When it comes to providing our students with the highest quality learning environments and the trends to look for when addressing those goals, please allow me the opportunity to offer in this article a perspective as both a Constructor and School Board Trustee, having served in both arenas for more than 20 years.
We have all seen some amazing, exciting, and inspiring designs for our educational facilities. For our students and teachers, these spaces generate the imagination. However, there are components of a school structure that are rarely seen by parents or the public. These “back of the house” systems are just as vital as the latest instructional technology used in the classroom, and they provide everyone with a comfortable space.
In the past, we have seen all too often construction documents and plans being presented to the client with recommendations regarding systems and technologies that may not be the best fit. The client, in this case a school system, needs to consider their long-term operations when approving these recommendations, which in some cases have been a secondary consideration. Today, we see design professionals, constructors, and clients addressing these “back of the house” issues well in advance, with the final product and budget being better for it. Being able to identify equipment with common maintenance needs and schedules allows our school systems the opportunity to inventory fewer items and at the same time, increase their preventative maintenance processes, saving valuable funds.
Another growing trend, especially in the construction community, is having the ability to order major systems in advance. For example, structural steel prices have become a budget rollercoaster. As an example, some construction managers and constructors have started looking at opportunities to order their steel packages well in advance of their needs. They can find better pricing and the savings could far outweigh any storage costs for the materials, again, saving the school system valuable funds.
We encourage these conversations in advance, identifying products and systems so that way the client can receive longterm savings. We encourage the expansion of smarter purchasing processes before and during construction. These are trends within educational spaces that will most likely never be seen, yet they are important. The design can be amazing, but if the students and teachers are not comfortable and the campus is not cost effective, the talent expended for that amazing campus could have been wasted.
Our clients are our school systems, and our end users are our students and teachers in our classrooms. We have the talent and trust to provide them all with a safe, secure, and technologically equal learning environment. Your service in that regard is greatly appreciated.