Fueled by federal stimulus dollars, school districts in Baltimore City and Baltimore County are speeding up construction projects that have been on hold for years for lack of funding, including the possible construction of the first new city school in a decade.

While most of the money - $300 million to be spent statewide over four years - will go toward essentials such as new boilers, chillers, roofs, doors and windows - the city hopes to use some of its dollars to build a new Lexington Terrace school on the west side and an athletic facility on the east side.

Dozens of schools would get new media centers.

"It is a tremendous boost," said J. Keith Scroggins, chief operating officer of the city schools. "It is like getting seven years of allocation from the state in a two-year period."

The infusion of money means that after the last school bell rings in June, work crews will begin a construction push that is expected to reach every school in Baltimore.

The city school system has an estimated $1 billion of deferred maintenance on its schools, an amount that would take many years to catch up on without a boost in funding.