Meeting in the middle

Oct. 1, 2014
Collaborating to build better innovation in schools and communities.

Building an innovative school is about building community support. How else do you pass a bond referendum? But there’s a difference between thinking about the school and what it does for the community, and thinking about the greater community and incorporating that thinking into school design. The focus of an innovative school is on the needs of students/teachers/families, but with collaboration, additional needs can be met.

Here are a few examples of school-based collaborative partnerships:

Collaborating with Community

  • Opposition to a new school location was deflated when proposed tennis courts were moved to the side of the school nearest a new subdivision full of tennis players eager for excellent tennis facilities within walking distance.
  • Parking spaces near churches and civic venues can solve community and school needs.
  • Replacing blight and barriers with school greenspace enhances the neighborhood.
  • Easing traffic flow and/or eliminating traffic hazards is an easy sell. It seems counterintuitive that adding several hundred high school drivers to neighborhood traffic is an advantage, but when traffic flow is well planned and routed, it can be an asset.
  • Basketball courts, weight rooms and theaters are welcome in most communities. Sharing facilities can meet demands and defray costs.

Partnering with Business

  • Gyms, swimming pools and exercise facilities can be at a premium. Private health/fitness centers can be a source for collaboration that meets needs of the private sector, public school, and community. A community fitness center with reserved times for school use is an incentive for business, and may be the leverage the town needs to attract a fitness center.
  • Schools providing curricula that include student internships/mentoring with businesses in specialty areas such as healthcare, engineering, arts, finance, etc., can be a win-win for the school, student, business, and community.

Intergovernmental Collaboration

  • The city needs a new library; the district needs a new school. A single facility may broaden the roles of both school and library while reducing costs, lessening the tax impact.
  • The city needs soccer fields, basketball courts, performing arts venues, or a senior citizen center; the district needs team/extracurricular athletic space, stage/practice halls, and volunteer space. Collaboration can bring about necessary land, shared revenues and support for community youth, family and seniors programs.

Secondary to Post-Secondary Education Partnerships

In a recent government/school/ industry/post-secondary effort, the Anoka-Hennepin Public School District in Minnesota partnered with a local technical college to build a technical education facility for secondary students on the college campus. The county, valuing technical education and the college, arranged for bonding with payments by the district. The district utilizes the new facility and college for technical classes, avoiding duplicate costs. The college achieved direct access to students with interests in post-secondary education, providing avenues to interest high school students into careers that directly support commercial/business needs of employers. Moreover, the pressures to reduce post-secondary education costs combined with the need to support economic growth gives impetus to dual credit courses and collaboration with enrollment streams.

Collaboration is more than an event or action; it’s a mindset.

Roger M. Giroux, Ph.D., is Senior Educational Consultant to ATS&R Planners/ Architects/Engineers, Minneapolis, MN; a multi-disciplined firm specializing in preK-12 and post-secondary school planning and design.

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