Page 8 - School Planning & Management, May 2017

NEWS & VIEWS
Hot Tips
This Month
School Bathrooms
WHY BATHROOMS/ LOCKER ROOMS MATTER MORE
WE BEHAVE AND PERFORM OPTIMALLY IN
optimal environments. Merchants, restaura- teurs and employers know that if we don’t love our environment we can rather easily choose to shop, dine or work elsewhere.
Can students switch schools as easily if they don’t love their schools? Think of students as shoppers of knowledge and as professional learners and it is clear that we must view them with the same respect — as professionals and people with choices.
To our credit, in schools, we adopt new technologies, design spaces to inspire creativ- ity, experiment with teaching methods, and strive to foster feelings of camaraderie, equal- ity, and school pride — all with one aim “so young minds can focus on learning”.
However, primal needs like hygiene, privacy and feeling safe have a magnified effect on
our ability to focus and, given the nature of the space, school bathrooms can hurt or help focus in a disproportionate way. Yet people often underestimate that impact. It’s time we change, and here are some easy examples of how.
Consider privacy toilet partitions — they go lower to the floor, and eliminate sightlines into stalls with overlapping doors and pilasters.
Service bathrooms at unpredictable inter- vals to reduce the opportunity for vandalism or bullying, and, with greater frequency to improve hygiene and ensure enough consumables.
Provide automatic hand dryers as well as paper towel dispensers — both serve specific needs.
Foster a sense of belonging and school pride by using school colors on lockers and partitions.
More than specific solutions your “hot tip” is to “think differently”. Go back and look at one of the most important spaces in your building with a different set of eyes and ask, “How can I improve this space to help a learning mind?”
>> Cyrus D. Boatwalla, heads up Market- ing for the ASI Group; he can be reached at cboatwalla@americanspecialties.com.
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School Breaks Ground on $22-Million Building
Righetti High School recently
broke ground on a new three-story, 38-classroom building with a modern aesthetic that complements the campus’ original post-and-beam architecture. Designed by Rachlin Partners for
Santa Maria Joint Union High School District, the new classroom building serves as a landmark building to renew campus pride while providing func- tional campus improvements such as streamlined circulation throughout the school. Among the 38 classrooms, 29 are designed for general academic use in service of math, English, and health in- struction. Four classrooms are designed to meet the needs of the school’s career pathway educational program. One of the classrooms will specifically house digital arts and photography design, while the other three will accommodate flexible programming. The remaining five rooms are “Assessment Flex Rooms” with collapsible center walls that enable individual rooms to be combined into larger flexible spaces. The $22-million project has an anticipated completion date of early 2019.
New P-8 School Breaks Ground in Denver’s Anthem Community
District and community leaders, joined by future students, broke ground April 19 on Adams 12 Five Star Schools newest school scheduled to open in August 2018. The new preschool through eighth-grade school is being built on a 13- acre site in Anthem Highlands, a planned communityofabout2,600residential
units. The school is eventually expected to serve between 900 and 1,000 students. District voters approved a $350-million school construction bond in November 2016 that will allow Five Star Schools to build the new school, a new Career and Technical Education campus and make significant expansions, renovations and improvements to existing district schools. The 142,000-square-foot, multi-level school is being designed by architectural firm Hord Coplan Macht. Upon comple- tion, Anthem P-8 is slated to become the first school in the Denver Metro Area certified under the Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS) Verified Leader program.
Rockville Centre Union Free School District Opens Expanded and Renovated South Side High School
BBS Architects, Landscape Architects and Engineers has completed the renovation and expansion of South Side High School for the Rockville Centre Union Free School District located in Suffolk County on Long Island. The $26.6-million South Side High School redevelopment was
a part of the $45.9-million school improvement bond issue that was approved by local voters in 2013. $17.3 million, or 65 percent of the project’s budget, was allocated to new construction and $9.3 million, or 35 percent, to the renovation of existing assets. The additions total 46,900 square feet, while 45,900 square feet of existing space was renovated and reconfigured. SPM
8 SCHOOL PLANNING & MANAGEMENT / MAY 2017
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