Q+A: Bill Day, KBD Planning Group

 

A: Most of the change in the last 50 to 60 years as it relates to school facilities has been knee-jerk reactions rather than being proactive and planning for expansion and growth and upgrading. Most of this has occurred because suddenly someone realized, “we need to do something.”

 

When things are done in that fashion, then you tend to forget all the people that are involved and all the things that have to be done to finalize a project. Quite frankly, we don’t have a lot of those programs in the U.S. in our higher education facilities that actually teach and prepare people to deal with real-life situations. That’s pretty much all it’s about as an administrator. Are we giving students what they need so when they go out in the real world they have some idea of what to expect?

 

One of the things we always tried to teach is that whatever you’re going to do, in an existing facility or … new building, it all has to revolve around the educational program. In other words, where are we now, where do we want to go, and how are we going to get there?

 

Defining the educational program is still probably the single hardest thing to do when you start thinking about a capital improvement program for any school district.

 

A: I think the whole state of planning and design is not healthy, and I say that for a couple of reasons. One — it’s very hard to finance capital improvements today.
 

Secondly, we find architects masquerading as educational planners. For example, would an architectural firm let me plan their new office building? The answer is no because what they would say is, you have no formal background in architectural planning. You don’t really know how we go about our planning and design. My retort to that is the same thing is true on the educational side. Probably there are very few architects in the country that have ever taken a single course in education. They don’t know how teachers teach, how students learn, because all teachers don’t teach the same way. All students don’t learn the same way. We’ve got more firms like that, that think they can do it all. That does not make for a healthy situation when they’re trying to work with schools.

 

A: See, it’s a matter of wants and needs. School people typically want everything. But when you … ask them to explain to you why they want this, you soon find that a lot of things are wants rather than needs.

 
There are basic needs. We need instructional space, we need support spaces like gymnasiums, tennis courts, football fields, baseball fields, dance studios, locker rooms and whatever. But when you get into it you find out that’s not as big a need as something else. So it really boils down to separating wants from needs and in doing that, then you can develop a priority list of what you need. Because school boards go out and sell to the public on a bond referendum, ‘here are all the things we’re going to do.’ Now when they do that, they better make dang sure that they have identified the cost on those things, because if you do sell the public on a $55 million referendum you can’t come back and say, ‘oh, we made a mistake, now we need $65 million.’

 

In the initial planning, school boards should hire an educational planner first to work with teachers and staff and community. Then give that list to the architect, put a cost to it, and then say to the public: this has been established, this is the cost — will you support it?

The process doesn’t happen that way because probably 85 percent of architects do not want to hire an educational planner to assist them because they believe they can do that work themselves. They underestimate costs because true educational costs have not been established.

 

A: Today, it’s the networking capabilities. That involves providing wireless access to any place within the building. If you provide the necessary networking then that takes care of the data networking, the voice or some type of phone system, interbuilding communications and security. But the number one issue is that it has to be … more than adequate because kids understand the difference between good, bad and mediocre. When it comes to technology they’re much more aggressive and progressive than most educators are so you’ve got to provide top-of-the-line capabilities.

 

You fall into the same category with technology that you find with architects masquerading as educators is that most of the technology projects are done by a vendor. Now what do you think a vendor is going to recommend if they’re deeply involved in helping you plan the technology? It’s the products they sell so they don’t assist owners with an unbiased clear mind.

 

Side note: most technology firms that work in schools, their primary expertise has been in office buildings and other business type categories which are small, don’t have the demand, don’t anticipate or understand that the demands on the technology systems in the schools are much bigger, greater and needs to be more robust than in a business setting so owners get shortchanged because they haven’t had adequate or appropriate assistance in trying to design. So there are some schools districts out there that are light years ahead of others because they keep an eye on the future as to what’s going on so they don’t have to constantly go back and renew it.

 

A: I think the device of the future is going to be the cell phone. Most high school students today, certainly some middle school students today, have their own cell phones. You’re going to see more and more software applications that can be added to a cell phone. So students will have their so-called computer capabilities available with them 24/7 because the application is on their cell phone. Now, I think schools are going to buy into this because rather than the school districts having to provide all (students) with desktop or laptop or tablet computers, they can focus on purchasing the technology applications and make that application available to the student cell phones and that’s what students know how to use better than everyone. They’re more likely to take the opportunity to use that in the work for the things they have to do.

 

A: The biggest concern I have and the biggest mistake that school districts are making in regards to school safety is … they’re putting too much emphasis and relying on security cameras everywhere. I’m the first to stay that school safety is of the utmost importance and there are ways that you can generate better security and safety for the students than what they’re doing today, but there’s too much overkill.

 

Security cameras will only give you a snapshot of a particular moment. What that does in most cases is tell you who the perpetrator was, but it doesn’t do a lot to stop the person that’s bound to do the things they shouldn’t be doing. There are certain areas inside and outside a building that should be covered by a security camera such as halls — all interior or exterior doors. When you get inside you’re going to have a camera that covers the administration area where if something’s going to happen by an outsider, it will occur there. Then, bathrooms — the entry and exit to bathrooms is always a trouble spot. Corridors, stairs, are the next biggest trouble areas. There isn’t any particular reason that you need to put a security camera approximately every 50 feet in hallways.

 

Not a lot of problems occur in a hallway because there are generally too many people there and students look for other areas to do whatever it is they’re going to do. So if you spend less money on hardware and a little more money on having a security officer or a person that sits and can monitor the cameras during the school day, you’ll get much better results out of that.

 

Another thing we see a lot of that I think is not necessary is metal detectors. Now that requires someone there to monitor that. Parents don’t like it. I don’t necessarily agree with parents because every red-blooded American that wants to get on an airplane regardless of who they are has to go through a metal detector. But they are intrusive and ugly. There are more things we can do and buy and large school districts are doing a much better job with the security of students than we’ve ever done. But you can’t stop everyone.

 

The world is what it is. We’d like to be able to say when everything is said and done, I left this world a better place than I found it. Now, few of us could say that, but that ought to be part of the objective in life — certainly when you’re serving the public, working with schools. If we do that openly and honestly from experiences, we’ve done all we can do.