Kenneth Trump, president of Cleveland-based consulting firm National School Safety and Security Services, has 25 years of experience at public and private schools in urban, suburban and rural settings. He has worked with jurisdictions in all 50 states and has authored several books and articles on school safety. He discussed the topic with School Construction News during a phone interview.

Q: What are your thoughts on swine flu in regards to safety and security at school facilities?

A: I am not a health expert, but I do know that schools have been encouraged for several years to have pandemic emergency plans in place for pandemic flu situations. It’s something that schools should have had on their radar for several years, and it is part of the requirements and recommendations for federal school emergency planning grants.

When the recent swine flu incident hit, it shouldn’t have been a surprise. Schools should have had some guidelines at least to help them get started to approach the situation in a cognitive, rational manner, rather than an emotional, knee-jerk manner.

Unfortunately, we saw too many schools that panicked and made knee-jerk reactions. It appeared they did not have plans in place and were flying by the seat of their pants.

Fortunately, things seemed to level off a bit once schools connected with their local public health officials and started making joint, rational, sound decisions based on the expertise of the public health community.

Those partnerships need to be established ahead of time. You can’t write a crisis plan or a pandemic plan while the crisis is happening. Largely, we saw that schools were not specifically responding to the threat, but in a knee-jerk manner to parental fear, anxiety and hype.

Q: Do you think most schools have pandemic and crisis-communications plans?

A: I don’t think they do. Most schools have some type of crisis plan, but they don’t have a crisis-communication plan. Also, crisis plans often sit on a shelf collecting dust instead of being tested, updated and exercised with staff training.

Q: What are the key components for a crisis-communications plan?

A: Schools need to identify their key constituents internally and externally. Schools also need to have multiple mechanisms in place for communicating. They need mass parent-notification systems, but they should also update a Web site and PA announcements. Some schools are also looking at social networking.

The key is to have multiple mechanisms for communicating during a crisis because people get information from different sources. Schools also need to have consistency with messages across different platforms, and there should be someone responsible for writing and approving messages.

Q: The 10-year anniversary of the Columbine shooting was this year. Has security improved since that tragedy?

A: Schools have a more heightened sense of awareness since the pre-Columbine era.

The progress momentum during the first couple of years after Columbine was pretty strong.

However, that momentum has stalled and is moving backward for several reasons.

School safety officials are struggling against a shortage of time and money, and in many cases, they are losing on both counts.

There is de-creased federal and state grants and funding for school safety. Reduced school budgets and funding for academics compete with school safety funding, and there is also a competition for time.

There is so much pressure on school administrators to improve test scores that there is a continuously decreasing amount of time for the delivery of prevention programs for students, counseling, mental health support, professional training for staff and other safety strategies.

There is also less time for school crisis teams to do the nuts-and-bolts legwork and train for their crisis plans.

Schools are certainly safer and doing more than the pre-Columbine era, but there are some very serious challenges, obstacles and impediments that are prohibiting schools from being as far advanced as they should be.

Q: Can schools make security improvements without a big financial and time investment?

A: A lot of the things that need to be done require more time than they do money. School safety has to be a leadership issue and a priority for the superintendent down to the building principal in order for it to filter down to teachers, support staff and the school community.

There has to be determination by leaders and a philosophy that it is not an issue of school safety versus academics. School security and academics need to go hand in hand.

School boards and school administrators have to stop looking at school security as a grant-funded luxury. Schools need to include at least some reasonable security expenses into their operating budget, depending on the school district and school within that district.

It’s amazing how often school districts have no line items or any funding for school security or professional training. That’s not going to be acceptable in the eyes of parents, the media and potentially a judge or a jury when schools get sued for negligence after an incident.

Q: What do you see for the future of school security?

A: Unfortunately, at least in the short term, there are not a lot of indicators of significant change in terms or reducing the trends of budget and time shortages. In fact, in his 2010 budget, the president has called for a net reduction of $184 million in school safety funding.

As we sit 10 years after Columbine, it’s amazing that the president and Congress are not reversing the trend of the last 10 years that continually cut school safety funding.

Until we see school safety back on the agenda in rhetoric and funding, we are not going to see those trends reversed. There is a gross lack of leadership at the state and federal levels.

The bright spots are going to have to occur at the local level. It’s up to local school boards, superintendents, building principals and others at the front line to exercise leadership and take a proactive approach.

National School Safety and Security Services

The post Q&A: Crisis Communications appeared first on School Construction News.

O’Donnell

Sean O’Donnell, principal at New York-based Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn Architects, has more than 15 years of experience in architecture, with a focus on designing learning environments.

O’Donnell founded and serves as the chair of the AIA/DC Committee on Architecture for Education and has served as a juror for the National School Board Association’s Learning by Design awards, the Virginia School Board Association Design Awards, the Council of Educational Facilities Planners, International’s National School Building Week and the Richard Riley Award.

In June, he will lead a workshop at the School Building Expo that will focus on School Without Walls, an urban Washington, D.C., high school that is integrated on the George Washington University campus. He discussed the project and adaptive reuse with School Construction News during a phone interview from his Washington office.

Q: How does adaptive reuse fit into the economy today?

A: I think it is certainly an appropriate strategy, regardless of the economy. There are often constraints, particularly in urban settings, in choosing sites for a new school. Reuse of existing sites and buildings makes a lot of sense, and plays into a number of factors, including cost-effectiveness, sustainability, the neighborhood schools movement.

A school we just finished in Manhattan, for example, was a nurses residence for an eye, ear and throat hospital. That is now an elementary school. Adapting a seven-story nurses residence made a lot of sense in the context of Manhattan. The dynamics of the real estate market in New York, Washington and Los Angeles lend themselves to the reuse of existing buildings.

Q: What components should administrators look for if they want to convert a building that was not designed as a school?

A: They should look for a number of factors, including the relationship with the community being served and physical proximity. It’s a matter of evaluating the building for its educational adequacy and making sure that it can serve the educational program well.

Children play on the roof of a converted nurses residence that now serves as Elementary School PS 59 in Manhattan.

You may look at loft buildings, which have a relatively flexible structural grid and reasonable floor-to-floor heights. The building that I sited for the elementary school had a very tight floor-to-floor height of 12 feet, 6 inches. We could make that work, but an increased floor-to-floor height would be more opportune to accommodate modern mechanical systems and other building systems needed to support the educational program.

The size of the floor plate is critical. You don’t want it to be too deep and you want to be able to provide natural light throughout the building. One of the other things that we look at in urban areas is the number of floors in the building. You want to make sure that vertical circulation works well.

Access to other spaces that you need for educational facilities that might not fit within the building should also be a consideration. There was no gymnasium at the nurses residence, so we had to be creative and create a gymnasium at the top floor of that building. The roof was removed and extended upward to create a double-height space that was clear of columns.
It takes a bit of creativity and quantitative analysis, and also a bit of due-diligence to find the various opportunities that might be available to one particular school.

Q: Is it often challenging to install the IT components needed for schools during a reuse project?

A: We haven’t had any issues integrating modern educational technology. The catch, in some instances, is the floor-to-floor height, which can make it difficult to install all of the building support systems that are needed if there is not enough space.

A lot of schools are moving to wireless Internet, so it just becomes an issue of distribution points throughout the building. It’s relatively easy. If you can get the mechanical system in place and start working other systems around it, you’ve pretty much got it made for adapting a building.

Q: Is there one challenge that poses the greatest problem to convert a building into a school facility?

A: It’s a challenge to make sure the horizontal and vertical constraints are correct for the teaching environment. You have to have the right proportions so students and faculty can communicate well in small or large groups. You also have to make sure sight lines are good.

O’Donnell says a floor plate that allows natural light is crucial for reuse projects.

The public spaces have to be adequately sized to make sure people can move throughout the building. Part of education is out-of-classroom learning, as well. You must accommodate places to talk and display areas.

A lot of this is derived from the structural system of the building, with some buildings being more flexible than others. Load-bearing walls present challenges because they are harder to modify. Buildings that have load-bearing masonry walls in the interior can be the most challenging to adapt, but it’s not impossible if the proportions are right.

Q: Obviously, avoiding construction of a new building is good for the environment. Are there other less apparent green benefits with adaptive reuse?

A: The reuse of a building is inherently sustainable, and all of the certification systems acknowledge the reuse of material as an important contributor to sustainability.

Other components could be transit-oriented, especially if the project is in a dense neighborhood. Natural light is also an important factor. Oftentimes, you can also reuse a lot of finishes from the building and there is the opportunity for sustainability with mechanical systems.

Q: Adaptive reuse is not widespread with school facilities. Do you think it is a building technique that is going to grow?

A: I think so. With a lot of the districts that we are working with, real estate is becoming more expensive and finding greenfield sites is becoming increasingly difficult, even in suburban environments. In the past few years, development companies bought up any properties they could and oftentimes schools couldn’t compete.

I think being creative and continuing to allow a building to evolve through its lifecycle is a trend we are starting to see emerge, particularly in New York. Charter schools have been doing a lot with this, as well.

It’s definitely something that I expect to continue in the future, and I think the pressure to solve demographic needs will drive people to be more creative and look at the existing building stock.

Q: You are planning to discuss School Without Walls at the School Building Expo in June. What is the concept behind that project?

A: School Without Walls is a small urban high school that was created with the philosophy of using the city as its classroom. In the 1970s, school officials selected a 19th century elementary school building for the high school campus. That building happened to be in the midst of George Washington University’s campus.

Over time, the boundaries have blurred between the two campuses, allowing for a very strong programmatic relationship. Students take classes at the university and the university uses the high school classrooms for after-hours courses. The high school students also use the university’s gymnasium, food services and research library.

The programmatic ties evolved so strongly that the school is now an integral part of the university campus. However, over time the high school facility suffered from severe deferred maintenance and it was also smaller than what they needed programmatically. It was becoming very cramped and crowded, and people were growing to dislike the facility.

Q: What was planned with the expansion?

A: The idea was to create an innovative joint-development project with the university that included selling the high school’s parking lot to the university, which was used for a new residence hall. That transaction, in turn, funded a substantial portion of the modernization and the expansion of School Without Walls.

We took the approximately 32,000-square-foot building and modernized it and we are building an addition that is about the same size adjacent to it. It includes all of the new technology and systems that they didn’t have before, while building on the inherent qualities of the early 19th century facility that were small and residentially scaled. It is small and intimate, while allowing for natural light and places to gather informally.

Q: Were there security concerns with the university’s residence hall sitting adjacent to the school?

A: It is a through-block site, so our door is on one side of the block and the entrance to the residence hall is on the other. The buildings abut each other with completely separate entrances.

Sight lines between the two sites were a concern because the school has a roof terrace that is adjacent to the residence hall courtyard. We had to consider the possibility of sight lines that were inappropriate, so we ended up getting a green screen with vegetation that will prevent direct site lines between the two sites.

However, the key to the school is it is a part of the university and the students from the high school feel like they are transitioning easily to higher education. We want them to meet university students on the street and in public spaces.

Q: Is the high school used as a lab environment for education students at the university?

A: It’s not a lab high school, which some colleges have. They are peers in many ways. The university’s school of education is right next door, which allows teaching opportunities for students in that department.

Q: Do you see this type of collaboration happening with other schools?

A: I think it’s definitely a trend that will continue, and I would think that any urban university or school district would have an interest in making these kinds of relationships and blurring the boundaries. The joint programming and technology can be mutually beneficial. It’s a win-win for both sides in everyway, and it really should become a model for the country.

Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn Architects

The post Q & A Mar/Apr 2009 – Adaptive Economics appeared first on School Construction News.

The tech-savvy, praise-happy Millennial generation is here and its members want more out of the university housing experience than other generations. In order to attract and retain students, higher education institutions must learn a new model for student housing, according to architects Christopher Hill, principal of CBT/Childs/Bertman Tseckares Inc., and Janet Stegman, principal of Stegman + Associates.

Hill and Stegman spoke at the Society for College and University Planning annual conference workshop “Housing Trends of the 21st Century: Addressing Today’s Student Expectations.” They discussed the topic with School Construction News during a phone interview.

Q: What are some trends in student expectations for student housing?

Janet Stegman (JS): The students who are coming to school right now, Millennials, have grown up with a fair amount of privacy and some privilege. Their expectations are formed by the market and what they see in popular cultural. These students are very connected and communicative and they see themselves as part of a global society. They want a lot of personal privacy, but they also want to be part of a bigger community where they can communicate and work and be engaged.

Christopher Hill (CH): A lot of the work that we do for design and programming is built around creating and reinforcing communities. Campuses are now being populated with students from all over the world and these different students come with different cultural backgrounds and different ways of relating to each other. Universities and colleges are struggling to find out how to create a sense of a universal quality to their campus and residential life.

One building type or program does not fit for all cultures. We’ve seen a desire to create a more flexible, universal type of accommodation for programming within a building. Many more common spaces come into vogue as well.

Q: What are some of the concepts you incorporate with common spaces?

JS: We incorporate smart, multi-functional spaces in classrooms and lounges. Anywhere where you have wireless Internet connectivity, you can provide places to study and little pods of activity. If anything, we are trying to be judicious in allocation of common spaces.

CH: The learning experience is not limited to the classroom and every place is a place to learn. Common areas include spaces were small and large groups can meet to study. Classrooms within residential halls are en vogue and other study areas on the first floor.

Q: What are the most common nontraditional study spaces?

CH: We see more impromptu study spaces, such as a fattened corridor or window seats that might be adjacent to a room or near an entry. Staircases are places to meet and greet. We have done a number of exterior stairs that have been fattened to create a place to sit, hang out or gather.

When we do study rooms, we try to incorporate a lot of glass for outside views and for the corridor so there is connectivity between the residence hall and the circulation and movement. They can see what’s happening and going on; it’s not an isolated, closed-off environment.

Q: What are some of the recreation and athletic concepts that are applied to residence halls?

JS: Rooms that are setup for video games are much more multi-functional to allow for flexibility. It’s not just a room full of arcade games, and the space can be used for other purposes.

Residence halls are installing smaller athletic and recreating facilities that complement the campus’ larger facilities. It’s more of a body shop concept that does not require monitoring — weight machines instead of free weights — that can take up very little space.

Students operate at all hours, and the smaller athletic facilities allow them to jump on a treadmill at 2 a.m. after studying. You can incorporate a limited number of machines and keep them nonsupervised.

CH: Music practice rooms can also allow students to play guitar or piano. It’s another outlet for recreation that takes up a relatively small amount of space.

The best strategy is to combine common spaces to concentrate the energy instead of dispersing it. Some architects distribute amenities throughout the building, thinking that it creates a lot of activity. It actually decentralizes the energy and creates isolated spots where things get territorialized or damaged. We are really trying to keep those common spaces near the central core of circulation so that they are used and they create chance encounters and a sense of security.

JS: We are also trying to make laundry rooms more social. We are bringing them up out of the basement wherever possible and linking them to fitness areas, game rooms or a lounge. There is a lot more of a retail aesthetic that we are trying introduce into residence halls.

CH: In all of our laundries, we have a lot of glass so occupants can participate visually with the space that’s next to the laundry room. Washers are also incorporating electronic notifications that send a message to a laptop that tells the person when their laundry is done.

Q: Some of these amenities sound expensive. Have you seen a big cost increase?

JS: Building costs have increased in staggering ways. When we concentrate activities and make spaces flexible, we are also trying to get reduced redundancy with spaces. Providing overlapping activities is a way of doing that.

CH: In the past, the residence hall was basically a double-loaded barracks. Now, to be competitive, most campuses are turning away from that aesthetic and looking at Millennial desires to have more independence and privacy in their living environment.

The common spaces are larger than they were in the 1960s and 1970s, which has driven the costs up. In past, residence halls were probably the least expensive building on campuses. Now, they cost as much as labs and classrooms. Schools are somewhat forced to compete in the market to get the brightest and best students.

The other phenomenon is the factor of parents in the design-making process. They are very involved with where their students are going. The term “helicopter parent” has been used to define their activity — they hover over their sons and daughters.

Q: Is the trend for more amenities in residential halls going to continue?

JS: It’s going to continue with caveat. I think we may get more European with our space allocations and the way we use space.

CH: It will be more multi-functional within smaller spaces.

JS: Flexibility will allow schools to kind of hedge their bets. It appears that parents will continue to be more involved and we are going to be asked to be more judicious, cost-effective and smart about what we deliver.

CH: There is more construction still to happen at residential facilities because a lot of campuses have not renovated or kept up with the demand. It’s becoming a marketing point. As the economy starts to level off, you will probably see a little more renovation occurring. Schools will look at their existing stock and renovate or reposition their facilities.

You are going to continue to see a lot of common spaces. I don’t think it’s going to go back to a double-loaded layout that was designed just as a place to sleep. You can’t go back to the farm once you’ve seen Paris.

Q: It sounds like an interesting time to be an architect.

CH: It is exciting because it has become a more interesting building type. Before, it was, “If we build it, they will come.” Now, if you don’t build it a certain way they are not going to come; they are going to go someplace else. It has become a competitive, benchmarking piece between institutions. As a result, the architectural programming and designs have reached the level of some of the other more academic and donor-driven facilities that have traditionally been the vanguards to attract students.

The post Q&A Nov/Dec 2008 – Housing for the Next Generation appeared first on School Construction News.

Flooring is the one component of school facilities that is unavoidable — everyone comes in contact with it.

Materials can greatly impact the overall aesthetic of school facilities and maintenance and operational requirements. Three flooring experts at leading flooring companies discussed the topic with School Construction News: Casey Johnson, national sales manager at Frobo; John Gayhart, Southwest regional sales manager at Mondo; and Kent Clauson, general manager of marketing at Armstrong.

Q: How does the School flooring market look right now?

Casey Johnson (CJ): For Forbo it’s been very good. It’s been very strong so far this summer.

John Gayhart (JG): It’s been our busiest summer and we’re trying to take advantage of it. With the economy, we’re not sure what 2009 and 2010 are going to bring, but everything right now for the education market is very good.

Kent Clauson (KC): The education construction market continues to grow. This year, a record number of students applied for college — the baby boomers’ babies — and that number will continue to climb. Colleges have never been more competitive, and that includes everything from offering the finest amenities to using the best architecture and design.

Q: Are there any specific areas of the market or regions that are bringing a lot of business?

CJ: Most regions are doing some form of school construction and we certainly benefited from bond issues and the freeing of some funds. We’ve been strong across the United States.

JG: For us it’s been really isolated to the South and Southwest. The Midwest, Northeast and Southeast probably are not as fruitful right now as the South and Southwest.

KC: We’re seeing a lot of activity in the Southeast, Northeast and South-west. Hurricane damage in the Southeast means more rebuilding; growing populations and aging structures in the Northeast contribute to the growth there and the Southwest is one of the most rapidly growing areas in the country.

Q: Are your projects mostly K-12 or higher education?

JG: The regions that I just spoke of are mostly K-12. I would say higher education is pretty consistent nationwide. With K-12, the South and Southwest tend to be a little bit stronger.

CJ: We seem to be doing well with K-12, but we’ve seen an uptick in our higher education market. It seems like universities are starting to part with some funds.

KC: Right now, mostly K-12. Vinyl tile (VCT) is the largest product category. It still dominates K-12 because of the economics.

Q: Are you seeing more new installations or renovations projects?

JG: I see a very healthy mix of both. I estimate that it’s around 60 percent new construction and 40 percent renovation. I think that’s the number that’s really going to shift during the next three years as some of the bond money gets pooled. I think the new construction may dwindle down a hair. In order to compensate, they’re going to have to renovate schools or add onto schools in order to make up for that.

CJ: I agree with the percentages that John said and we have seen a shift toward the remodeling of schools.

KC: We see a combination. Money may not be available to rebuild an entire school, but the trend toward more sustainable environments is making people want to renovate if possible.

Q: What kind of products are clients looking for; are there any specific types of flooring?

CJ: We’ve been blessed with the introduction of a new product called MCT, which is marmoleum composition tile. MCT has given our customers a certified sustainable tile option that is guaranteed to install at $2.75 to $3.45 per square foot. We’ve seen a great uptick this summer with that product because of the K-12 and dormitory market.

JG: For us, it continues to be rubber flooring for the commercial applications within the school — not just the athletic facility application. We only do rubber flooring and we have a couple of different products that come in sheets and rolls.

Our clients often select our products after changing their mindset to get away from some of the more typical products for these applications. Schools want to use our product because they are looking for more sustainability or less maintenance. It’s not a product change for us; it’s more of a mindset change for our clients.

KC: It is application-driven, depending on the space and considering a variety of attributes, from function and price to sustainability. The floor covering should be suitable for new and renovated education spaces, and patterns and colors must work with each other and with education finishes. Floors must be economical, durable and easy to maintain.

Customers are interested in everything from VCT to specialized products such as slip-resistance products for locker rooms or static dissipated floors for computer labs. They are looking at alternatives for carpet such as resilient and wood surfaces because these are easier to maintain, more durable and aesthetically pleasing.

Q: Sustainability is a huge issue for the market. Are most of your clients seeking environmentally friendly products now?

CJ: The key drivers in any market are performance- and maintenance- related. It is also very important to have a strong sustainable product and message, but first and foremost we’re selling to our customers that we meet their performance and longevity criteria. There is a very strong tie to sustainability and I think it’s been helped along greatly by the adoption of the LEED for Schools program.

JG: I agree with Casey. With projects that come up on the radar for us, it seems like they’re introduced to us more often as sustainability and environmental factors. The performance comes a little bit second as far as requests for us because I think it’s assumed that because of our experience within K-12 that the performance is there.

KC: The definition of environmental differs from end user to end user. We have a range of products, all of which have environmental attributes, at varying price points to fit the objectives of any project. Customers are interested in these products but they have to fit the budget. Ultimately, the product that the customer chooses will depend on their needs.

Q: What are some of the environmentally friendly aspects of your products?

JG: For us, it’s the natural aspects of rubber, the fact that it’s a rapidly renewable material, and the fact that you can choose several different options to maintain it. You can put a finish or a wax on the flooring, some sort of conditioner, or you can choose to put nothing on it and you’re going to get the same performance and long-term integrity.

There are a lot of different criteria when looking at sustainability, or the LEED certification program, that we’re able to contribute toward. The biggest factors are the rapidly renewable resource, the low maintenance and the indoor air quality.

CJ: One of the things that we try to bring to the market is a strong educational program toward sustainability, especially as it relates to taking a look at lifecycle assessment and the importance of the transparency of the information. Companies will often hinge everything toward recycled content or indoor air quality. It should be balanced across all relevant environmental impact categories.

Our product is predominantly agriculturally based and we also use rapidly renewable content.

Our products also come from post-industrial recycled content.

Indoor air quality is important and we meet all national requirements, including the most stringent, which is set forth by California’s Collaborative for High Performance Schools program.

KC: Armstrong has a variety of green flooring products, which include linoleum, BBT, LVT, commercial hardwood, sheet, VCT and specialty flooring — all of which contribute to qualifying for LEED credits. In addition, our line of commercial floor adhesives contributes to LEED credit EQ 4.1 for low- emitting adhesives.

We take into account not only the characteristics of each product, but also its entire life cycle — from the sourcing and transport of its materials, through manufacturing, packaging and distribution, to application and its eventual recycling or disposal.

Armstrong also is the first hard surface company to use EcoScorecard, a customized program that allows clients to search for green products and evaluate their sustainable attributes through a range of programs, including LEED.

Q: Are there any common misconceptions or considerations that are overlooked when you are talking to clients or school administrators that are looking into new flooring?

JG: With rubber flooring, there’s a bit of a misconception with aesthetics. Rubber flooring is one of the oldest flooring products around, but for the first 30 or 40 years, people knew rubber flooring as black mats or raised circular studs — something you’d see in an elevator, stair landing or a bus.

There is also a misconception about the total cost of ownership. It’s considered a more expensive product overall, but it’s quite the opposite. It is much more less expensive than a lot of other products, but that total cost of ownership actually turns into something that’s far less expensive than a lot of the other products once you go 15 to 20 years — all of our products are built to last for that long — without another replacement.

CJ: I agree with John. Linoleum has been around for 150 years and everybody has a fond or not fond memory of it. Most memories are tied to black and brown and battleship linoleum. Realistically, there is a very pleasing aesthetic and the ability to create a product that has legendary durability that that meets a school’s desired design, performance and maintenance.

With the introduction of MCT, the product is available at a very attainable price. When you’re looking at a return on investment, you’re generally looking at anywhere from a four- to nine-month return on investment over traditional choices used in school.

KC: There are many misconceptions around environmental attributes. Schools need to demand documentation from manufacturers on any claim they are making. There is a lot of greenwashing in the market right now. 

There are also misconceptions that there are products that require no maintenance, which is not true. Maintenance is affected by the traffic. While there are no “no maintenance products,” there are plenty of lower maintenance flooring solutions.

Q: Do renovation projects pose more additional challenges than a new construction project?

JG: There are pros and cons to both, but at the end of the day, one is not better than the other.

Q: What is the best way for a facility operator to approach a renovation project that only includes flooring and a few other areas of the facility?

CJ: In a lot of cases, you’re not going to involve an architect in those selections unless you get into major reconstruction.

School districts go to the market differently, but I think that they start to rely on manufacturers and getting a hold of manufacturers so that they can evaluate all available products and see which products meet their needs.

JG: I agree with that approach and I would probably take it one step further. Within the given school district, I would place heavy importance — if they’re doing it themselves without an architect — to really find the manufacturer and flooring contractor team that has done several school projects and knows exactly what it’s doing.

At a point, that becomes more important than the actual product that they’re choosing. School projects are very volatile because you have to meet your timeline because the kids are coming to school on a certain day. If you have a team that is not fully prepared for what they’re supposed to do, then you’re risking a very bad situation if that timeline is not hit.

CJ: That is true. You need the eyes and ears of a trained installation professional or a trained shop. They need to be realistic with the timeframe and a multitude of issues, ranging from possible asbestos abatement to moisture problems, and different things along those lines that a trained professional or the installer can bring to the process.

Q: New flooring is sometimes installed over existing flooring at schools. Is that a good approach?

CJ: I think most products can be installed over a single layer of non-cushioned existing flooring and you see a lot of schools turning to that to reduce costs. But you still have to follow all the flooring guidelines that are put forth by the different manufacturers as they relate to moisture testing and finishes. It is part of a decision-making process that involves the flooring manufacturer, the end user and installer.

JG: I think that there are some cases where you can go with a new product over an old product and it’s going to be a long-term answer and you’re going to get the same 20-year lifespan. However, more often, anytime you look at putting a new product on top of an old product, you’re going to make the decision based on it being a short-term solution or a Band-aid. They’re going go with that option because of time constraints or budget constraints.

I think that in most scenarios if you want to get a 20-year floor then you need to start from scratch and pull up an existing floor. There are plenty of exceptions but I think that it’s more common that when you install new flooring over old flooring, you have a short-term answer.

KC: It depends on the condition of the existing floor. If the floor is in good shape and you follow the manufacturer’s recommendations, then it’s a good approach. If you have an uneven surface or cracked tiles, you may need to consider taking up the existing floor and installing right over the sub floor.

Q: What else is on the horizon for the flooring market?

JG: There is bond money and new construction money that is available over the next three years for us, but what is ahead in five years is still an unknown. It may decrease and it may remain the same.

No matter what happens to new construction funds, I believe that the maintenance and operations funds will decrease. Because of that, it now takes a wiser investment with new construction or renovation funds because schools are not going to have the maintenance and operations funds available to keep up with some products. They’re going to have to put their money in other places and invest in products that are lower maintenance.

The post Q&A Sept/Oct 2008 – A Flooring Discussion appeared first on School Construction News.

The first Imagination Playground in a Box, a new play space designed by New York architect David Rockwell, was introduced in July at the Brownsville recreation center in Brooklyn, N.Y.

The portable play area — an offshoot of the permanent Imagination Playground concept that is scheduled to break ground later this month — was installed in partnership with Kaboom, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting play space.

The design includes a variety of loose pieces to promote flexibility and allow children to use their imagination to design the play area. Children can transform the playground to suit their needs, as was the case at the introduction ceremony when a water feature incorporated into the play area was manipulated with a series of connected tubes.

Darell Hammond, chief executive officer at Kaboom, spoke with School Construction News during a phone interview.

Q: How did Kaboom get involved with the Imagination Playground?

A: Kaboom is probably the largest purchaser of playground equipment in the country. We watch meta-trends and try to get involved with good ideas and spread them. We think the concepts behind Imagination Playground are a great solution to a problem. We were excited by it, but we also felt we had an obligation to expand the concept.

Q: What was the problem?

A: I think kids are not as creative, engaging or collaborative and they are a lot less fit than they used to be. We have to get them outside and get them moving more. They need to be involved in more child-directed and child-initiated activities, instead of team sports or directed events and activities.

Q: How does Imagination Playground help facilitate that?

A: There are three components to Imagination Playground. The first is the manipulative environment that includes sand and water.

The second component is loose parts. It’s about kids building stuff and tearing it down. They can direct their own play and every time they come to the playground they can do something different.

The third piece is the play associate, which is the stage director for the site who helps maintain the loose parts and anything else. All three components in the same place at the same time make Imagination Playground unique.

Q: Do you think the play-associate component could be prohibitive for some jurisdictions or facilities?

A: It’s definitely a new way of thinking and it is going to require some changing of mindsets. But, when you look at the outcome of more engaged kids who are playing longer and wanting to come back more frequently, I think it’s a trade-off that people will make.

Sometimes there is already staff at a school or center, so this is just an extension of what they would be doing. Volunteers with some formalized training could also monitor the playground.
We need to have broader adoption of all of Imagination Playground’s concepts. There has been a movement around liability and safety that has taken the risk out of play environments.

All of the moving parts have been moved out of playgrounds so there is no maintenance.

This is going to require a different conversation about what is best for our kids, not necessarily how we are going to have to pay for or maintain anything.

Q: Do you think liability concerns are too excessive?

A: I think liability has been the prevailing factor that has driven us for the last decade. It has frankly taken innovation and fun out of the design and taken risk out of the equation.

Fortunately, I think there is a movement afoot to say, “We have to put play and fun back into playgrounds, and we have to have a different tolerance for risk.” With risk, there may be injuries or accidents and that’s OK.

Q: You just introduced the first Imagination Playground; what is the next step?

A: We’re definitely still in a pilot phase and we are going to take all the data and information we get from observing children at the Imagination Playground to have a more expanded understanding of how to roll it out and scale it.

We are going to look at configuration of parts, size and the number of pieces. We are also going to look at the storage box to see how easy it is to roll and maintain. We’ll learn all of those data points from the site and then use that as part of a larger rollout plan.

We’re planning do some pilots this fall in a couple of cities across the country so kids are able to play on it and we can generate some interest. By the first and second quarter of next year, we hope to be able to sell the playgrounds at schools and daycare centers and the larger destination parks across the country.

Children play with the moveable components at the Brooklyn playground.

Q: What has been the biggest challenge for you?

A: With Imagination Playground, I think the biggest challenge is learning a whole new operation to support it. When we started building playgrounds 13 years ago, not as many people were using volunteers and community labor to build and install playgrounds.

We had a hard time convincing people that volunteers could do an equally good job as paid professionals. We’re quite proud of the fact that, 13 years later, Kaboom is building volunteer-built playgrounds, along with the rest of the industry.

Now we think we can have the same sort of lever with the concepts of Imagination Playground, but it’s going to require adoption of new concepts that are different from the trend around maintenance, personnel and allowing kids to get dirty and sweaty.

We are looking at how to get the playground at a price point that is attractive so it can spread and be affordable. We are also looking at how to source the loose parts that David Rockwell designed.

Q: Are you actively looking for manufacturers to work on the project?

A: Yes, we’re looking for manufacturers and we’re trying to understand the product liability associated with this. We are also looking at the product itself to see which parts kids use more than others, if they are the right sizes and textures, what type of distribution system is needed, and how to get park and recreation directors and school facilities folks to know about the project as a recess solution. We’re also looking at how to enter the daycare market. It’s business planning 101, soup to nuts.

Q: What were you doing before Imagination Playground?

A: Over 13 years, Kaboom raised more than $130 million and built 1,400 playgrounds at daycare centers, homeless shelters, battered women shelters, boys and girls clubs, YMCAs and charter schools using our signature community-built process.

We have the kids design the space and the parents and corporate sponsors bring out volunteers to construct these like an old-fashioned Amish barn raising.

We primarily focused on private child-serving organizations, and not as much on public parks or schools. We think the concept of Imagination Playground is squarely suited for public parks and schools.

It’s an exciting new market for us. Schools have facility, recess and after-school programming and more schools are starting to open up their schoolyards on weekends, after school and on holidays. It is important to have equipment that is engaging and fun.

Children used the playground’s components to channel a water feature at the playground.

Q: What is the significance of volunteer-built playgrounds?

A: It’s neighbors who live right next to the property, with volunteers who don’t live there who come in with the corporate sponsor. It creates a sense of pride and accomplishment. People start to think: If we can build a playground in a day using teamwork, imagine what else we could do in our communities for our kids and seniors if we collaborate to tackle some of society’s most pressing problems.

Q: It sounds like your organization matches Rockwell’s philosophy — you are attempting to create communities and forge community ties.

A: Absolutely, we’ve learned so much about Rockwell’s understanding of sense of place and how senses of place encourage people to gather and congregate. When people gather and congregate, they start to collaborate and communicate and so forth. I think Kaboom is going to evolve from just being playground builders to builders of play environments. The play environments are going to be much more multiplatform instead of just pieces of playground equipment and benches. They will include multi-sensory environments including loose parts, water, sand, art, sculpture and murals.

Q: What else is important for you?

A: Schools and facilities people play such a vital role in the community. They really have to think about their obligation and responsibility from a maintenance perspective and a child-development perspective.

What they build should reinforce what students are learning in school, and how to get them involved with more physical activity while they are on school grounds. How do you add splashes of color? How do you add multi-textured environments? How do you incorporate nurture and nature into your schoolyards?

I think those types of textured environments are what the future of schoolyards is starting to look like: more community grounds, open 24 hours a day, and classroom lessons.

Q: How does the Imagination Playground support learning and lessons from the classroom?

A: We say a happy child is a dirty child. While I was at the Imagination Playground opening, I saw kids collaborating, using imagination and creativity, and exploring and testing limits and boundaries without anybody telling them what they couldn’t do. Imagination Playground is the opportunity to invent, create and build off something instead of having somebody telling them, “No.” It allows them to test their creativity and test their limits.

Q: What other projects are you working on at Kaboom?

A: We just completed Operation Playground 100. We set the goal after hurricanes Katrina and Rita to raise $8.5 million to build 100 playgrounds along the Gulf Coast, which we’re quite proud of.

We also know and recognize the work is not done yet and we will continue to be in the Gulf Coast as long as there is a need for play environments. We have built at a lot of schools in Mississippi and New Orleans that have become an extension of the communities, which was new for us.

We don’t traditionally build at schools, and I think we built in every recovery school district in New Orleans and each one has a community-built playground.

Q: How much work is left on the Gulf Coast?

A: We’re on our 104th playground now, but we’ve still got another 40 or 50 applications. We’re still out there fund raising and as soon as a different school comes online — this August five more elementary schools are going to come online — it continues to create more demand. I imagine it’s going to be like that for the next five to 10 years.

We’re also trying to build an online community of people interested in play, design and Imagination Playground. We’re launching an expanded version of our play space finder tool later this year, which allows communities to map their play spaces with photos. They can then invite parents and community members to rate those play spaces, which will ultimately create different lists of most unique features and cleanliness.

It’s will be user-generated content that builds the platform, but it also informs us of innovations and what’s interesting and unique — new concepts that can be spread.

Kaboom 

The post Q&A July/August – Using Imagination appeared first on School Construction News.

Kirby

Physical security improved at public schools throughout the United States in 2007, while cyber safety declined, according to a survey of more than 400 public school district information technology and security directors released in May.

The survey sponsored by CDW Government Inc., a company that offers information technology products to the school and government markets, revealed that nearly 70 percent of the surveyed districts use security cameras and 29 percent reported a positive impact on security as a result of the camera installations. More than half of respondents use mass notification systems during emergencies.

Budget constraints continue to be a common problem, but more school officials are implementing control measures to ensure that unauthorized users cannot access networks.

“School districts both large and small are embracing advanced technology tools and techniques to make school a safer place for our children,” says Bob Kirby, senior director K-12 at CDW Government. “Cyber- and physical-safety tools — from network access control to security cameras — are allowing administrators to see into and lock down their networks and school buildings, but schools continue to be frustrated by budget and staff constraints, particularly in their IT security programs.”

Kirby, who leads CDW Government’s sales and account mangers, spoke with School Construction News about the Survey’s findings during a phone interview.

Q: Was there anything that surprised you with the report?

A: This is the second year that we have done the survey and I think last year we were surprised when we found that most of our audience that responded felt more comfortable with cyber security than they felt with physical security. This year it is the opposite. We have made some advances in physical security, but we seem to have taken a step back with cyber security.

We survey just over 400 IT professionals and security professionals. Last year, they felt comfortable based on the technology that was out there, but there were also some risks that were emerging. What we are seeing is a convergence, where we have physical and IT security falling into the realm of the IT professional at a school or school district. They are now responsible for IP video cameras and voice over IP systems that are part of mass notifications systems. They are finding themselves accountable for things they weren’t accountable for before.

The physical threats seemed to be kind of a known factor. They are not predicable, but you can at least know how to protect yourself. Some of the cyber security threats are more difficult to protect against because the landscape keeps changing.

Q: Is that convergence of responsibility welcomed by IT professionals, or is it seen as a big challenge?

A: It’s a challenge; there is no question about it. A lot of districts look at the school first and have IT as a supporting department. In the commercial world, IT is very much a strategic department within a company. Schools have been a little bit slower to adopt technology so you don’t have as many resources dedicated to IT at schools and districts as you do in the commercial space.

I think once you have established an IT practice within an organization it is welcomed. It is just leveraging or adding on to existing infrastructure, but when you don’t have the expertise in house, it is probably not welcomed because they probably have a hard time supporting the current technology, let alone adding more to the mix.

Q: Is the learning curve and new technology the greatest factor for the 25 percent decrease with cyber safety?

A: That is definitely a big part of it. As schools get more vested in supporting technology, they are learning what else they have to do. For example, if a school installs a robust e-mail system, it has to learn how to support content filtering and to monitor bullying. They have to be conscious of laws that are in place to protect children.

The other part of it is the fact that the landscape changes. The survey last year revealed that students are technically savvy and they look for ways to get around security measures that have been put in place. Its relatively easy for students to go online at home to find the technologies that they need to work around security measures that have been put in place by a school. Because of that, the landscape changes and it makes it more difficult over time to continue to manage.

Q: I imagine a lot of students think it is a game to overcome security protocols.

A: Absolutely. That came out loud and clear in our survey and a lot of times students don’t really understand the consequences of their actions. It’s a game to them to see if they can beat the system, but they don’t realize that if they hack into a system that has private information, they are potentially liable for the handling of that sensitive information. It could be a very serious offense.

Q: Are social networking sites having much of an affect on the cyber-safety issue?

A: They do, and that is something that schools have been talking about for years. At first, it put a lot of fear into schools because a lot of them didn’t know how to control it. A lot of schools simply locked out access to the Web sites, but on the flip side, some students and administrators viewed that as being overly protective or oppressive. It prevented them from gaining access to things that could be good resources in the learning process.

There is a balance that they have to achieve so they don’t appear overly oppressive. There seems to be some settling because people are becoming more familiar with social-networking sites and there is greater awareness. People are being more watchful instead of just shutting them down.

Q: You mentioned IP cameras, which can allow police to monitor a campus from an off-site location. Are those cameras becoming more widespread?

A: We are seeing more everyday. As schools and local and county governments adopt the technology, there is natural potential for them to hook up. Districts should consider the cameras. They can improve response time and give a better view into the school. Schools also have better security because they are more tightly linked with the authorities.

Q: What were some of the factors associated with the 40 percent improvement in physical safety?

A: IP cameras and mass notifications systems. Mass notification systems can be tied into VoIP systems and other systems that allow schools better communication with students, administration and faculty, and parents. We see an acceleration with those types of technologies being implemented in schools.

Q: Do you think that is due to the response from the Virginia Tech shootings and other recent incidents?

A: I actually think it is a trend that has been there for years. When we talked to our customers last year, they said they really started thinking about it after Columbine. The incidents after that reinforced the trend that has already been there and just accelerated it a little bit.

Q: So you haven’t seen any major reactionary decisions?

A: No, we haven’t really seen any knee-jerk reactions. It was a trend that was already there and it’s kind of the nature of IT. Once you put in the basic infrastructure, you start to bolt on new technologies when you have a backbone to build on. There is a natural progression, and if anything, those types of events just raise the awareness and accelerate something that probably would have happened naturally.

Q: What else will happen during the natural progression? What do you think your report will say a year from now?

A: I think you are going to start to see that the norm will be IP-based video cameras at new schools, and more retrofitting projects at schools will include new technology. Schools recognize that just the mere existence of cameras can have a very positive impact on security. Mass notification and VoIP will also become the norm, but they will be a bigger investment because they are tied to a pretty sophisticated phone-switch solution.

Q: Is there one component that you think is most important for a campus that has never really considered IT technologies for school safety?

A: I would lump it all under physical access control and network access control. As schools become more secure, you are not going to have open access and there will be security doors and ID cards to monitor who is coming and going. The flipside to that is schools need to adopt network access control so they are not allowing non-district hardware that is not secure to access the network.

Q: Why are lapses in access control more prevalent in urban and rural schools?

A: Because most schools are funded by local property taxes, we find that suburban schools have fewer budgetary constraints than large urban schools and remote rural schools.
Large urban schools have large budgets but they also have a large number of schools, a lot of old legacy buildings and infrastructure to support. That creates a drain on resources. Rural schools just don’t have the budget and that becomes a major barrier in adopting the technologies.

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