Facilities Management of a School

Facilities Management of a School

Introduction

This assignment is based on developing a resource guide that includes information about the facilities management of a fictional school site. This resource guide should include space requirements for building including land and total building, space requirements for Exceptional Student Education (ESE), vocational courses, class size reduction & the building's security plan.

An effective school facility is responsive to the changing programs of educational delivery, and at a minimum should provide a physical environment that is comfortable, safe, secure, accessible, well illuminated, well ventilated, and aesthetically pleasing (Lewis, 2010). The school facility consists of not only the physical structure and the variety of building systems, such as mechanical, plumbing, electrical and power, telecommunications, security, and fire suppression systems. The facility also includes furnishings, materials and supplies, equipment and information technology, as well as various aspects of the building grounds, namely, athletic fields, playgrounds, areas for outdoor learning, and vehicular access and parking.

The school facility is much more than a passive container of the educational process: it is, rather, an integral component of the conditions of learning. The layout and design of a facility contributes to the place experience of students, educators, and community members. Depending on the quality of its design and management, the facility can contribute to a sense of ownership, safety and security, personalization and control, privacy as well as sociality, and spaciousness or crowdedness. When planning, designing, or managing the school facility, these facets of place experience should, when possible, be taken into consideration.

While the planning, design, and construction of the school facility may take two to three years, the management of it will last the entire life cycle of the facility (Lowenkron, 2009). At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the mean age of a school building in the United States as forty-two years, with 28 percent of school buildings built before 1950. Many of the building materials, furnishings, and equipment will not last half that long and will require constant upkeep, maintenance, and inevitable replacement to defer building obsolescence.

Traffic

Drives which completely circle a building or which have to be crossed when going from building to building or playground are hazardous and should be avoided. Parent auto traffic and bus traffic should be separated once on the school site (Schappert, 2010). Student auto traffic and parking should be separate from all other and easily supervised.

Site Evaluation

These factors should be used for evaluating existing or potential school sites:

Size (number of acres)

Plant life (trees; bushes)

Road frontage

Noise/Air pollution (airport; traffic; industrial)

Shape (rectangular 3:5 ratio preferred)

Utilities (availability)

Topography/Drainage (usable acreage)

Television signals (ETV; school TV)

Access (to separate traffic types on site)

Security/Protection (emergency access; lighting)

Traffic (buses; cars; pedestrians)

First cost (cost per acre)

Soil conditions (foundations; waste disposal)

Developed cost (actual cost)

Space Requirements for Building

Small schools may be unable to meet the guidelines, as multipurpose spaces may serve for specialized needs such as dance, theater arts or workforce development (vocational) labs. Multipurpose spaces should be designed so that the room, furniture, equipment and ...