Publications


Fall 2001 Newsletter

Creative School Design & Finance -- What If? New Jersey Office Of Planning Offers A New Model

Organizations around the nation have decried the current school design and construction paradigm arguing that drab stucco boxes which take decades to build simply aren't conducive to learning, let alone community engagement or neighborhood revitalization. However, because of a recent legal victory in New Jersey, we may be seeing the beginning of a large-scale model that cities around the nation can follow not merely to implement new design guidelines for schools, but truly incentivize school districts to think creatively. NSBN is pleased to offer this excerpt from a paper written by Ellen Shoshkes, Senior Planner with the New Jersey Office of State Planning which details the state's new facility mandate.


By: Ellen Shoshkes, Ph.D., Senior Urban Designer, New Jersey Office of State Planning


School Construction & Finance In New Jersey

New Jersey's school construction program has its origins in the State Supreme Court's rulings in the landmark Abbott vs. Burke case. The Court directed the State to provide facilities for public school children in the 30 Abbott/special needs districts (the poorest in the state and primarily urban) "that will be sufficient to enable these students to achieve the substantive standards that now define a thorough and efficient education and the quality of the facilities cannot depend on the district's willingness or ability to raise taxes or to incur debt." After nearly two years of debate, the Legislature enacted a bill that provides for an expanded schools construction program including aid--at least 40-percent of eligible costs--for all 618 districts in the state. The State will pay for this $12 billion effort by raising $8.6 billion through the issuance of bonds, with the rest financed by local districts, and other annual appropriations of the State legislature. This bill fundamentally restructures the way in which public school facilities projects are planned, managed, and financed in New Jersey.

New Jersey's approach to provide equal educational opportunities for all children also goes well beyond court ordered measures to end disparities in school financing among rich and poor towns in Vermont and New York. In addition to the construction program, the New Jersey Supreme Court mandate ordered the implementation of "whole school reform" in all elementary schools in the Abbott districts. Whole school reform involves a systematic restructuring of an entire school engaging the participation of the schools faculty, administration, students, parents and other community stakeholders--which "must be implemented as interrelated parts of a comprehensive program." The wide consensus about the effectiveness of whole school reform is closely aligned with the consensus forming around the concept of community-based schools.

There are two ways a school can serve as a center of community: "either by serving a more integral role within the context of the whole community, or by extending the learning environment to take advantage of the full range of the community's resources. Indeed, the most successful schools of the future will be integrated learning communities, which accommodate the needs of all of the community's stakeholders." Either way, the concept of schools that serve as centers of communities represents a key strategy for achieving the goals of the SDRP, essentially: to support the revitalization of existing cities and towns; and to encourage new suburban growth, where necessary, in compact patterns, in order to curb sprawl and conserve scarce open space.

The Goals of the New Jersey's State Development and Redevelopment Plan provide a context for policy initiatives in a broad array of substantive areas, including Infrastructure Investments, which encourage municipalities to: "Make the most effective use of existing school facilities; plan and construct new facilities to serve as community centers; and locate new school facilities to serve as focal points for existing and new development. Integrate school facilities planning with neighborhood and community wide planning and development."

As well as to: "Use the capacity of school facilities, roads, transit, parks and other necessary infrastructure in ways that permit maximum use of non-automotive transport, chaining of shopping and other trips with school trips, and sharing of parking, recreational and other public facilities."

Thus, while the court ordered remedy addresses the urgent need for an overhaul of the outmoded and decrepit school buildings in the 30 Abbott districts, the need for expediency in completing top priority repairs to address critical health and safety issues does not preclude the need for planning the more comprehensive school reform and improvement projects proposed as part of the Long-Range Facilities Plan, which each district was required to submit to the Commissioner of Education in Dec. 2000.


Urban Schools & Community Development

Many cities and older suburban towns in New Jersey have been enjoying a renaissance, thanks largely to the sustained growth of the national economy, if not the SDRP. It has not been so easy, however, to reverse the fortunes of the impoverished Abbott districts. Yet timing is everything. The coincidence of the state funded retooling of public education with the urban renaissance offers a truly unique window of opportunity to capitalize on the inherent strength of cities and towns as a resource to improve the effectiveness of urban schools. With proper planning, the state's investment in new and improved Abbott schools can serve as serve as a catalyst for the revitalization of these neighborhoods that have been left behind by boom times. Thus while the Abbott legislation will benefit all of the school districts in the state, both rich and poor, it is crucial for the conversation about how to leverage the state's investment in schools to focus on the impoverished districts, which are primarily, but not exclusively, urban.

Fortunately, there is sufficient time to think broadly about the next generation of New Jersey's urban schools as well as capture the opportunity for a new approach to school building, represented by the role of the Economic Development Authority (EDA) in the implementation of the school construction program. EDA is responsible for construction and financing all projects in Abbott districts and those non-Abbott districts eligible for 55-percent or more state aid. All other districts have the option of using the authority's services. Construction will not get underway until Spring 2001Š It will then take up to 10 years to complete the entire scope of work. The EDA has already made clear its support for any school district in New Jersey that desires to pursue a broader vision for its facilities.

In taking this step it is important to be both visionary and pragmatic. The Dept. of Education has set "facilities efficiency standards" to determine the extent to which a district's construction project qualifies for state aid. These are not construction design standards, but rather "represent the instructional and administrative spaces that are educationally adequate to support the achievement of the State's Core Curriculum Content Standards"--which the Supreme Court accepted "as the definition of what students need to learn as the result of the Œthorough and efficient education' thatŠ [NJ's] State Constitution promises them." A district may design other spaces to be included in project and the EDA will assist in the search for funding necessary to cover the cost of these design elements. To contribute to school reform and community revitalization, however, bricks and mortar projects must embody a vision for change cultivated through community partnerships, and form part of an integrated solution to local environmental, social and economic concerns.


OSP Communities Of Learners Campaign

Significantly, the biggest obstacle to building urban schools that can serve as a catalyst for community revitalization may not be the obvious targets, such as red tape or lack of money, but rather, the complexity of mobilizing the resources--social, cultural, economic and political--required for comprehensive improvement projects, in which schools collaborate with their communities and beyond. It may be necessary to build the capacity of school districts to carry out the kind of strategic planning and visioning activities to design a community collaboration and to develop and strengthen partnerships with colleges, parents, businesses and other schools. The challenge of building local capacity is compounded by the difficulty of implementing innovative strategies and visionary ideas in the framework of inherently conservative bureaucratic systems--schools, state and local agencies--which may have to learn new, more flexible and cooperative ways of working together...


Conclusion

There is much to learn from the efforts to plan and design the new social and physical forms needed to support communities of learning already underway in many places throughout New Jersey and the nation. Most important, perhaps, is the lesson that these efforts are not focused on how to build a better or more cost effective school building, but on how to build a better, more livable community. There is a limited window of opportunity to come up with a vision for new schools that serve as centers for New Jersey communities. In a few years it will be too late to leverage the investment in schools through smarter, more efficient integrated resource development. The need for investment and for innovative planning and design is greatest in New Jersey's urban communities. But the pay-off of such an investment is too great to ignore--nothing less than community renewal centered on neighborhood schools.