Improving public-school infrastructure—an endeavor that includes building new schools, modernizing aging buildings, and locating community resources within those buildings—needs to be a priority for the good of our future leaders and the cities and towns where they are growing up. That’s the conclusion K-12 Education Practice Leader Sean O’Donnell and Bruce Levine, his co-director for the Consortium for Design and Educational Outcomes, posit in the latest issue of Learning by Design magazine. They authored this article after publishing two major studies:
- Addressing a Multi-Billion Dollar Challenge: Advancing knowledge of how high-quality school environments can positively affect educational outcomes
- Fostering Community Resilience: How community school design and integrated student support systems can drive student success and community well-being
O’Donnell and Levine’s Learning by Design article makes the case that investments into modern, high-performance schools that offer the latest in teaching tools and provide needed community resources can yield big returns, such as millions in saved energy costs, growth in civic pride, and, most importantly, students who are the best prepared to succeed beyond secondary school.
The article featured several Perkins Eastman-designed projects:
- Roosevelt High School and John Lewis Elementary School in Washington, DC
- Charter Oak International Academy in West Hartford, CT
- Martin Luther King, Jr. School in Cambridge, MA
- Alexandria City High School in Alexandria, VA.