Guest Viewpoint: A strong foundation for student success

By Thomas A. Kube

9/28/04 -- Our students, teachers, and principals find themselves under intense pressure to raise academic achievement. We continue to see a strong focus on test scores and accountability. Yet if we are serious about improving the performance of our schools, we also need to make sure that students and educators have the right resources -- and a learning environment built for student success.

Research has shown that students learn more in healthy, high-quality school facilities. We need school facilities that are an inspiration rather than an obstacle to excellence in the classroom.

Schools must be well built and well maintained and have good air quality and natural lighting. They must offer sufficient space to accommodate the functional requirements of today's instructional programs.

Today we are investing more resources than ever before in school construction and renovation. We have, therefore, an enormous opportunity to get it right -- to construct and care for the kind of schools that can make a positive difference in students' lives.

We can build and maintain school facilities that make it more likely good teachers will stay on the job rather than seek another profession.

We can plan, design, and create schools that are available to the community -- for recreation or health needs, lectures and other forms of adult learning, civic meetings, and cultural events. In this fashion, we can build new links between schools and neighborhoods and even anchor community development.

We can build schools that serve the community in other important ways, as well, by following principles of energy efficiency, environmental protection, and historic preservation.

When we use "sustainable school design," we prepare for the future and pay respect to the past. We conserve resources such as energy and water, minimize waste, lower costs for operation and maintenance, consider the impact on transportation and other infrastructure systems, and honor our community's traditions through historic preservation.

Sustainable design also emphasizes life-cycle costs for the school building and its components -- a framework that enables the school district to achieve long-term cost savings.

We also need to make sure that school facilities are designed and built to accommodate the challenging and wide-ranging curriculum our students need.

For example, unless we are willing to accept lower expectations for students in low-income neighborhoods, we need to insist that schools in every community provide up-to-date science labs and equipment. And we need to recognize the importance of music and art education in children's development by making these parts of the curriculum a vital part of school design.

School planning also ought to take into account one of the most serious health issues in America today -- the growing crisis of childhood obesity. While this problem springs from multiple sources and will require multiple solutions, it is clear that one fundamental cause of obesity is the inadequate attention often given to exercise in children's lives.

Playgrounds and athletic fields contribute to the healthy development of children. In designing schools, we should assign a high priority to physical education and exercise.

Giving today's students a strong foundation for promising careers and healthy lives is certainly a matter of interest not only to the parents of these students but to the wider community as well.

Clearly the community has a vital stake in promoting energy efficiency, environmental protection, and historic preservation. School planners and school boards can work together effectively to engage the community in the process of planning and designing schools.

Collaboration is essential to defining a new vision for school buildings and revitalizing communities. When school design professionals and public officials invite broad participation in the school planning process, there is a greater likelihood of community support for the project.

Citizens who find that their involvement and ideas are welcomed are more likely to back school bond proposals and to tell their neighbors to support them, as well. In addition, a process that solicits a wide variety of voices could generate innovative solutions to educational and community needs.

This idea of collaboration and broad participation is at the heart of a new publication from the Council of Educational Facility Planners International (CEFPI). Creating Connections: The CEFPI Guide for Educational Facility Planning is an effective tool for achieving consensus and building high-quality schools through community involvement.

The guide is a revised edition of a publication that has served as the model for developing comprehensive educational facility plans since the early 1900s. It focuses on best practices in educational facility planning and offers models, strategies, and research that have been tested in communities around the country.

Creating Connections is especially valuable for school board members, who cannot be expected to serve as experts in every facet of the school planning process. It provides practical advice on the master planning process, including needs assessment, demographic studies, enrollment studies, and educational specifications.

The kind of schools we build -- and the way we build them -- is a very visible expression of our commitment to the values of a democratic society.

Certainly the role of school board members is critical in the area of school facilities. School board members have the responsibility of forging consensus and generating support for investment in our schools.

While it is often difficult given deadline and budgetary pressures, school board members can help their constituents imagine and achieve the kind of schools where building design inspires learning.

School board members can be the leading edge for investment and innovation, for sustainable design and new community connections, and for creating schools that proudly define a community and shape its future.

Public education is a hallmark of our democracy. A comprehensive and inclusive process of school planning will help to put the public back in public education.

It will lessen the cynicism that diminishes support for education and reduces civic participation. It will strengthen the links between schools and communities at a time when the rush of modern life has weakened those bonds.

Most important, it will help us to build the kind of healthy, high-performance schools that open up new worlds of possibility for every student.