“Webinar” Joins Education Facilities Experts in Seminar over the Web

On June 22, 2006, the Council of Educational Facility Planners International (CEFPI) hosted an online seminar on “Equitable Funding, Facilities, and Services for All Students.” The “webinar” was exciting both for its content and the relatively new format in which it was held, which allowed participants from across the country to be involved in an informative session without ever leaving their desks.

The seminar featured two speakers, James D. French, Senior Principal of DLR Group, and Molly A. Hunter, Director of the National Access Network at Teachers College, Columbia University. Both speakers used PowerPoint presentations, with which participants could follow along on their own computer screens, and narrated their presentations over the phone to participants.

James French, whose organization DLR Group is a “national architecture, engineering, and planning firm” that specializes in designing K-12 school buildings, spoke about designing schools with a focus on equitable facilities and resources for all students. By using two powerful case studies, Mr. French was able to brightly illustrate his points, many of which focused around the need to communicate with stakeholders in school communities as schools are designed and opened. Because so many variables impact the ability of facilities designers to create equitable facilities that will expand the educational experiences of all children, Mr. French argued that the best method of creating a design that will successfully address all these challenges is to gain input from the community and keep the community informed.

Molly Hunter offered a national perspective on school facilities funding, explaining recent shifts in capital funding practices in several state examples and discussing whether states have been successful in efforts to fund capital needs equitably. Ms. Hunter noted that the methods different states use to fund facilities vary widely, and that many of them have been impacted by funding litigation, whether challenging a state’s entire school funding system or specifically its facilities funding. Those lawsuits have proven incredibly useful in establishing the importance of quality school facilities, Ms. Hunter said, by presenting research on the impact of school facilities on student achievement in conjunction with evidence of the deteriorated conditions of school buildings in many states.

Even despite court rulings mandating better facilities funding, Ms. Hunter added, many states have failed to create successful systems for funding facilities according to need, or, having established such systems, have seen political considerations cause backsliding. Because for many years states left capital funding entirely up to local school districts, participation in funding facilities by states has developed unevenly, with almost full funding in a few states and a complete absence of funding in several. States have also found it difficult to construct and maintain a strictly equitable system for appropriating funds. Ms. Hunter concluded that facilities funding nationally is a mixed bag, as many positive intentions and good systems get derailed by tight budgets or political battles.

The session was part of an “E-Series” hosted by the CEFPI. For more information on facilities funding nationally, see the facilities section of the Access website.

Prepared by Nelly Ward, June 29, 2006