Assessing the Fit between Educational Programs and Older Buildings
Jeffery A. Lackney, Ph.D., A.I.A.
A Presentation delivered at the School Facilities Pre-conference Workshop, Pupil Transportation Administrators' Conference, April 21-23, 1999, Jackson, MS.
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As we move into the next millennium, changing societal expectations for public education threaten to completely restructure our paradigms of what constitutes an education.
We joke about change and assume that things the more they change the more they stay the same. Now we need to think: "the more we think things stay the same the bigger the change will be when we get hit over the head with it". In other words, we just can't assume things will remain the same in education.
Drivers of educational system change include developments in technology, whole schoolreform models, governance reforms, accountability and standards movements, as well as advances in curriculum and instructional models to accommodate what we know about how children learn.
We don't think too much about all these things when we are planning and managing school facilities. After all bricks and mortar is bricks and mortar right?
The real cold fact is that school facilities continue to stubbornly assert increasingly obsolete educational models of the Industrial Age.
And our teachers and kids keep telling us something is wrong. With the size of the classes, the lack of flexibility, lack of technology, well, its just not fun place to be. And we ignore it for the most part. Their criticisms don't fit our way of thinking of bricks and mortar, of cleanliness, of cost. They will just have to do with what they have.
These changes are threatening to make our buildings completely obsolete. We might not see it all coming now. But there are many examples around the country and as I visit districts within the state of Mississippi, there are more and more examples of schools addressing these pressing demands on facilities.
How are antiquated school facilities to accommodate these rapidly shifting changes in our educational system?
Faced with limited resources, a school district's first option is to look at the feasibility of altering its existing facilities.
First, you can do nothing. (60% due to cost as well as the lack of will to change in the community)
Second, you can renovate existing with cosmetic changes and deal with deferred maintenance (20%)
Third, you could make alterations and additions to existing that begin to address some educational issues (10%)
Fourth, you could build brand new facilities to accommodate all potential changes (5%)
Fifth, you could begin to work with the community to create shared community-based and virtual learning facilities (1%)
We might argue that your district needs to take into account the financial realities but also create a plan that addresses every level of intervention (Similar to Maslow's hierarchy of needs).
This presentation focuses on the issues that face school districts when considering the option of altering existing facilities to accommodate changes in education,
Objectives
1. WHY? Big picture argument
2. WHAT? Make sense of the issues
3. HOW? Process for doing analysis of need
And describes a process for developing unique solutions using case studies.
PROCESS
1. Educational needs assessment - anticipate change
2. Technical systems assessment - maintenance and life cycle cost issues, building systems
3. Facilities in support of learning assessment - user analysis of the supportiveness of the facility for teaching and learning activities
4. Educational design model development - research and development of the state-of-the-art facility, the ideal model to be tested against existing facilities, this is a visioning process
5. Analysis of model against assessment of existing facilities
6. Developing a facility strategy - scope, phasing, cost, action plan
7. Marketing the plan, sharing the vision
