North Texas’ Keller Independent School District enrollment has steadily declined, CBS News . The community is awaiting recommendations from the Long-Range Planning Committee and Citizens Bond Advisory Committee about downsizing and a potential bond package.

The district has not revealed which schools are being considered, but buildings could close in the 2027-28 school year.

A report from the superintendent suggests enrollment has dropped by roughly 1,600 students since last year and is expected to keep falling���a trend the superintendent projects will cost the district tens of millions in state funding, according to CBS News.

Texas districts widely to Texas Education Freedom Accounts, the state’s school voucher program. The $1 billion program awards families taxpayer money to油pay油private school tuition. Demand has been overwhelming as hundreds of thousands of families applied within the program’s first weeks.

Even one private school in Atlanta, Georgia, is abruptly closing this week, weeks before the end of the semester, WSB-TV . According to Midtown International School’s board of directors, the school’s enrollment is shrinking while the number of students needing scholarships and financial assistance grows.

Parents claim they’ve already paid for the entire semester’s tuition and some of next year’s.

“I am still in shock. My child is still in shock. We were unprepared for this,” one parent told the news outlet.

Elsewhere, district leaders across North Carolina are debating campus closures and job cuts amid rising costs to build and operate schools, The News & Observer油. More families are participating in school choice programs and moving to charter schools.

The Wake County Public School System is reversing a plan to eliminate 130 special education teaching positions, which prompted protests from educators and parents. Still, Superintendent Robert Taylor said the district must find an alternative solution to cut the $10 million those cuts would have saved, the news outlet reports.

Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools is also weighing plans to eliminate 23 central office positions this summer, saving the district $1.5 million to $2 million annually. Additionally, the school board is considering closing two elementary schools in 2027.

Superintendent Rodney Trice argued that change is油necessary to avoid budget constraints.

“There is nothing inherently negative about being a smaller district,” Trice told The News & Observer.油“However, we cannot continue to structure and staff ourselves as though we are still serving 12,000 students. Aligning our central staffing model to the size of our student population is a necessary step toward fiscal responsibility.”

More from 91心頭: These leadership qualities make superintendents more hirable

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“We’ve been a high-performing district for a good number of students, but unfortunately, we haven’t been a very high-performing district for all students at all times,” he admits. These last few years, Daria has been focused on making changes to achieve that goal.

He refers to the district’s strategic plan as the primary filter for decision-making and budgeting, as it’s designed to “protect the district’s focus,” he explains. The document keeps leadership from being distracted by new initiatives and instead digs deeper into strategies that yield results.

For instance, workforce development is a crucial component of student success, Daria says. The district partners with and its local chamber of commerce to prepare students for life after high school. In five years, Tuscaloosa City Schools has increased students’ post-graduation commitments to 97%. This includes college enrollment, employment and enlisting in the military.

“Our point is that we want every student to have every choice,” Daria says. “If college is the choice, we want every student ready for college. If a direct-to-career option is a choice, we want them ready to be highly successful in that career of choice.”

Meanwhile, he’s looking forward to expanding access to quality education, including the launch of , a first-of-its-kind STEM and arts campus scheduled to open mid-2027. It will be “a hub for education training, arts participation and academic support,” according to the website.

The district’s alternative pathway school doubles as a community resource center that offers mental health services, translation assistance and home improvement resources. Nonprofit service-providers get free office space.

“We get the benefit of those partners, because we give them a space and it’s also a one-stop shop for our families who have needs,” he says.

This summer, an estimated 40% of Tuscaloosa’s K-5 students will participate in summer programs to avoid “the summer slide.” Many students will even improve academically based on the past success of the programs.

Tuscaloosa City Schools is a district that demands excellence, he adds. It starts with leaders embracing flexibility.

“Successful school systems must have the structures to be able to shift when it’s time to shift,” Daria says. “We’ve worked with precision to put these structures in place with high expectations embedded.”

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Last month, the School District of Philadelphia released a nearly $3 billion spending plan油that would modernize and maintain school facilities, but calls for closing 20 schools, WPVI Philadelphia . It’s part of a long-term strategy to consolidate resources and improve academic offerings, according to the district.

“We’ll be able to use our resources in a more efficient manner to drive more high-quality academic programming,” Superintendent Tony Watlington told the news outlet, adding that the plan follows more than two years of collecting feedback from parents and families.

“We want to do meetings with impacted schools and communities to make sure they understand it and give feedback,” he said.

Of the 20 schools scheduled to close, 12 would be repurposed for district use. The remaining eight will be used by the city for job creation or turned into affordable housing.

Meanwhile, Broward County Public Schools, which was and faces a state takeover threat from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, is closing six schools after losing more than 40,000 students in the past 10 years. That’s the equivalent of more than $30 million in revenue, according to .

“We’re trying to make sure Broward County Public Schools is sustainable for the future,” Superintendent Dr. Howard Hepburn said during a board meeting last month. “There are other cost-saving measures, but closing schools is something we have to do.”

Doing so would save the district nearly $8 million a year, Hepburn added. The schools will remain open for district use.

“We continue to have a decline in enrollment, even in this school year, and we are expecting that in future school years also,” Hepburn said. “It’s a tough decision, but it’s the decision we have to make to really ensure the quality of learning opportunities our students receive day in and day out does not change.”

A national trend

Enrollment losses aren’t unique to Broward County and Philadelphia. Between 2020 and 2024, public school enrollment has declined by .

With the federal government pushing for school choice and parents relying on alternative school methods since the pandemic, public school leaders are left to market their programs more aggressively.

District 91心頭istration’s油latest coverage highlights the positive impact of public schooling, including the leaders who make innovation happen.

Students at Amity Regional High School helped craft Connecticut���s K12 cell phone policy and continue to serve on several advisory boards. Stepping into various leadership roles gives them growing influence in administrative decision-making.

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If you feel behind on AI readiness, rest assured that most other districts are in the same digital boat. You can embark on/jump into the early stages of AI implementation by modeling innovative initiatives and research.

More than 40% of K12 tech leaders say they’re having “early discussions” about AI’s operational and administrative functions, according to recent survey data from the . Another 22% said their district leadership is not at all focused on operational AI.

I spoke with CoSN project director Paula Maylahn, who’s examining how schools are using AI beyond the instruction that is the focus of most research.

Many districts are stuck on the legality of operational AI, with nearly a quarter of tech leaders saying their district is “not at all” legally prepared. Additionally, 60% of leaders say they lack the skills and expertise to implement the technology.

Regardless, Maylahn says educational AI use will ramp up naturally as improved tools become more user-friendly.

“The technology itself is going to incorporate AI, so that you don’t need to have an expert on staff for operation,” she says.

Early-adopters surveyed by CoSN are prioritizing AI use for their network environments (57%), specifically:

• Local area network (LAN): 29%
• Wireless local area network: 29%
• Network security (CB): 20%
• Wide area network (WAN): 14%
• Data center network: 14%

AI use among teachers continues to grow

Meanwhile, independent research from Stanford University’s SCALE Initiative underscores how quickly teachers learn to appreciate AI’s potential for improving their workflow.

The researchers analyzed more than 9,000 teachers who were brand new to the platform over 90 days. What they found was that more than 40% of teachers became “regular” or “power users,” meaning they used the tool for up to 49 days.

Teachers also relied heavily on chatbot assistants, which accounted for more than 50% of their activity.

Chris Agnew, director of the Generative AI for Education Hub at Stanford, says AI is challenging many decades-old methods of instruction. However, that’s not a bad thing.

“We’ve been talking about more authentic assessment means for 25 years and the need to evolve schools to build more focus on durable skills,” Agnew says. “We have not done a great job of doing that, so the silver lining is that AI might force that.”

Creating policy

Many leaders I’ve spoken to are developing their own AI policies and watching how nearby districts are adapting.油Agnew says leaders can use the data from his team’s to understand better how teachers want AI to be integrated.

Simply put, teachers should be leaders’ first thought when rolling out an AI initiative.

“We know teachers are busy,” he says. “Teachers are asked to do a lot of things. If there are tangible ways that districts can facilitate teachers getting more face-to-face time with their students, I’d predict there would be positive outcomes.”

This idea should be complemented by a comprehensive AI literacy strategy that educates students on how AI can contribute to their development as well-rounded citizens.

“That includes providing teachers AI literacy so they can be smarter, savvier users of AI.”

More from 91心頭: Why career-connected learning is about more than jobs

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At the latest District 91心頭istration Leadership Institute summit in Palm Springs, California, Watlington sat down with the deans of the education colleges at the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University to discuss their unique cross-sector partnership.

���The universities have something that we don’t,” said Watlington, 91心頭’s 2025 Superintendent of the Year. “They have a research engine that can help us validate what works, and they can help us get better, faster. But it takes working together collaboratively and building authenticity between one another.���

In the past five years, Philadelphia has improved several student outcomes and underdeveloped employee pipelines, thanks in part to a revitalized relationship with the colleges. The district’s fourth grade math scores on NAEP , and Philadelphia was one of the few large urban districts nationwide that did not see a decline in 8th-grade test scores since 2019. At the same time, graduation and dropout rates dramatically improved.油油

“Developing strong partnerships is person-dependent,” said Dr. Katharine Strunk, dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s graduate school of education. “It���s hard work, and it takes time to build trust and repair past areas that may be lacking in trust.���

Without formal dialogue, strategic priorities can often misalign and K12-higher ed partnerships can fail to materialize. However, Philadelphia has proven that through intentional design (and will), university research can transform to move “at the pace of K12 policy,” rather than “the pace of the Ivy League,” Strunk said.

Here are three different ways district leaders can foster a more cohesive higher education partnership and align priorities at the university level.

‘Laser focus’ on shared initiatives

UPenn’s Strunk and Dr. Monika Williams Shealey, dean of Temple’s College of Education and Human Development, entered their respective positions about two and a half years ago.

“One of the things I loved the most is that the two of us came in and said, ‘There’s no reason we shouldn’t be partnering,'” Strunk said. “There’s plenty of work to do; we don’t have to fight over who gets to do it.”

The deans, along with油Watlington, zeroed in on five priorities. Among them were creating highly qualified, well-supported teachers and principals and developing standards-aligned curriculum.

“We don’t try to boil the ocean, and we don’t try to chase every fad,” said Watlington. “We stay laser-focused on a few things that we do really well and assess real-time actionable feedback.”

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After securing philanthropic funding, UPenn and the district created that incorporates a week-long summer workshop and PD during the school year. UPenn faculty study the workshop to develop a model that other districts can replicate.

The district and university also pooled financial resources to provide participating teachers with a $5,000 stipend.

And this summer, Temple University free certifications to teachers in residency programs at The School District of Philadelphia to improve workforce pipelines in special education and middle school.

“Our work is really impactful because it’s grounded in what we believe,” Shealey said. “Our attitudes and dispositions toward the work are compatible with those of the superintendent.”

Streamline communication channels

Previously, faculty from different colleges at Temple University would independently contact The School District of Philadelphia. While well-intentioned, the university outreach wasn’t aligned with either Watlington’s or Shealey’s strategic priorities.

As a result, the two leaders now ensure all communication coming from Temple University is sent from the College of Education. Temple University’s president, Watlington and Shealey are copied on every email, providing the leaders with ultimate oversight on communication between the two sectors.

Philadelphia���s university partnerships have also helped spur the creation of a new leadership role focused on strengthening principal development across the district.

with Temple and UPenn to build more effective principal pipelines, the district appointed a chief learning officer who now tracks each school���s progress in preparing the next generation of principals.

This new role provides Watlington with a contact to discuss the district’s comprehensive efforts in tackling principal turnover.

Reflection and ‘reciprocity’

Watlington���s senior leadership team is deeply familiar with the strategic priorities developed by Strunk and Shealey at their respective colleges, which were discussed by the three leaders at the summit.

It’s a testament to Watlington’s focus on “reciprocity,” he says. “We always ensure we’re doing the homework on our end and not just saying, ‘What can you do for us?’ How do we best position ourselves to ask universities how they can help?”

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In school year 2021-22, only 10% of spending nationwide went toward facility expenses, according to a new report from the . The researchers note that this is a decades-old trend, and that most district leaders spend on new construction rather than maintenance of existing buildings.

“Better management of existing assets will be needed along with the most up-to-date building codes and standards,” the report reads.

Among the most pressing infrastructure upgrades油are plumbing upgrades and installation of cooling systems to address lead in drinking water and rising temperatures, respectively.

Unfortunately, schools lack the funding necessary to make such changes. The annual funding gap to reach a state of “good repair” for public schools nationwide grew to $85 billion in 2021, the report adds.

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Another油problem is the sheer age of most school buildings. Twenty percent of all public schools report they do not know what year their building was built. Despite their age, fewer than half of public school buildings have undergone “significant renovations” since their original construction, and fewer than one-third have undergone improvement since 2010.

The researchers offer several recommendations for improving public school facilities, including:

• Adopting life-cycle cost analysis principles in planning and design processes
• Develop capital planning frameworks at the school district level to enhance resilience to extreme weather
• Explore alternative financing for public school facilities, including lease financing, as well as ownership and use arrangements

For more information, read the full report .

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As of February, the Department suggested that 41 states and the District of Columbia had another year to spend the remaining $122 billion of the 2021 American Rescue Plan dollars. But in a letter to state chiefs obtained by The74, McMahon now says it’s “unreasonable” for education leaders to rely on the past administration’s decisions.

However, she did say that ESSER spending reimbursements might be considered if states can make a case for how their projects directly address COVID’s impact.

“The Department has concluded that the further extension of the liquidation period for the aforementioned grants, already well past the period of performance, was not justified,” wrote McMahon. “You and your subrecipients have had ample time to liquidate obligations.”

This announcement may not apply to districts that have already spent their funds and submitted their reimbursement requests, says Marguerite Roza, director of Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab, which played a crucial role in guiding districts in their ESSER spending.

Yet, this decision still comes as a surprise. “I can’t speak for others, but I did not see this announcement coming,” says Roza. “I will say that we always warned that extensions were tenuous and urged districts and states to stay on top of their spending and reimbursements.”

States are already feeling the pressure as uncertainty over project funding hangs in the balance. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Monday expressed concern over the tens of millions of ESSER spending lost for school health and safety-related projects.

“These cuts are reckless and irresponsible, allowing us very little time for contingency plans,” Murphy said in a . “New Jersey is proud of its best-in-the-nation public school system and we will do everything we can to restore this funding and maintain our reputation for excellence in public education.”

Maryland is also facing a more than $400 million loss as state officials were awaiting reimbursements for ESSER spending on tutoring, reading materials, after-school programming and construction projects.

“‘Shocked’ does not begin to describe our reaction when we received the notification late Friday evening that the U.S. Department of Education had immediately rescinded reimbursements to states and districts for approved recovery funds,” State Superintendent Carey Wright and Board of Education President Joshua Michael said in a .

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The reason? There are big, but still not widely appreciated, opportunities under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act that provide federal tax credits to help pay for clean energy infrastructure. While certain grant programs like the Department of Education���s Renew America���s Schools Program are getting close to having 100% of their available funding committed, the Inflation Reduction Act tax credits will continue to make geothermal a compelling option for schools that meet certain criteria.

Geothermal energy systems use the soil, bedrock and groundwater under your school. Drilled wells allow heat exchange with the underground.

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For heating, we extract a small amount of heat from underground, concentrate it and move that to help warm buildings to comfortable temperatures. For cooling, we remove heat from the buildings and exchange it with the cool underground.

Geothermal or ground source heat pumps provide heating and cooling using the ground as a heat sink, absorbing excess heat when the aboveground temperatures are warmer, and as a heat source when aboveground temperatures are cooler.

Using the steady, constant temperature of the earth as a source for providing heat to buildings in cold months and cooling in warm months can save owners 25% to 40% compared to the cost of traditional HVAC systems.

For a school that will be in place for many years, educating generations of children and teens, the economic timeframe of geothermal energy is compelling: After a payback period that can take a few years, the system can take a giant bite out of school districts��� annual heating and cooling costs for decades to come.

According to the U.S. Treasury department, school districts that meet various ������ can claim clean energy tax credits, including investment tax credits and production tax credits for many purposes beyond geothermal energy. These include buying electric school buses and other clean energy vehicles and chargers, installing rooftop solar panels, or installing a microgrid with solar and energy storage.

While these tax credits historically have been available only to for-profit businesses and certain other entities, the Inflation Reduction Act expanded their availability to K12 public schools and other tax-exempt and governmental entities through what are known as ���elective pay��� or ���direct pay��� provisions.

Because of the much longer lifetime of geothermal systems compared to conventional heating/cooling systems, solar panels and electric vehicles, geothermal is an especially compelling use for the available tax credits, potentially maximizing overall financial benefits for school districts compared to other kinds of clean energy investments.

If your existing boiler/furnace and electric-powered AC still have decades of life in them, keeping them operational for peak use to reduce the size of the geothermal wellfield you need to drill can make the economics even more favorable. By installing a hybrid geothermal system, you avoid the big expense of drilling extra wells to meet a peak demand for heating or cooling that may occur only five or 10 days per year.

Finally, it���s important to go through the exercise of thinking decades into the future about where you might need or want to expand your school buildings, adding a new wing, gymnasium, theater or other facility. Your successors in the school district will be glad if they never have to bear the expense���and hassle���of removing a geothermal wellfield from an area that had long been identified as usable for expansion.

Geothermal systems run solely using electricity, which often can be generated by renewable sources such as solar and wind. And if you can get a federal subsidy to the initial capital cost, it can be a slam dunk: Long-term, reliable and sustainable geothermal heating and cooling for your school buildings at an affordable price.

The post Geothermal schools: K12 is now ideal for this tech appeared first on District 91心頭istration.

Date & Time: Wednesday, December 4 at 2 p.m. ET

In the last two decades, facilities departments have begun to leverage data and technology to enhance their operational efficiency, while ensuring safe, comfortable environments for their students, faculty, and staff.

Yet, despite this increased access to more data than ever before, many schools and districts still struggle with translating this information into effective capital planning decisions. Without proper data interpretation solutions, this can result in the misspending of capital funds while the facilities team struggles to manage a massive backlog of aging infrastructure.

In this 30-minute 91心頭 Ed Talk, those in administrative positions will gain helpful advice on turning facilities data into actionable insights.

Attendees will learn:

• How to pinpoint and analyze datasets that will lead to more cost-effective funding
• Proven strategies to prevent capital fund misallocation through data-informed planning
• Best practices for facilities teams to justify their investment needs by leveraging data
• What administrators need to look for when decoding leveraged data from their facilities teams
• Data-backed approaches for facilities teams to build the best learning environments for students

***Attendees will be able to safely download an Asset Investment Planning (AIP) Infographic and a comprehensive guide for capital planning, budgeting, and asset management.

Speaker

Katie Gramajo, CEFP,油Senior Industry Marketing Manager for Education, Brightly Software

Sponsored by

The post Translating the Data: Ensuring Your Capital Planning Funds Are Cost Effective appeared first on District 91心頭istration.

Date & Time: Tuesday, November 19 at 2 p.m. ET

Despite facing an $11.7 million deficit, Steelton-Highspire School District (SHSD) became the first in Pennsylvania to fully transition to an all-electric school bus fleet. This transformation, powered by six new electric vehicles funded through round one of the EPA���s Clean School Bus Program, was achieved with a strategic investment from the district.

In this Ed Talk, Superintendent Dr. Mick Iskric will discuss his district’s journey to embrace electric buses to reduce long-term costs. He will be joined by Kevin King, Senior EV Principal Consultant at First Student, who will explain how a flexible, rapid-deployment charging infrastructure helped Steelton-Highspire make electrification feasible and cost-effective, providing a blueprint for other districts facing similar challenges.

Join us as we explore the journey to electrification, highlighting both the financial and operational benefits of going electric. Now, districts on the fence of moving away from fuel-powered buses now have a real-world example of a school system that has actually gone fully electric.

Key Takeaways:

• How an underfunded district like Steelton-Highspire made the leap to an all-electric bus fleet
• The critical role of First Charge rapid-deployment charging infrastructure in making electric bus deployment both cost-effective and efficient
• Insights on how above-ground charging infrastructure can save time and reduce installation costs
• The financial and operational rewards of electrification for school districts facing budget challenges
• Practical advice from Dr. Mick Iskric and Kevin King on overcoming barriers to electrification

Speakers

Mick Iskric, Superintendent, Steelton-Highspire School District

Kevin King, Senior EV Principal Consultant, First Student

Sponsored by

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