The Center for Universal Design in Education (CUDE) develops and collects resources to help educators apply universal design to all aspects of the educational experience:
- instruction
- student services
- information technology, and
- physical spaces.
Category: Reports
Extra Sensory Perception
Sokol, D. New special-needs schools demonstrate careful consideration for the touch, feel, and sound of architecture. Considering the design needs of students with special needs.
Meeting the Learning and Information Needs of All Students: Universal Design for School Libraries
Parker, K. (2007). This shift in accountability from special educators and parents of children with disabilities to schools and school districts represents an important change that holds great potential for school libraries.
Promoting Physical Activity through the Shared Use of School and Community Recreational Resources
Active Living Research (2012). The shared use (or joint use) of existing school and community sport and recreational facilities can be a cost-effective way to promote physical activity among residents of all ages. For example, a school may allow community members to use a track, playground or basketball court for free when school is not in session.
Closing the Achievement Gap: Using the Environment as an Integrating Context for Learning
State Department of Education and Environmental Roundtable, 1998. Using the Environment as an Integrating Context for learning (EIC) defines a framework for education: a framework for interdisciplinary, collaborative, student-centered, hands-on, and engaged learning. It has begun to transform curricula in a growing number of schools across the United States and may have the potential to significantly improve K-12 education in America.
Research on the Impact of School Facilities on Students and Teachers
21st Century Schools, 2010. There has been a slow but steady increase of research on the impact of public school facilities on educational achievement and community outcomes and of the rigor of the research. This summary of studies is part of a larger literature review conducted by the 21st Century School Fund with funding from the Charitable Trust of the Council on Educational Facility Planners International.
The review is designed as an update to the 2002 review “Do School Facilities Affect Academic Outcomes?” by Mark Schneider, originally commissioned by the 21st Century School Fund’s Building Educational Success Together collaborative and then expanded by Dr. Schneider and published by the National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities.
Recent research continues to point to a small but steadily positive relationship between the quality of a public school facility and a range of academic and community outcomes.
This study reviews the literature on:
Facilities & academic outcomes
School building systems
Repair for Success: An Analysis of the Need and Possibilities for a Federal Investment in PK-12 School Maintenance and Repair
21st Century School Fund, 2009. A new national commitment to address the deferred maintenance and renewal of our nations PK-12 public school buildings will improve our education system, the economy and the environment. A $27 billion investment, just 10% of the minimum estimated total need, would take us a major step closer to ensuring that the nearly 55 million staff and students who attend school daily are in healthy, safe and educationally appropriate environments. This investment will also quickly create between 160,000 and 235,000 jobs1 that will protect our environment and sustain the public infrastructure investments made by earlier generations.
Through a detailed analysis of what school districts have spent on maintenance, repair, and capital renewals, the 21st Century School Fund found that since 1995 the nation has not reduced its level of deferred maintenance. In fact nationally, using a conservative estimate and extremely modest standards, deferred maintenance in our PK-12 public school buildings has grown from $216 to $271 billion. This is an average of about $41 per square foot of space and about $5,400 per student. A more aggressive estimate pegs the total national deferred maintenance, repair and renewal needs of our public school buildings at $650 billion.
Creating Jobs Through FAST!, a Proposed New Infrastructure Program to Repair America’s Public Schools
Mary Filardo, Jared Bernstein, and Ross Eisenbrey, 2011. The average U.S. public school building is 40 years old, and many are much older. The cost of maintaining nearly 100,000 public schools and facilities in good repair is enormous. According to the Government Accountability Office and the American Society of Civil Engineers, school districts have been under-spending on maintenance and repair for many years. Chronic deferred maintenance and repair can lead to energy inefficiencies, unsafe drinking water, water damage and moldy environments, poor air quality, inadequate fire alarms and fire safety, compromised building security, and structural dangers.
A national project to address this backlog could create hundreds of thousands of jobs, including jobs for construction workers, building technicians, boiler repairmen, electrical workers, roofers, plumbers, glaziers, painters, plasterers, laborers, and tile setters. It could also lead to the direct hire of building maintenance workers to help slow or prevent the deterioration of buildings and building systems, while generating new savings through energy conservation.
Reversing the Cycle of Deterioration in the Nation’s Public School Buildings
Council of the Great City Schools, 2014. The report describes how school districts, financially squeezed over long periods of time, made economic decisions that reduced the most cost-effective types of maintenance work: preventive and predictive maintenance. The result of those decisions “to save money” will, in the long term actually increase the amount and frequency of much more expensive breakdown repair and replacement work.
As funds continued to be inadequate, the higher costs of breakdown repair work are forcing districts to make fewer repairs, which accelerates the deterioration of buildings and component systems. Ultimately, districts experienced and will continue to experience premature failure of buildings and systems, and are forced to borrow large sums of capital funds (with their accompanying debt service costs) to upgrade and/or replace facilities. Sadly, new buildings are likely to receive the same lack of preventive and predictive maintenance, thereby repeating the cycle of deterioration.
The report contains contemporary references that link the conditions of school buildings to student achievement and a variety of other issues. It also provides information and references to a variety of strategies that have proven successful in reversing the cycle of deterioration.
Model School Safety Plan for Rhode Island
State of Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency, 2013. In July of 2013, Governor Chafee signed RIGL §16-21-24 into effect. The law requires RIEMA, in coordination with RIDE to develop a template for school districts to work with local police and fire departments to conduct a school safety assessment and create an emergency plan. School committees are now required on an annual basis to update school safety and emergency plans and procedures. By December 31st of each year, the Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education must present a safety assessment to the General Assembly and the Governor.
RIEMA, in collaboration with RIDE, the Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities, and Hospitals, the Rhode Island Department of Public Safety, Rhode Island State Police and the Division of the State Fire Marshal, and many other stakeholders developed the Model School Safety Plan in the wake of school incidents. The purpose of this joint initiative is to enhance preparedness and response procedures for school systems and local communities in the State of Rhode Island.
The plan is a 300-page strategic blueprint which incorporates best practices and state requirements into a guide that school districts can adopt or modify to meet their individual needs. The key documents in the new resource include an emergency planning guide and two FEMA publications regarding developing high-quality emergency operations for K-12 and Higher Educational institutions.
