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May 23, 2013
With its single-story design and cinder-block walls, Plaza Towers Elementary School may have seemed sturdy when it was built a couple of generations ago. But a powerful tornado revealed the building's lack of modern safety standards, destroying the school and killing seven students. Unlike several other schools in the Oklahoma City area, Plaza Towers had no "safe room" in which students and teachers could seek protection from a twister.
May 23, 2013
What was expected to be a showdown vote on plans to build a new Kramer Elementary School using a unique funding vehicle, turned into a celebration Monday when the Talawanda Board of Education was told it should expect $11 million from the state this fall. A resolution to use Certificate of Participation (COPs) funding to pay for the construction, was tabled at the suggestion of district treasurer Mike Davis, who said he had learned that day about the early arrival of the state money.
May 23, 2013
Security is now more than ever a top priority for school districts across the nation, and Hatboro-Horsham officials have been working tirelessly to improve the district’s school safety measures. While security has always played a pivotal part of the district’s structure, in the months following the Sandy Hook massacre, Hatboro-Horsham has taken several large strides to keep students safe.
May 22, 2013
The South St. Paul district passed a $26.7 million building bond Tuesday, with 61 percent of voters in favor of the request. The funds will be used to pay for facilities improvements in four areas, including maintenance, relieving elementary school overcrowding, addressing security concerns and reducing rental costs. To address elementary school issues, the district will add on to its secondary building, making room for sixth graders there.
May 22, 2013
After what happened to schools in Moore, Okla., when an E-F5 tornado hit, we asked about safety and shelter for students in Kansas and Missouri. We learned FEMA has given $67 million to Kansas since 2001. So far, that money was approved to build 217 tornado safe rooms -- 24 of those in Johnson, Leavenworth and Wyandotte counties. State officials say approximately 190 of those rooms are for schools, but a list of their exact locations was not yet available.
May 21, 2013
Following the deaths of seven elementary school children in Monday's deadly tornado, some are questioning the safety of the building on which they depended for shelter. Plaza Towers Elementary was directly in the path of the two-mile wide twister, which brought winds of up to 200 miles per hour that ripped off the roof of the building and left little more than a pile of cinder blocks.
May 21, 2013
The University’s oldest residence hall is finally getting a makeover. Built in 1954, Founders Hall doesn’t look much different than it did when it opened, save for the installation of new roofs, windows and other minor facelifts completed during the past half-century. That changed this month when construction started on a $10 million renovation project to put Founders in line with other residential facilities on campus. Construction will be completed in August.
May 21, 2013
The Yuba River Charter School stresses love of the arts and the outdoors in a "whole child" learning program "to serve the whole world." Yet when administrators and parents for the unique Nevada County school went looking for pastoral locations for a new campus, they ran into a world of abandoned mines and toxic contamination from the region's gold mining era. "Some properties had old mines on them, actually shafts on the property," said school director Caleb Buckley.
May 20, 2013
A school that was filled with Halloween decorations and several inches of water for months after superstorm Sandy looks more like a construction zone lately. But in the wreckage left by Sandy, school officials saw an opportunity to complete a much-needed roof renovation project with a smaller impact on taxpayers. With the hallways already vacant, the borough school district could begin construction in the less-competitive spring, a change that is saving about $270,000.
May 20, 2013
As soon as students leave the halls of School District of University City schools for summer vacation, work will begin on several construction projects. The Board of Education Thursday approved the sale of bonds from the Proposition U measure, allowing the district to begin work on school improvement projects immediately.The board also approved an initial construction contract with Ameresco Construction for Phase 1 of the work.