Planning Educational Facilities For The Next Century

This book takes a systematic approach to planning educational facilities, discussing in detail each phase of the process of planning capital projects and the responsibilities of those in the schools who make decisions regarding the buildings in which students learn. The book also speaks to the moral responsibility of educators to ensure students are in safe, functional, and efficient structures. Planning Educational Facilities for the Next Century covers it all, from planning, to hiring the architect, to managing the construction phase.

This book covers the entire planning process educators must employ to adequately administer the planning process for a new or renovated school building. The structure of the book is to follow a sequential planning process for a new school building or renovation project from the beginning of a need for a new school to the final evaluation of the planning product and planning process. In addition to complete chapters describing each planning process, there are auxiliary chapters devoted to topics important to the planning process such as Green Schools, Critical Issues, and Safe Buildings. A unique chapter is the last one dealing with Problem-Based Learning. In this chapter problems from actual experience in the field are presented to students for consideration and discussion.

This handbook examines the relationship between school buildings and educational performance. Following the introductory chapter, chapter 2 presents findings from empirical studies that have examined the building/performance issue. Research has demonstrated that the physical setting has both direct and mediated effects on prosocial and achievement outcomes. Chapter 3 presents an ecological model that accounts for physical, psychological, and social environmental factors that affect student outcomes. The fourth chapter offers an analysis based on a review of empirical research, architectural literature, and educational reform literature to inductively develop a set of 27 design patterns. Two patterns based on environment-behavior research are highlighted--small schools and well-defined activity pockets. Chapter 5 discusses implications from the educational reform literature. The complete set of 27 patterns is presented in the sixth chapter. Chapter 7 presents an example that uses patterns to create a prototypical design for a new type of educational facility. The final chapter focuses on the earlier stages of the facility development process, those of feasibility and planning. A reconceptualization of an existing educational facility planning model is offered. A total of 42 figures and 1 table are included. (LMI)

Planning Educational Facilities: What Educators Need to Know is a book about planning and the responsibilities educators have in the process of planning for educational facilities. The book covers every aspect of planning that needs to be done to complete any capital improvement project from the assessment of need to the evaluation of the product and process. The text is the most comprehensive book on planning educational facilities on the market. Each planning process is described in detail explaining the role of the superintendent and school personnel. Descriptions of the various means of contracting with a firm for the construction of a building of the completion of a capital improvement project is provided with a discussion of the benefits and problems involved. The book also contains a chapter devoted to problem-based learning activities which were derived from practical situations. These activities provide a very practical experience of solving typical problems in the planning process. This text can be used by the practitioner as a guide to follow in planning educational facilities. It can also be used as a text in a school planning course.

This book can be used as a graduate school text for courses in school buildings and facilities. It is probably more suitable as a guide for practitioners especially school district superintendents in small to medium sized school districts. Such districts make up the majority of school districts in this country. Lunenburg and Ornstein (1996) reported that 38% of the 15,000+ school districts in America enroll fewer than 1,000 students; and another 37% enroll from 1,000 to 5,000 students. America is a country of relatively small school districts. The book opens with a brief overview of the history of twentieth century school buildings and moves from there into a brief discussion of the requirements of today’s school buildings as integral parts of the communities they serve. Citizens need to understand problems and issues involving their school buildings. Understandings are reached through practice of positive relations between school and community. Good public relations facilitates mobilization of the public to assure that school buildings ultimately serve the publics’ interests.

This fully updated Second Edition offers an unflinching and comprehensive overview of the full range of both practical and theoretical issues facing educational leadership today. Editor Fenwick W. English and 30 renowned authors boldly address the most fundamental and contested issues in the field, including culturally relevant and distributed leadership; critical policy and practice issues predicting the new century's conflict; the paradox of changes; and the promises, paradoxes, and pitfalls of standards for educational leaders.