Solar Power Is Money Saver for Montgomery County, Maryland Schools Using Unique Financing Approach
-- Cody Calamaio , Gazette

Maryland: September 1, 2010 -- Summer may be over, but students at Sidwell Friends Lower School in Bethesda will be still playing, and learning, using the power of the sun. The school teamed with Common Cents Solar to install 120 solar panels on the roof of the gymnasium funded entirely by $5,000 "solar bonds" bought by 25 shareholders, mainly parents and community members. The bond program creates a new approach to financing large-scale solar installations by taking the burden of cost away from the school, said Kirk Renaud, general manger of Common Cents Solar, a Bethesda nonprofit co-op that promotes solar initiatives through community collaboration and education. Solar installations help save money for private and public schools. The system will cover half of the gym's energy needs and save the school $4,000 annually in electricity costs, Renaud said. Sidwell Friends had an electric bill of about $450,000 last school year for all campuses. Solar panels save the Montgomery County Public School system about $30,000 annually because unused electricity generated by rooftop panels receives a credit from Pepco that is taken off the bill. In fiscal 2010, the school system spent about $27 million to power its more than 200 buildings, spokesman Dana Tofig said in an email.

New York City Gains Record Number Of School Seats For New Academic Year
-- Lindsey Christ, NY1

New York: September 1, 2010 -- About 17,000 thousand students will walk into brand new classrooms next week, and city officials say it is the most new space the School Construction Authority has ever opened in a single year since it was created in 1988. Schools Chancellor Joel Klein said he could not be happier. "There are colleagues of mine, they don't see 30 buildings in the course of a lifetime, and we are seeing that basically this year in New York City," said Klein. Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the construction at the new Mott Haven Educational Campus. It is the largest single project funded by the city's $13 billion school capital plan. The building covers nine acres of land, cost $250 million and will house 2,300 students in five different schools. Bloomberg said it is the largest public school project in modern memory. "Before we began construction here, this site, which had at one time been used as a commuter rail yard, had been vacant for close to 50 years," said Bloomberg. "So this striking new campus really symbolizes the revival of the South Bronx." The school includes a state-of-the-art, 600-seat performing arts center and a regulation-size football field includes lighting and scoreboard facilities.

Flint, Michigan Schools to Apply for Federal Stimulus Bond to Jump Start Sinking Fund Facilities Improvements
-- Khalil AlHajal, The Flint Journal

Michigan: September 1, 2010 -- The Flint school district will apply for a Qualified School Construction Bond worth $15 million after the board of education authorized the move. The funds would be repaid over three years using revenues from the sinking fund millage that voters approved last month. The bonds have spending restrictions similar to sinking funds, limiting usage to building and site repairs and improvements. District Chief Financial Officer Andrea Derricks said Qualified School Construction Bonds, which are subsidized by federal stimulus funds, were distributed during the last school year. Some districts didn't spend all the money they were allocated before a July 30 deadline, resulting in about $90 million in remaining funds, according to Derricks. "They're considering reopening that process and reallocating that $90 million," Derricks said. She said the bond would allow more immediate usage of sinking fund money the district is set to receive in the coming years. "We would get $15 million within six months to hit the buildings hard and fast," she said. Derricks said the first expenditures would go toward energy efficiency improvements that would save the district more money.

Green Schoolyards as an Element of Reform
-- Kirk Meyer, Education Week

National: September 1, 2010 -- Reduced class size. Longer school days. Accountability through testing. Better teachers. Managing the dropout rate. Dealing with unions. Serving special education and English-language-learning students. Safety in school. The list goes on. We know that public education is facing many challenges, and that there are many brilliant minds and kind hearts trying to find solutions to a complex set of problems. But let’s look for a moment at the end user who should be the focus of all this attention: the child. What motivates a child to learn? Children are active and social beings who have an innate curiosity about the world around them. We should be using these attributes as a springboard into the vast and wonderful world of learning.

West Virginia District Considers Removing Swings From All School Playgrounds
-- Bryan Chambers, Herald-Dispatch

West Virginia: September 1, 2010 -- A state lawmaker is asking Cabell County Schools Superintendent William Smith to suspend the removal of swing sets from all elementary school playgrounds until he can bring involved parties to the table. Swings are scheduled to be removed from the 17 schools that have them by late December because of recent lawsuits and costs associated with meeting national standards for playground safety. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission sets playground safety guidelines. The current guidelines for swings require a protective layer of sand, pea gravel, wood mulch, wood chips or recycled rubber that equals twice the height of the swing in each direction. That means if a swing is 7 feet long, a layer of ground material is required 14 feet in front and 14 feet in the back. The safety standards also call for a depth of at least 9 inches. Cabell County uses wood mulch on its playgrounds, but it is biodegradable and washes away when it rains, said Tim Stewart, safety manager for Cabell County Schools. That makes it difficult to comply with national safety standards, he said. The only other viable alternative is recycled rubber, but it has raised toxicity questions among parents across the country and is more expensive than wood mulch, Stewart said. He estimates it would cost about $8,000 to cover the ground around each of the 36 swing sets. That's a total of $288,000, a cost that would have to be repeated at least every seven years, he said.