years, according to statistics from the Florida Department of Education. Rural schools are deemed expensive to operate by superintendents, who prefer to bus students in remote locations to their larger, suburban schools. One in nine Florida students attended schools in small towns and rural areas in 1999, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Officials at the Rural School and Community Trust say districts are closing small rural schools to help pay for accommodating the influx of students into suburban schools.

Articles compiled by Sujin Bae

Graduate assistant for the School Construction Funding Project

Van Munching Hall University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-1821

poissone@wam.umd.edu