Guides and Manuals – Page 11 – Education Facilities Clearinghouse

The Princeton Review’s Guide to 332 Green Colleges (2014)

campusFebruary 5, 2015

More and more students are going to college now than ever before, so educational institutions are busy accommodating this growth with new academic buildings and dorms while ensuring that existing facilities are running efficiently. The U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) LEED® green building program) helps provide a layer of accountability for college campuses seeking ways to make their green building projects, both old and new, as environmentally responsible as possible. LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a globally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of green buildings. Many of the schools profiled in these pages have LEED-certified buildings on campus or a commitment to future LEED projects, but that was not a criterion for inclusion in the book.

All of the schools in this guide, whether or not they are profiled in our annual Best Colleges book, are exemplary institutions that address the balance of people, planet, and prosperity in fascinating ways. Our hope, in coordinat- ing with the USGBC and its Center for Green Schools, is to break down what green looks like across different campuses in a way that will help you to choose the right school to live sustainably.

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Guide for Developing High-Quality Emergency Operations Plans for Institutions of Higher Education

campusJanuary 15, 2015

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PK-12 Public Educational Facilities Master Plan Evaluation Guide

campusJanuary 15, 2015

21st Century Schools, 2011. Proper planning of school facilities is critical for all school districts no matter how large or small, whether major construction is in the works or the district is managing enrollment declines. When school districts properly plan for their school facilities they have better schools, more public use and higher value for public spending. This evaluation guide was designed for superintendents and school boards that are called on to develop or sign off on plans, but who generally may not have extensive experience with educational facility planning. It can also be used to help community members participate in high quality educational facility planning.

An Educational Facilities Master Plan is a written document that describes the school district’s real estate and capital improvement requirements and its strategy and school specific plans for meeting these requirements over a 6-10 year period. On the real estate side, educational facility master plan elements will address the space needs for schools, administration and logistics, including proposed site selection, school closings and consolidations, attendance boundary changes, leasing, joint use and co-locations. On the capital improvement side, educational facility master plan elements will include: the justification, scope, schedule and estimated cost for major repairs, modernization and new construction.

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Joint Use of Public Schools: A Framework for a New Social Contract

campusJanuary 14, 2015

Mary Filardo, Jeffrey M. Vincent, Marni Allen, and Jason Franklin, 2010. In this paper, the 21st Century School Fund and the Center for Cities and Schools at the University of California Berkeley provide a conceptual frame for the joint use of PK-12 public schools. There is a growing conversation about and demand for joint use as a way to provide services to children and families in convenient locations, improve opportunities for physical activity by increasing use of school recreational and outdoor spaces, leverage capital investments, and more. However, engaging in joint use, particularly intensive sharing of space or use by multiple parties, presents ongoing challenges to school and community leaders. In this paper, we frame the basic challenges and opportunities for joint use to facilitate better conversations and planning for these type of collaborations.

This conceptual paper serves as a companion to a set of tools for practitioners and policymakers for implementing and sustaining joint use and joint development of public school facilities. Other tools available from the 21st Century School Fund and the Center for Cities and Schools on joint use and development include:

Examples of joint development and joint use;
Catalogue and analysis of state policies and model school district and state level policies to support joint use and development (See: http://www.BestSchoolFacilities.org);
A “joint use calculator” tool for computing the real costs associated with the use of school facilities; and
A database template for including community use data and information in a facility information management system.

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School Facilities Cost Calculator

campusJanuary 14, 2015

21st Century Schools Fund, 2013. The School Facilities Cost Calculator is pre-loaded with rich data from 15,000 school districts and provides step-by-step guidance in crafting an effective, transparent joint-use policy. This easy-to-use, adaptable calculator helps school system leaders:

Identify all facility-related expediters in their district
Calculate the full cost of ownership on a per square foot and per hour basis
Formulate a multi-tiered fee structure for different types of community users

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PK-12 Public School Facility Infrastructure Fact Sheet

campusJanuary 14, 2015

21st Century School Fund, 2011. There is no national database of information on public school facilities. Some states collect information and some do not. The 21st Century School Fund and its Building Educational Success Together (BEST) partners have worked to understand the scope, scale and condition of public school facilities. This is important to building our nation’s public will and our government’s capacity to provide high quality public school buildings and grounds for all children in all communities.

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School Crime and Discipline Handbook: A Practical Reference Guide

campusJanuary 14, 2015

Office of Attorney General of Texas, 2010. This manual serves as a practical guide for parents, school employees and policy makers in the state of Texas on issues involving crime in the school system. This document elucidates the laws, duties, liabilities and procedures in responding to school-related crime in Texas.

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Texas Emergency Management Toolkit

campusJanuary 14, 2015

Texas School Safety Center, 2013.The Texas Education Code §37.108 states: "At least once every three years, each school district or public junior college district shall conduct a safety and security audit of the district's facilities. To the extent possible, a district shall follow safety and security audit procedures developed by the Texas School Safety Center or a comparable public or private entity". While the term "audit" is included in TEC §37.108, the process was developed as an ongoing assessment of a district’s safety and security. Audits should be an ongoing process with the aim of identifying hazards, threats, and vulnerabilities that might pose a danger to life or property and/or may interfere with a safe, secure and healthy environment that is conducive to teaching and learning. Attention to safety and security should not be thought of as an annual or a once-every three year "audit" event. Districts are encouraged to integrate ongoing safety and security assessments into everyday activities. This includes planning, training, and drilling of emergency procedures.

SECTION 1
Audit Reporting

SECTION 2
K-12 Safety and Security Audit Guide

SECTION 3
Higher Education Safety and Security Audit Guide

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Texas School Safety Guide

campusJanuary 14, 2015

Office of the Attorney General of Texas, 2007. Protecting our children from harm is more important today than ever before. This is especially true in school settings. Children must have a safe and positive learning environment in order to receive the education they deserve.

In recent years, tragic school shootings such as those at Virginia Tech University and Columbine High School in Colorado have focused the nation’s attention on the need for secure campuses. Here in Texas, we are committed to ensuring that schools are safe havens of learning for our children – free from violent tragedies and other behaviors that threaten students’ safety.

The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) is strongly committed to assisting local school administrators as they create and maintain a safe, positive learning environment for their students. To that end, we have joined with the Texas School Safety Center to offer several resources intended to foster school safety. The first of these resources is this School Safety Guide, a practical resource handbook from the OAG that covers the laws applicable to Texas public schools. This Guide can help provide direction to school officials in handling a variety of school safety and disciplinary problems.

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Guide for Developing High-Quality School Emergency Operations Plans

campusJanuary 9, 2015

Department of Homeland Security (DHS)/Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), Department of Justice (DOJ)/Federal Bureau Investigation (FBI), United States Department of Education (USDOE), & Department Health and Human Services (DHHS), 2013. Lessons learned from school emergencies highlight the importance of preparing school officials and first responders to implement emergency operations plans. By having plans in place to keep students and staff safe, schools play a key role in taking preventative and protective measures to stop an emergency from occurring or reduce the impact of an incident. Although schools are not traditional response organizations, when a school-based emergency occurs, school personnel respond immediately. They provide first aid, notify response partners, and provide instructions before first responders arrive. They also work with their community partners, i.e., governmental organizations that have a responsibility in the school emergency operations plan to provide a cohesive, coordinated response. Community partners include first responders (law enforcement officers, fire officials, and emergency medical services personnel) as well as public and mental health entities.

We recommend that planning teams responsible for developing and revising school EOPs use this document to guide their efforts. It is recommended that districts and individual schools compare existing plans and processes against the content and processes outlined in this guide. To gain the most from it, users should read through the entire document prior to initiating their planning efforts and then refer back to it throughout the planning process.

The guide is organized in four sections:

The principles of school emergency management planning.
A process for developing, implementing, and continually refining a school EOP with community partners (e.g., first responders and emergency management personnel) at the school building level.
A discussion of the form, function, and content of school EOPs.
“A Closer Look,” which considers key topics that support school emergency planning, including addressing an active shooter, school climate, psychological first aid, and information-sharing.

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