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.
- Facilities and Funding Districts across the map are faced with educating students in outdated facilities every day, and new construction isn’t always the answer when funds are limited.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.
Patrons of Austin understand the importance of education and rallied to approve the funding necessary to bring their schools up to today’s educational standards. An impressive 72 percent of patrons voted in support of the November 2017 bond referendum, which includes 17 new or modernized campuses to address overcrowding, critical needs, and district-wide technology upgrades to enhance the learning environment for all students and staff.
Takeaway: The educational experience should be customized to fit the community’s budget. Regardless of size, small and large projects both can have significant impact on the learning experience when planned and designed appropriately.
Communities with multiple school facilities often contend with equity challenges, and AISD is no exception. More than 50 percent of AISD students are economically disadvantaged; one in three students are English language learners; and one in 10 children are classified as having a learning or other disability. The district spans 230.3 square miles, covering a wide variety of neighborhoods and learner populations. With these statistics in mind, and considering your district’s demographics, I ask the question: How do we ensure equity across communities with vastly different needs?
Start with in-depth data analysis. A data-driven approach allowed AISD to have open, honest conversations about their facility needs district-wide. From earlier facility condition assessments on each of the 130 campuses, the district was armed with data confirming the average age of an AISD building was 46 years; 52 schools had a poor or very poor facility condition; 26 schools had an unsatisfactory educational suitability condition; and more than 10 campuses were significantly overcrowded. It was clear that some schools in the district required more work than others.
Next, make sure all parties are represented equally. AISD has passed several bond referendums in the past, however the difference in this instance was a grassroots effort to engage the entire community in the process. The Board of Trustees created FABPAC, an 18-member, board-appointed committee that listened to the community, shared input from their constituents, and helped shape the resulting plan. FABPAC members closed the feedback loop throughout the process by bringing ideas and input to the Board of Trustees and consultant team developing the facility master plan, with constant communication back to community members and parents. They effectively communicated the “why” behind the decisions made by the FABPAC, which was important to help the community understand why some schools and neighborhoods received more or less funding for bond projects than other schools.
Takeaway: Districts that ask for community input should be prepared to report back with action taken on the input, and how it informed decisions surrounding future projects. This level of communication is very important for the public to understand funding allocation for each school or project, especially when funding is not equally distributed among all campuses.
- Aligning Facilities, Academics, and Community
Facilities and academics are integrally connected, and both are vital to the surrounding community. AISD successfully aligned facilities, academics, and community in its newest iteration of educational specifications. Previous ed specs consisted of three volumes of prescriptive, uniform narrative. The newest version, developed by DLR Group, is performance-based, community-driven, and customizable to fit the unique needs of each learning population within the district. It defines elements of the built environment that will best serve students through engaging and effective learning environments.
DLR Group used divergent thinking and exercises, such as day-in-the-life to arrive at the recently adopted AISD ed specs. We challenged district and campus administrators, educators, and students to consider what a day would look like for a student in 2030. The response was clear from the committee. They reported that learning will occur during weekends and evenings to accommodate a variety of learners, educators, and professionals. They also explained that learners will choose when and where learning occurs.
From this exercise, DLR Group developed ed specs that include a range of new space types that support a variety of learning group sizes and uses, not just one teacher to 24-to-30 students. Not all neighborhoods are the same in AISD, and alternatives allow for customization to support precise needs of each student population. All choices for facilities reflect modern environments to support modern pedagogies, and reflect the local communities they will serve.
Takeaway: AISD’s new ed specs respond to local needs and provide options for neighborhoods to create the best environment for their cohort of learners and the surrounding community.
Although we used AISD as the backdrop for our session at NSBA, each of the scenarios and takeaways we shared can be applied to any district across the country. In fact, audience members confirmed that they were facing similar topics in their home districts during our panel discussion. Has your district recently completed a facility master plan, educational suitability analysis, or adopted new educational specifications? I’d love to hear your story and takeaways from the process.