Nearly three-quarters of schools in Harford County are visibly in need of repair or functionally unreliable, according to a presentation by district officials at Monday night’s school board meeting.
The operations department shared its requests for state funding for construction and renovations for fiscal year 2026. For the state to commit capital improvement funds, County Executive Bob Cassilly will first have to sign off on portions of the projects covered by local government, district facilities planner Missy Valentino explained.
Meanwhile, the cost of building is going up.
“The cost per square foot for building and constructing in our schools continuously increases throughout the state,” Valentino said.
School construction in Maryland costs $481 per square foot in 2024, up from $405 per square foot in 2021 and $349 in 2017, according to the presentation citing state data from the Interagency Commission on School Construction, which publishes a metric grading all school facilities. Requests for state capital improvement funds must be for at least $200,000, and 16 years must pass between the last time the facility received state funding for the same project, Valentino explained.
According to the commission, three schools in the county “feel like a new building” and grade in the top 15% of the state’s facility condition index, two schools are in good condition and nine are satisfactory. Twenty-five schools have conditions verging on uncomfortable while 13 have building functions that have become unreliable.
District officials presented to the board requests for funding for six construction and renovation projects that would cost nearly $85 million in fiscal year 2026. The district is asking for over $23 million from the state backed by nearly $62 million from the county government, including $45 million for Harford Academy , a proposed school for students with disabilities and part of a 45-acre site in Bel Air the district bought in the spring.
Four of the six projects — Harford Technical, Aberdeen Middle School, Harford Academy and North Harford Energy Recovery Units — have already received nearly $60 million in local funding.
“Our request is really mostly about years two or three of these projects,” Valentino said.
Harford Technical High School has already received $31 million from the state and $28 million from the county government, and the district is hoping to wrap up the project with an additional $10 million from the state and $6 million from the local government next year, according to the presentation.
The district is making a $3.7 million local request for an $8.3 million roof replacement at North Harford High School. It’s asking to start an $86 million renovation of C. Milton Wright High School that would receive $38 million from the state. Valentino said the district received state funding to design the project, indicating that construction funding is still two years out.
The school board will vote at its Sept. 9 meeting to approve or reject the plan for state-funded construction and renovation. A separate request for projects paid for solely by local funding will be voted on in December.
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