A Procedural Model for Developing School Facilities

A Procedural Model for Developing School Facilities

We introduce several methods for planning school facilities in our work on educational facilities (Tanner and Lackney, 2006).  All of my favorite procedures eventually come back to strategic planning, however.  This is just my own preference and you may find one you like better.   I follow a ten-step procedure that takes about nine months in real time to complete.  If you are in a hurry, the process may be reduced to five steps, but that puts too much confidence in a for profit group to define school functions.  “Money makes people nervous,” so be careful that you and your school people (non-profit public servants) don’t get taken to the cleaners (so to speak).  Remember one of our BIG problems (in education) is that the non-profit education business (trusting souls that we are) goes up against the for profit sector in the facility planning, design, engineering, and construction business.   Ideally, we really need a year to think a planning project through from beginning to ending.

While many of the planning models that exist employ various collaborative procedures, they actually are linear or circular presentations of required, state mandated, activities with steps delineated to drive them sequentially.  Most states “Barney” down educational facilities planning into a step-by-step cookbook approach implying “Leave the Thinking to Us.”  We should demand involvement and not according to a cookbook.  Taylor (2000) emphasized the involvement of communities, and stated “communities seeking to design schools for the future must think in an integrated manner to join the goals of education to those of architectural design” (p. 3).

Our model draws heavily from writers such as Taylor and Sanoff, while adding emphasis to the use of expertise, information, resources, and data and to the whole spectrum of participation of the school and community.  Planning educational facilities includes an input, process, and output system, with significant interrelationships and data sharing among the school facility planners, the school district, and all the other schools within the district.  We contend that these relationships also extend to the state where the school is located and even to the federal level in the United States through laws, codes, and restrictions, especially in the field of special education.  There are six broad assumptions supporting the structure of the development model.

·      The total facilities program in a school district is planned and managed to advance the mission of the school, with emphasis on student learning and teaching. 

·      All students can learn in a developmentally appropriate environment.

·      The development of schools always occurs in the context of local, state, and federal regulatory policies, including funding methods and all legal aspects of providing school learning environments.

·      The development of educational facilities is a continuous process; therefore the school system is always accruing data and information relevant to all aspects of this complex process.

·      The outcomes of the model are safe, comfortable, and developmentally appropriate learning environments for teaching and learning in a multicultural society.

·      An ample supply of relevant information and resources for planning and decision-making is available. 

Below you will find a representation of our procedural model for planning and designing educational facilities, with evaluation as a continuous process throughout.  Horizontal oval designs show the process of planning in a linear and interactive mode, while the vertical ovals represent sources of information, expertise, and involvement.  The shadowed, dark arrows depict responsibility and involvement of people and groups in the designated process, while the larger light-shadowed arrows depict interaction and involvement.  For example, there may be involvement of parents, students, community members, and educators in the construction process (citizens’ oversight committee), but often experts having resources, skills, and data will be involved in the construction phase without much input from the community.  Construction is a direct responsibility of people in leadership positions, while resulting from the planning, programming, and design phases.  

Quality and flow of information and how it is shared among the many individuals involved in providing school facilities is essential for people in leadership positions as well as for those that participate in the process.  Leadership, the major premise, also performs a significant function in the model, indicating the importance of direction, vision, mission, decision-making, and allocation of resources.  Leadership is found at all levels, indicating shared vision and responsibility as various jobs emerge in this complex process. Notwithstanding, the final decision always rests with the governing board and the chief school officer.  The chief school officer is directly responsible for the outcomes of any construction project.   Note that the numbers below each of the descriptors in the model represent combinations of the eight premises outlined earlier in my blog.  They appropriately complement each specific function.

References:

Tanner, C. K. and Lackney, J. A. (2006), Educational Facilities Planning: Leadership, Architecture, and Management, Allyn and Bacon, Boston, MA.

Taylor, A. (2000).  Programming and designing public schools within the context of community. Paper presented to the Stein & Schools Lecture Series: Policy, Planning, and Design for a 21^st Century Public Education System, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.

Premises for the Development of a Procedural Planning Model

*Part III of the ACEF “BLOG” on Premises for the Development of a Procedural Planning Model

By Dr. Ken Tanner, REFP

Premise 6.  The minimization of crisis occurrence through effective management is greatly needed in the information age.  Therefore, we contend that management is systematic, data, and goal driven. 

Obviously, the management system should include accountability so that a comparison can be made among stated goals to outcomes.  This is the glue that holds the organization together.  Sometimes the manager is a leader and sometimes the leader is a manager. Managers and leaders must know what is to be done, have a strategy ready to do what is planned, and recognize how the final outcomes compare with the expected outcomes.  They also must recognize that the landscape for developing and providing schools is often confusing and messy.

The development model I advocate should help produce schools that meet the goals of learning and teaching. Although measurements of effectiveness may be taken in post occupancy evaluations, this activity may be too late if then a design is shown not to facilitate learning and teaching.  The political reality is that unless all parties share the stated goals for learning and teaching students in the beginning of the process, the end results may not be built environments that facilitate the educational goals and objectives. You may possibly know of incidents where architectural plans were not completely followed because the contractor did not want to build in a certain way – leaving out a window here and there, failing to put a vent in a certain space, and skimping on acoustical and insulation treatments, for example. 

General management goes beyond the planning, design, and construction phases in providing school facilities.  It encompasses the messy political environment of these activities.  Under the general umbrella of management, we find operations and maintenance of the structures and land that supports the buildings, playgrounds, nature trails, and other outdoor learning environments.  Management of operations and maintenance starts with planning and design.  For example, custodial care of the place where students learn begins in the planning phase.

Premise 7.  The demand for resources is greater than those available to complete the ideal project. 

This is most frequently the case; hence, our goal is to maximize the returns to the community with the available resources. This absolutely cannot be done unless we know how the physical environment influences teaching, students, learning, and behavior; and employ value engineering strategies during planning and design.  This is more important than ever in a society that is “going green.” It does not require any new knowledge to build a set of rectangular one-room schoolhouses without windows, divided by a not-too-wide hallway, and call the result a new school.  With some variations in color and roof pitch, we all have seen such structures even called “schools of the future.”  Yes, they are schools of the future, if the community does not expect much from its students.

Acquisition of fiscal resources is vital, since this function dominates all planning, design, and construction activities.  Efficient and effective use of capital is expected, including the investment of time, personnel, and labor that make up the whole process of planning, building, and maintaining a school and its surrounding property.  Obviously, the goal is to produce a structurally sound and educationally efficient, accountable, reasonable, and thrifty product, including outdoor learning areas.  The educationally efficient aspect of school buildings can only be met if the built design accommodates the educational program and caters to learning and teaching.  The words “thrifty” and “reasonable” do not necessarily mean cheap, and “efficient” does not mean cutting out necessary spaces and places for learning.  After all, the building must be accountable to the educational program, while reflecting fiscal responsibility.

Premise 8.  By involving stakeholders, the school and community should work cooperatively and in a collaborative manner to ensure that schools are designed and built to enhance teaching and learning and serve as centers of the community.

Essentials such as a safe context and the safety and security of the teachers and students are the expected natural by-products of planning spaces and places for teaching and learning.  Community involvement allows for ease of “buying into” the project and its outcomes.  Sanoff (2000) has provided one of the most comprehensive descriptions of community participation in print today.  Under the topic “scope of social architecture,” he notes that participation is necessary for transforming the environment and people that live in it.  It is highly important in school facilities planning that the community not be treated as passive clients, but as involved consumers. 

Myers and Robertson (2004) offer several suggestions for community connections involving stakeholders, emphasizing the benefits of community involvement.  Their models run parallel to strategic planning methods that may be employed in most stages of school facilities planning, but exactly how aspects of strategic planning can become an integral part of the process can take many paths.  Regardless of the path or model selected for involvement, an ultimate goal is to influence change in school design that matches and facilitates the changing curriculum.  

Now continue to my next blog to review a model for planning schools.

  

References:

Myers, N., & Robertson, S. (2004).  Creating Connections: The CEFPI Guide for Educational Facility Planning.  Scottsdale, AZ:  CEFPI.

Sanoff, H. (2000). Community Participation Methods in Design and Planning.  New York:  John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

* I have extracted much of this blog from my work, with permission, (with Jeff Lackney) on school facilities planning.  Tanner, C.K. and Lackney, J.A. (2006), Educational Facilities Planning: Leadership, Architecture, and Management, Allyn and Bacon, Boston, MA.

Part II - Premises for the Development of School Facilities

* Part II of the ACEF “BLOG” on Premises for the Development of a Procedural Planning Model

by

Dr. Ken Tanner, REFP

Premise 4.  The educational program’s goals and objectives are linked to physical places for teaching and learning. 

First, we must know what the curriculum will look like when it is placed in the structures being planned (Now, tomorrow, next week, next year, and as far into the future as we can possibly see.)  After all, we want the function of the school building to be clear so that “function determines form. ”  We want the statement that  “form follows function” to be more than just a cliché. 

Planners and architects should clearly understand what the implications for the curriculum and instructional program are with respect to school learning environments.  We have evidence that the physical environment influences student behavior; therefore, may we also assume that learning is influenced by the physical structures where teaching and learning are supposed to take place?  The places where students learn are important elements of curriculum and instruction, and should be addressed in research and professional conferences of leadership, curriculum, and supervision of instruction.

 

Activities pertaining to premise four may have been called the ‘educational programming’ phase and extend all the way into design development and construction documents.  The curriculum will certainly change and the way teachers are expected to teach will also change over the life of a school.  Therefore, a review of the present and expected curriculum and instructional program is important to prevent obsolescence of the school in relationship to course content, student learning, and teaching methods.  Such concerns bring up the need to plan for flexible and developmentally appropriate learning spaces, school furniture, and technology.

In my opinion, the best way to accomplish valid program definition and description of the functions needed in the school’s physical environment is through the time consuming process of strategic planning that includes curriculum experts, educational planners, administrators, school personnel, community members, students, and parents, for example.  There are some other ways that you might try in planning for a school building, however (see for example: Sanoff, H. (2000). Community Participation Methods in Design and Planning.  New York:  John Wiley & Sons, Inc.) 

I can tell you what you don’t want and that is a trip over to another school to copy its design.  I strongly oppose cookie cutter (prototype schools) since they speak to the masses and tell them that they are all alike – that just is not so.  Hence, as long as we ask taxpayers to pay for the schools, then we should include them in the planning and design process.  Above all we want “buy in” and community pride built into this monument that is going to be around for a very, very long time.

Premise 5.   Planning and design activities are integrated. 

I suggest a comprehensive approach to planning and designing schools, allowing for interaction across leadership and stakeholder lines.  I concur with McGuffy (1973), who “… suggested that careful management of the planning, design, and construction processes will provide for a comprehensive, overlapping, non-linear approach to the delivery of a facilities project” (p. 2.4).   The management of time for planning, designing, bidding, and constructing the project is vital.  Hence we suggest a modified version of Kowalaski’s (1989) idea of an integrated planning model.  This modification includes the leadership component; a data, resources, and information base; and the specified involvement of the community and educators.   Moor and Lackney (1994) proposed a similar procedure entitled “ an integrated educational facility development model” (p. 84). 

Integration means more than compressing the time between steps.  It also means shared decision-making and collaboration in both the educational planning, programming, and the concept design phases.  The distance between planning and concept design represents perhaps the largest gap in the entire school facilities planning and building process.  Often people in the school and community have complained that they participated in planning and concept design, but when the school buildings were completed they were shocked to see nothing of their work.  This should never occur, given proper leadership and information in the world of school facilities today. Our model encourages and requires involvement in planning, programming, and concept design and continues through the design and construction phases.

Test the above line of reasoning by asking teachers, students, and citizens of a community with a new school building to tell you exactly how much time they spent in planning and designing the new school.  Ask them if they considered their role in the process to be a significant influence on design.  Did they have any influence at all?

References

Kowalski, T. J. (1989).  Planning and Managing School facilities.  New York: Praeger.

McGuffy, C. W. (1973).  Systematic Planning for Educational Facilities. Chicago, IL:  Chicago Board of Education.

Moore, G.T. and Lackney, J.A. (1994). Educational facilities for the twenty-first century: Research analysis and design patterns. Report R94-1. Milwaukee, WI: Center for Architecture and Urban Planning Research, School of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee.

*Parts of this blog are used by permission from the book by C. K. Tanner and J. A. Lackney entitled Educational Facilities Planning (1996) by Longman. 

 

ADA Compliant Playgrounds

This past year, the Dept of Justice adopted revisions to the American With Disablities Act (ADA) Standards for Accessible Design. One of the changes involves playgrounds that are used by children ages two and over, in a variety of public settings, which includes schools.

The playground equipment will now be required to be handicap accessible. Previously only the route to the playground was required to be accessible. The new regulation states that a certain percentage of ground level equipment and above ground equipment be accessible.

The change became effective on March 15th of this year, and compliance will be required for all new construction and renovations beginning March 15th 2012.

Consider taking an inventory and review your existing play areas and plans for new playgrounds. Set out a priority list of those areas that may need to be updated. Develop a budget and a plan of action to assure that all play areas are accessible. A playground designer or manufacturer of playground equipment can be useful resources in your planning. Also you can contact the U.S. Dept of Justice/ADA at 800-514-0301 or www.ada.gov or www.access-board.gov for additional information.

Michael King AIA

A Model For Educational Facilities Planning

A Model For Educational Facilities Planning

Part I

Parts of this blog are used by permission from the book by C. K. Tanner and J. A. Lackney entitled Educational Facilities Planning (2006), published by Longman. Ken Tanner – June 2011

This blog is designed for educational facility planners and architects that build schools, educational leaders, and all other individuals that are involved and interested in educational facilities planning, design, construction, and management. I begin by postulating that there is a gap in conceptualization of educational learning environments between educational leaders and architects.  It is my intention to minimize this gap by presenting and discussing trends in educational architecture, first, followed by an integration of principles of planning and architecture.  There is more literature addressing educational planning than educational architecture that is available to the clients of educational facilities planning and architecture.  Furthermore, because the clients of educational architecture are always experiencing change, I intended to describe and explain methods and procedures to improve relationships in this vital community.

Basic Assumptions: You have read the blog entitled “Principles for Planning and Designing Schools” here on the ACEF Blog.  Educational facility planners are not architects, neither are architects educational facility planners.  Rarely can an architect, and sometimes even educators “take on” all of the knowledge needed for curriculum planning, educational programming, developing explanations of how the physical environment influences the teacher and student, and every one of the necessary elements that make education a separate and viable industry.  To be an educational facility planner one must first be an educator with some battle scars and educational experience, experience in the political culture of education and all the ups and downs of dealing with students, parents and the community.  He or she must know about leaders such as Henry Barnard (lawyer and educator) and John Dewey (psychologist and educator) and how they designed schools. 

I suggest that by knowing a bit about the history of educational architecture all people involved in the exciting process of developing educational learning environments will have a better foundation for the context of activities necessary to complete the process.  Once the context is explored, we suggest that people involved in educational facilities planning well benefit from our review of  Jeff Lackney’s general design principles that guide the early stages of planning.

Encouraging good school architecture is one of the most significant contributions we make to society.  The architecture of educational facilities is a community policy statement on the importance of education and students, and the quality of school architecture reveals the culture of the people who plan, design and build the school.  School facilities should reflect sound teaching and learning philosophies, but this may not always be the case in some school districts.  Although some people may argue that the physical quality and educational compatibility of school facilities in communities are tied directly to monetary wealth of each district, it is not difficult to find poor physical quality and design in affluent school districts, while good schools may also be found in districts having less wealth.   

One of my graduate students, in class, asked me this question: What should the quality of the school be in a small town or rural community? My quick answer to this fine young southern gentleman was:  The school facility should be equal in quality to the nearest First Baptist Church (or whatever church is the most popular in your area).  The church is an item of pride.  The school house should also be an item of community pride..

In an ideal world, planning and designing educational learning environments require the participation of people representing the school and community, with state representatives playing the role of regulators according to published minimum standards.  With a team planning effort a new school facility or a renovated structure can be a relevant place for learning, housing spaces that actually “facilitate” the school curriculum.  Without a team effort the resulting school architecture may represent the wishes of only a few individuals. 

Such spaces will often represent the values and beliefs of public officials elected or appointed for short, incremental periods of time.  Yet, the school facility is expected to serve the community for 50 or more years.  Often, there are stakeholders in key decision-making roles that may be led to the building of schools having low quality construction, in the shortest time possible, and at the lowest bid.  Occasionally, these stakeholders do not envision the critical importance of value engineering, the curriculum compatibility of the school, the design, or construction quality – all strategies that would provide the very outcome they seek.  Decision makers need to understand that the schools they build now speak to the community long after the individuals who planned, designed, and built them are gone from public office.  Schools are monuments to the our culture.  

 To take advantage of scarce community resources, governing boards of schools, when making deliberate moves to provide built and natural spaces for learning, should work according to a comprehensive school and community plan - a plan that has been fully integrated into all other aspects of local and regional planning efforts.  Such regional plans include, for example, the location, magnitude, and impact of airports, power plants, farms, forests, shopping malls, highways, parks, commercial and industrial developments, residential sections of the community, and other aspects of local and regional growth or decline.  Places for the school curriculum and learning environments should, whenever possible, be planned, designed, and constructed with knowledge of formalized local and regional plans, a sound philosophy of teaching and student learning practices, plus knowledge of environmental psychology.

One purpose of this blog is to begin an outline for a framework for planning and design of a school, a plan that is validated through research, the literature, and the experiences of successful practitioners in the field.  Another intention is to review highlights of the educational facility planning and design process as it has evolved over the past 50 years. My goal is to describe and explain a conceptual framework that that integrates the multiple perspectives of educational planners, designers, architects, and the public.  The model I introduce here is expected to serve as a conceptual guide for connecting all the dots in the complex graph of educational facilities planning.

I envision a comprehensive model having a wide application to various school systems –large, small, rural, urban, or suburban.  As in all situations pertaining to the complex process of developing and providing school facilities, finding resources and relevant information is the main concern.  Therefore, one assumption for a comprehensive model is availability of relevant information and resources for planning and decision-making.  Relevant information is not enough, however.  The interpretation of the relevant information, in light of political and shared decision-making reality, becomes cumbersome, requiring a structure that encompasses social design theory – working with people rather than for them and involving them in critical, relevant aspects of the process. 

With the available textual materials, including the suggested literature, and the Internet search engines, information on almost any planning topic may be easily retrieved (Warning:  Be cautious about opinion not backed up with relevant literature and research). Sometimes Internet information is incomplete and too condensed to be of value, but as in condensed hard copy publications most web sites offer some useful information.  The conceptual planning model that I recommend here will be effective if the correct data and information are collected, analyzed, interpreted, and properly utilized in the process.  Proper utilization of information encompasses the perceptual, political, and leadership aspects applied to the process as well as the technical skills of the people involved.  For example, will the governing board, the state, the architect, the planner, and the community understand the importance of learning activities involving various philosophies?  Or, will only one philosophy dominate?  Consider essentialism, for example.  Historically, some school leaders may have been educated under the ‘blank tablet’ method - teachers lectured and students listened and responded through pencil and paper tests as measures of learning and accountability.  If decision-makers favoring the essentialism philosophy or any other single philosophy dominates the decision process, then the community could be left with a school facility accommodating only one way of thinking for 50 years or more.  Therefore, one important aspect of developing facilities is educating decision-makers regarding teaching and learning.  The process of providing decision-making bodies with a balanced perspective requires strong leadership from the planning team and school leaders.

Since a primary concern for any model is its basis, we offer eight foundational premises for developing school facilities.  

Premise 1. In providing physical learning environments we contend that strong leadership is essential. Furthermore, the importance of leaders knowing about the impact of school facilities on student behavior and learning is vital.  It is significant that the leader should create an atmosphere where people within the organization can assist in the complex job of developing school facilities.  Individuals in charge of developing, providing, and managing school facilities should be knowledgeable in the basic aspects of school facilities and also be able to communicate the goals of education and the nature of the relationship between the community and the school.  They must have the ability to lead the school system toward its ideals.  Those in leadership have inherent responsibilities to the public they serve.  Exactly who takes the lead depends on precisely where the process is within the context of all activities necessary to design and build a school.  For example the curriculum planner might not be the best person to lead a group on school funding.  Leadership may be situational as the various tasks are addressed in the development process.  However, it is usually the chief school officer who makes recommendations to the governing board, the final decision-making body.

Premise 2. The second premise is that the school system has a defined  direction - a mission and a vision.  We assume that the people in leadership have developed strategies to actualize this direction.  The mission and vision must be clearly defined and understood by the school and community, especially when school development is on the agenda.  Above all, direction must include basic concerns for school facilities planning and design – a vision for learning and teaching.  Somehow, within the mission statement and master plan for school leadership we must see that educational facilities exist to contribute to the accomplishment of the mission. We must work to ensure the connections among student behavior and learning and the natural and built learning environments. Lack of this connection may represent a ‘black hole’ in our educational system.

Premise 3. School facilities are provided after long-range goals and objectives are established. Because schools may last a very long time, they should be seen as community resources and architecture.  Therefore, long-range planning means searching for various possibilities in terms of program and economics – cost benefit analysis of all phases of a capital project need to be specified as a requirement in the long-range plan.  Expected student enrollment and value engineering are examples of two important aspects in the decision-making process for future school building projects, helping to circumvent errors that reduce benefits to learning, and that minimize overall costs.  But, long-range planning may be difficult to maintain in an atmosphere where school boards serve short terms, and chief school officers have ‘high turn over’ rates.  It becomes the responsibility of the community to guarantee that long-range goals and objectives are monitored and revised as leadership changes occur. 

We all know of sudden changes in direction of goals and possible reorganization when leadership at the top changes.  These changes certainly influence the development of school facilities.  When a new school superintendent is employed, we often hear about “reorganization and re-direction.”  According to Townsend (1970), reorganizing should be undergone about as often as major surgery (p. 146).   He exhorted the wisdom of Petronius Arbiter who stated, “I was to learn in life that we tend to meet each new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization” (p. 146).

Here I hope to have established a foundation for the reader to think about some formal way of planning - better than "muddling through".  In Part II other premises will be discussed.  They need to find a home in a formal planning process that you decide is best for your situation. 

References for the Model

Au, K. H. (1993).  Literacy Instruction in Multicultural Settings.  Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Bingler, S. (1995).  Place as a form of knowledge.  In A. Meek (Ed.), Designing Places for  Learning (pp. 23-30).  Alexandra, VA:  ASCD.

Carter, G. R., & Cunningham, W. G. (1997).  The American School Superintendent:  Leading in  an Age of Pressure.   San Francisco, CA:  Jossey-Bass Publications.

Castaldi, B. (1994).  Educational facilities: Planning, Modernizing, and Management (4^th ed.).   Boston, MA:  Allyn and Bacon.

Cuban, L. (1988).  The Managerial Imperative and the Practice of Leadership in Schools.   Albany, NY:  State University of New York Press.

Earthman, G. I. (2000).  Collaborative planning for school facilities and comprehensive land use.  Paper presented to the Stein & Schools Lecture Series: Policy, Planning, and Design for a  21^st Century Public Education System, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.

Earthman, G. I. (2000), Planning Educational Facilities for the Next Century.  Reston, VA:  ASBO.

Englehardt, N. L., Englehardt, N. L. Jr., & Leggett, S. (1956).  School Planning and Building Handbook.  New York:  F. W. Dodge Corporation.

Fielding, R. (1999).  The Death of the Classroom:  Learning Cycles and Roger Shank.  [11 Paragraphs]. [On-line]. http://www.designshare.com/Research/Schank/Schank1.html

Guide for Planning Educational Facilities (1969).  Columbus, OH:  Council of Educational Facility Planners.

Hall, E.,  & Handley, R. (2004).  High Schools in Crisis.  Westport, CN:  Praeger.

Johnson, S. M. (1996).  Leading to Change.  San Francisco, CA:  Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Kowalski, T. J. (1989).  Planning and Managing School facilities.  New York: Praeger.

Mauer, M. M. , & Davidson, G. S. (1998).  Leadership in Instructional Technology.  Columbus, OH:  Merrill.

McGuffy, C. W. (1973).  Systematic Planning for Educational Facilities. Chicago, IL:  Chicago  Board of Education.

Myers, N., & Robertson, S. (2004).  Creating Connections: The CEFPI Guide for Educational Facility Planning.  Scottsdale, AZ:  CEFPI.

Moore, G.T. and Lackney, J.A. (1994). Educational facilities for the twenty-first century:           Research analysis and design patterns. Report R94-1. Milwaukee, WI: Center for Architecture and Urban Planning Research, School of Architecture and Urban Planning,  University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee.

National School Boards Association (1998).  Technology & School Design:  Creating Spaces for Learning.  Alexandria, VA:  National School Boards Association.  Author.

Sanoff, H. (2000). Community Participation Methods in Design and Planning.  New York:  John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Slagle, M.  (2000).  GIS in community-based school planning:  A tool to enhance decision making, cooperation, and democratization in the planning process. Paper presented to the Stein & Schools Lecture Series: Policy, Planning, and Design for a 21^st Century Public Education System, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.

Sumption, M. R. (1952). How to Conduct a Citizens School Survey.  New York:  Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Tanner, C.K. and Lackney, J.A. (2006), Educational Facilities Planning: Leadership, Architecture, and Management, Allyn and Bacon, Boston, MA.

References

Taylor, A. (2000).  Programming and designing public schools within the context of community. Paper presented to the Stein & Schools Lecture Series: Policy, Planning, and Design for a 21^st Century Public Education System, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.

Townsend, R. (1971).  Up The Organization. New York:  Fawcett World Library.

U. S. Department of Education. (2000).  Schools as centers of community:  A citizens’ guide for planning and design  (Educational Publications Center, P. O. Box 1398, Jessup, MD 20794-1398).  Author.

Principles for Planning and Designing Schools

Principles for Planning and Designing Schools

My co author, the late Jeff Lackney developed a list of 33 principles of design that apply to schools.  Here I will share 11 of them and encourage you to seek our and discuss the others. This section is summarized from our book entitled Educational Facilities Planning (2006) published by Longman.  This is the draft version of part of our revised work.  I hope you will enjoy the material here as well as the following blogs and reflect on how these principles apply to your situation. Jeff was an architect and an intellectual, so none of the issues I raise in my blogs have gone without serious discussion with this master of words and design, my friend and colleague Dr. Jeff Lackney.  
Posted by Ken Tanner – June 2011

Principles for Site & Building Organization

Many of the principles for site and building organization have evolved from earlier forms but have taken on new significance in twenty-first century school design. For instance, neighborhood schools, a cornerstone of early nineteenth century schools has taken on new significance with controversies to end ‘forced’ busing in urban school districts as well as create smaller learning communities. There is a new emphasis on formalizing the learning that can take place within the surrounding community of the school. In addition, the size and scale of school buildings is being seriously challenged. Schools are becoming smaller and more intimate in many urban school centers. Finally, buildings are being organized in ways that help transition from smaller home environments that are safe, secure and inviting.

1. Plan Schools as Neighborhood-Scaled Community Learning Centers

The potential exists to transform the traditional school building into a community-learning center that serves the educational needs of the entire population in the community. Typically, a community-learning center can be created by interlacing residential neighborhoods, various existing community and school organizations, functions and facilities  (Bingler et al, 2003; Decker & Romney, 1994, August; US Dept of Ed., 1999, April; OECD, 1996). The community school most often functions as a cohesive facility or network of closely adjacent facilities (Hodgin, 1998, January; Fanning/Howey Associates, 1995). Locating the community-learning center in neighborhoods will provide a symbolic identity for that community. Facilities that are close to the neighborhoods of the children they serve provide opportunities for children to walk and bike with the added public health benefit of increasing their physical activity, rather than relying on more costly modes of transportation. Community schools often will provide a variety of services, at flexible schedules, accessible by people of different backgrounds. By providing facilities accessible for the entire community, the center will create increased involvement and awareness of the value of education (Warner & Curry, 1997). School facilities that act as true community centers serve the broader societal goals of providing the setting for meaningful civic participation and engagement at the local level.

2. Plan for Learning to Take Place Directly in the Community

A variety of social and economic factors have created an environment in which many educators recognize that learning happens all the time and in many different places (Duke, 1999, February). The school building is just one place learning takes occurs. While the school building is often perceived as a community center, the idea of embracing the whole community as a learning environment has evolved in a complementary fashion. Educational programs can, and are taking advantage of educational resources in urban, suburban and rural settings alike. Formal educational program partnerships have been established with museums, zoos, libraries, other public institutions, as well as local business workplace settings (Bingler et al, 2003; Fielding, 1999).

In addition, increasing costs of public spending for education has encouraged the sharing of school and community facilities that prevent cost duplication of similar facilities such as gymnasiums, auditoriums, performance spaces, and conferencing facilities (Fanning/Howey Associates, 1995; OECD, 1995, 1996). Sharing facilities can also realize long-term maintenance and operating cost savings over the life of the building. Sharing school facilities with a variety of community organizations may foster meaningful inter-organizational partnerships that can strengthen educational opportunities for learners.

3. Create Smaller Schools

Barker and Gump (1964) in their classic book “Big School, Small School” demonstrated through their research that small schools (100-150), in comparison with large schools (over 2,000) offer students greater opportunities to participate in extracurricular activities and to exercise leadership roles. In particular, they found that participation in school activities; student satisfaction, number of classes taken, community employment, and participation in social organizations have all been found to be greater in small schools relative to large schools. Garbarino (1980) later found that, small schools, on the order of 500 or less, have lower incidence of crime levels and less serious student misconduct. Subsequent research by others suggests a negative relationship between mathematics and verbal ability tests and elementary school size controlling for socio-economic differences  (Fowler, 1992; Howley, 1994, June).  Additionally, the same research indicates that smaller elementary schools particularly benefit African-American students’ achievement.

For educational planners and architects the research on small schools suggests that the size of learner groupings should be roughly between 60-75 students in pre-school, 200-400 students in elementary school, 400-600 in middle school and not more than 600-800 students in secondary school (Raywid, 1996, 1999; Lashway, 1998-99, Winter; Irmsher, 1997). If a community learning center must house more than 75 preschoolers, 400 elementary or middle-school students, or more than 800 high-school students, it is often recommended that the facility be decentralized not just in the size of student body, but also curriculum, administration and architecture. Architectural forms of these smaller units may include a village, campus, or multi-faceted building comprised of a series of interconnected schools-within-a-school for a maximum of 400 students. Another strategy for reducing the scale of educational facilities is to distribute and network various school and community functions throughout the neighborhood in both new and existing sites.

4. Respect Contextual Compatibility While Providing Design Diversity

As real estate development sprawl has expanded, the principle of creating well-defined neighborhoods has been ignored in urban planning. While a strong neighborhood may not directly influence educational performance, the sense of cohesion experienced by community members may help increase parental involvement in neighborhood schools. Research has shown that parental involvement in the school is critical to a learner’s success. By creating a contextually compatible school, people may feel that the school is part of the neighborhood, and in turn, part of them. While maintaining a sense of continuity through contextual design, creating diversely designed environments that have their own identity is equally important in enabling community members to recognize the school as a symbol of their community (Moore & Lackney, 1994).

Well-defined neighborhoods blend schools into the pattern and character of the local, surrounding community. In a complementary fashion, one might create differently styled schools with for example, variations on the overall design theme, to respond to the need for community identity and as a response to active parental, children, teachers, administration, and community participation (OECD, 1996).

5. Consider Home as a Template for School

The transition from the home setting to institutional settings such as the school environment can be stressful, especially for younger children in childcare settings. Experience tells us that building in physical and social home-like characteristics may reduce anxiety on the part of both parent and child, help children feel more comfortable and enable to concentrate on learning (Moore et. al., 1979).

Use friendly, "home-like" elements and materials in the design of the school at all scales when appropriate and possible (Crumpacker, 1995). Home-like characteristics might include: creating smaller groupings of students often called “families” in the middle school philosophy, designing appropriately-scaled elements, locating restrooms near instructional areas, providing friendly and welcoming entry sequences, creating residentially sloping roofs, and creating enclosed ‘back-yards’ (Moore et. al., 1979). Use familiar and meaningful elements from the surrounding residential neighborhood as the "template" for the imagery of the new school.

6. Meander Circulation While Ensuring Supervision

Providing for meaningful social interaction in schools is important in encouraging a positive school climate. Unfortunately in many large school buildings not all learners and faculty share a common room or floor where they can come into regular contact with each other. Often social anonymity can result. Many times the only meeting these occupants have is in areas of circulation. It is important to take advantage of these impromptu meetings by designing the circulation space within the school as a place to converse and share of information and ideas.

Simultaneously, public circulation space is known to be one of the most difficult places in a school to keep safe from illicit activity. The goals of encouraging positive social behaviors and reducing violence do not have to be mutually exclusive.  In fact, if appropriately addressed through design, encouraging positive behaviors can have a mediating effect on the reduction of unwanted social behaviors (Moore & Lackney, 1994).

Circulation pathways such as hallways and corridors are a costly percentage of a school building construction. However, circulation can double as an active learning space for the school. Whenever possible design meandering pathways to increase opportunities for social interaction. Use circulation to create gentle transitions from different spaces, taking advantage of turns and bends to create unique areas of learning. Conversely, for issues of safety, circulation paths should be designed to ensure adequate supervision not only by administrators, but also by students, teachers and parents to create a condition of natural surveillance that has been found to reduce disruptive behaviors (Crowe, 2000). Creating central activity nodes that connect short paths is one strategy for maintaining visual supervision without creating long institutional-style corridors (Moore et. al., 1979).

7. Design for Safe Schools

Safe school building designs must be seen as being one important component of a larger system of crime prevention in schools that include administrative procedures, student, staff, and community training programs, and the implementation of security programs and systems (Crowe, 2000; Schneider, Walker & Sprague, 2000; Cornell, 1999). Design and use of the environment directly affects human behavior that in turn, influences opportunities for crime and fear of crime, and impacts quality of life (Department of Education & Department of Justice, 1998, August). These opportunities for crime can be reduced through appropriate planning and design decisions.

Crowe (2000) in his highly influential book, Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, identifies three critical safe school design principles include access control, natural surveillance, and definition of territory. Natural access control denies access to a crime target and creates a perception of risk in offenders. Access control uses doors, shrubs, fences, gates and other physical design elements to discourage access to an area by all but its intended users. Surveillance is commonly solved through hthe use of surveillance camera technologies, which may or may not be monitored. As an important adjunct to these systems, providing for natural surveillance assures that offenders and intruders will know they are being observed. It increases the likelihood that individuals who care but are not officially responsible for regulating the use of space will observe these individuals and either challenge their behavior or report it to someone who is officially responsible. Natural surveillance is achieved by placing windows in locations that allow intended users to see or be seen, while ensuring that intruders will be observed as well. Opportunities for surveillance are enhanced through the provision of adequate lighting and glass and landscaping that allow for unobstructed views. Locate administrative areas directly adjacent to the main entrance to the school. Territorial reinforcement suggests that physical design can contribute to a sphere of influence so that users develop a sense of "ownership" that is perceived by offenders. Territory can be defined by the use of sidewalks, landscaping, porches and other elements that establish the boundaries between public and private areas.

Principles for Primary Educational Space

Based in large part on changes in curriculum and instruction, primary educational spaces are changing as well. Although many of these innovations in primary learning and instructional space began over forty years ago, they are beginning to become standard practice in new school designs. Instructional spaces are being clustered to form smaller learning communities of either same grade or multi-grade configurations. Additional space is often being provided that is shared by these clusters of learning areas. The recognition that there are a variety of learning styles precipitates the provision of a variety of learning groupings and spaces beyond the traditional self-contained classroom. Class sizes have become smaller to increase contact time with teachers. The need to provide enough space within the primary learning area for resource-rich activity areas is now seen as critical to development. The desirability of integrating early childhood education into the traditional school grade configuration has become more pronounced with the advent of the implications of brain-based research for learning in the early years.

8. Cluster Learning Areas

A central concept of clustering learning spaces around central cores of shared instructional support and resource spaces emerged in the early 1960s and remains a sound strategy for school design today (Brubaker, 1998; OECD, 1996). When clustered around larger resource spaces, learning spaces act as learning alcoves rather than the isolated self-contained classrooms of the past. The core should include informal meeting space, seminar and shared conference rooms, a small computer hub and teacher offices.

Open-plan designs of the 1960’s and 1970s may have been partially successful at broadening the educational experience of learners, but both teachers and learners found that too many physical distractions were experienced for these open physical settings to become the norm (Weinstein, 1979). The key to new clustering arrangements then, is to provide spaces that are open yet have areas of enclosure for more task specific activities.  These spaces will then be diverse in use but not have the sight and sound distractions experienced with open plan schools (Moore and Lackney, 1994).

The concept of the cluster of instructional spaces is adaptable to a number of pedagogical goals and curriculum and instructional philosophies and strategies (Taylor & Vlastos, 1983; Sanoff & Sanoff, 1988). For instance, each cluster may support either traditional disciplinary teaching such as history, mathematics, and the arts, or interdisciplinary teaching that supports thematic learning units. Each cluster may contain either grade-level groupings, or multi-age groupings of learners. To maximize the agility of instructional clusters one may use any appropriate combination of stand alone movable partitions, movable modular furnishings, or large door openings to shared core spaces.

9. Provide Space for Sharing Instructional Resources

For educators to be successful, the availability of resources by students and faculty is important. Students that do not have access to learning spaces, resources, and teachers will be at a disadvantage. The reality of limited physical and economic resources in school settings demands the sharing of all available instructional resources. One way to address this concern is to provide a well-defined area directly adjacent to instructional alcoves and core spaces that provide technology-rich resources that can be shared by all learners in an instructional cluster (OECD, 1996). Resources can take a wide variety of forms from small, specialized libraries, information technology and other instructional media to special equipment and general workspace (Chupela, 1994; Feinberg, Kuchner & Feldman, 1998). By creating instructional areas that have direct accessibility to these resources, the learning process will be supported.

10. Design for a Variety of Learning Groups and Spaces

Learning naturally takes place in many different kinds and qualities of space. Although the self-contained classroom continues to have a role in facilitating instruction in schools, it can no longer provide the variety of learning settings necessary to successfully facilitate innovations in curriculum and instruction (Crumpacker, 1995; Meek, 1995). Space needs to accommodate, for instance, a wide variety of group learning sizes from an entire “family” of 100 learners, to five groups of twenty learners, to groups of twelve, four to six, and one to two learners. One approach to this problem is to create a variety of adjoining learning spaces and arrangements inside and outside the main instructional space or area. Another approach might be to create partially open space with appropriate visual and acoustical barriers, with adjacent, smaller, enclosed spaces (Taylor & Vlastos, 1983; Sanoff & Sanoff, 1988). In this manner, smaller learning spaces are separated yet connected. Articulate each cluster of instructional areas by gathering several small-group learning areas around the main instructional space for large-group instruction. Each of the small group areas can be further divided into individual activity areas to allow for quiet, individualized self-directed learning (Weinstein & Mignano, 1997; Weinstein, 1996; McMillan, 1997).

11. Keep Class Sizes Small

The size of the primary learning group in which the child spends the most time makes a significant difference in the quality of education and development (Crumpacker, 1995; NAEYC, 1999). Create instructional areas that allow for 12-16 learners in early childhood and elementary grade levels, 16-20 learners in middle school grade levels, and 20-24 learners in secondary school grade levels. Class size research points directly to a social and physical link to achievement (Department of Education, 1999, March; U.S. Dept of Education, 1998, April). In one of the largest longitudinal studies of class size to be conducted, the Tennessee Student Teacher Area Ratio (STAR) Project, (Achilles, 1992; Finn & Achilles, 1990) found that children in smaller classes (13-17 per room) outperform those in regular-sized classes (22-25 per room). In the early grades, children in smaller classes were found to outperform children from regular class sizes in all subjects, but especially in reading and mathematics test scores with average improvements of up to 15%. Smaller classes were especially helpful for children in inner-city schools. A follow-up study by Achilles and his associates, called the Lasting Benefits Study (Nye, Achilles, Zacharias, Fulton & Wallenhorst,1992, November) indicated that students previously in small classes demonstrated statistically significant advantages two years later over students previously in regular sized classes. Performance gains ranged from 11-34%. Reasons for these gains may be that, more and higher quality student-teacher interactions are possible in a smaller class (Bourke, 1986), and that spatial density and crowding are also reduced thereby decreasing distractions in the classroom (Loo, 1976).

Reference

NOTE: Some of the links in our book may be inactive, but insert the key words and you will find your answer in the Internet,  If not on the net, then  look for the hard copies of planning and design materials that are found around the world in libraries and professor’s offices.

Primary Source, with permission: Tanner, C.K. and Lackney, J.A. (2006), Educational Facilities Planning: Leadership, Architecture,

and Management, Allyn and Bacon, Boston, MA.