What does reinventing the school experience mean to you? Is it related to modern facilities, new pedagogies, community partnerships, or is it a combination of all three? At Austin Independent School District (AISD) in Austin, Texas, the answer to reinventing the school experience comes from district leadership, community input, and expert teams creating a vision to guide the district to success for generations to come. It incorporates a long-term facilities master plan and new educational specifications that ensure Austin will continue to operate at the leading edge of education for its learners and the surrounding community.
This reinvention comes on the heels of a successful $1.05 billion bond referendum in November 2017, which is funding new, modernized facilities to serve the 82,000 students attending Austin ISD, and the community as a whole. Prior to the bond vote, AISD completed a facility master plan to evaluate capital improvement needs, and created new educational specifications with the help of planning and design consultants, including DLR Group.
At the 2018 National School Boards Association conference in San Antonio, I had the pleasure of presenting the AISD process and the resulting outcome alongside Kristin Ashy, Austin community advocate and Facility and Bond Planning Advisory Committee(FABPAC) member; Dr. Lisa Goodnow, AISD associate superintendent of Academics & Social Emotional Learning; and Yasmin Wagner, AISD Board Trustee. We shared the AISD story in detail to communicate the depth and multi-pronged approach required for success. Throughout the presentation the panel kept the discussion relevant to the entire audience by highlighting three common themes that occur across the country in urban, suburban, and rural districts, and in communities of all sizes.
1. Facilities and Funding
Districts across the map are faced with educating students in outdated facilities every day, and new construction isn’t always the answer when funds are limited. Not every school needs a massive overhaul to elevate education. Small projects, such as adding flexible furniture, or opening up smaller spaces into areas for larger volume encourage collaboration and support hands-on, deeper learning. Research shows that natural light improves test scores; ensuring that natural light is accessible in most learning areas has a high return on investment. Space utilization is important. Unused or underutilized spaces can be transformed into maker spaces or small group areas to enhance learning opportunities available within a school.
On the flip side, some districts require considerable budgets to bring school facilities up to today’s standards. Austin, Texas is a sought-after community for families, and is consistently ranked as one of the best cities to live in. A facility condition assessment, which was completed by a member of the consultant team, found a majority of the schools within the district were considered structurally sound and safe, however an educational suitability analysis found roughly half of the facilities were average, and more than 25 percent of them were poor or very poor. The educational suitability analysis dug into classrooms, libraries, labs, and other instructional spaces to determine if these spaces were conducive to 21st century learning.