When educators help guide facility renewal and modernization investments, enormous financial and educational value can be created

By Lance Roberts, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Manitoba, and Wayne C. Cole, Learning Environment Specialist, Johnson Controls Canada

As soon as school facilities are constructed, they begin the unavoidable process of physical deterioration. The stewards of these building assets have a clear duty to manage the impact of this physical deterioration to optimize the useful lifespan of these assets, and to ensure that building deterioration does not interfere with the educational mission for which these buildings exist.

Across the nation, various property management and engineering assess-

Martha Currie Elementary School courtesy of Schubert Plumbing

ment approaches are utilized to assess and track the physical deterioration of building components, and to determine the level of investment needed to restore these components to their original condition. With these common assessment methodologies, an effort is made to prioritize the timetable for making such investments. There is no doubt that schools are physical structures and systems and, like others, they deteriorate.

Therefore using such methodologies to

Rogers Elementary School

establish some measure of facility condition index is appropriate to fulfill the purposes for which they were developed – to measure how degraded the physical components of a school facility are.

While property management and engineering assessments may be useful for managing physical deterioration, research evidence about school facilities makes it clear that any assumption that this assessment provides meaningful information about the quality of the teach-

Kelowna Parkinson Activity Centre Sunnyside Elementary School courtesy of Meiklejohn Architects courtesy of Grant + Sinclair Architects Lynn Fripps Elementary JL Crowe Secondary School Norkam Secondary Renovations courtesy of MQN Architects

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ing and learning environment is unsupported. Specifically, the research shows that NO systematic relationship exists between these assessment methodologies and a school’s teaching and learning outcomes.1

polIcy IMplIcatIons

The fact that standardized property management assessment of school facilities has no systematic connection to either the learning environments or student outcomes has an important policy implication.

In Canada, over a billion dollars is spent annually on school renewal and upgrading. The clear lack of a demonstrated connection between, on one hand, the facility condition indices generated by current property management and engineering assessments, and, on the other hand, learning environments and student outcomes, suggest that for the huge sums invested annually on school renewal, we should expect no systematic improvements in educational outcomes.

What justifies investing in school infrastructure when systematic effects on educational outcomes cannot be anticipated, at worst, or are merely coincidental, at best?

tHe value oF an educator’s perspectIve

School buildings exist for the primary purpose of teaching and learning. It follows that their physical components and the impact within the school should be assessed with respect to the educational mission.

Teaching and learning occurs in a physical context where interactions happen in classrooms or other learning spaces. Teachers conduct their work day-to-day in these same spaces and are direct observers of the impact that physical conditions have on the educational mission. While teachers have detailed knowledge of specific spaces, principals have an understanding of how the overall buildings and grounds impact effective teaching and learning, and therefore of the school’s educational climate. In short, school principals and teachers are relevant groups from which information about the “educator’s perspective” on school facility conditions can be obtained. They must be strategically engaged in the process of informing the facility management team about what physical hindrances are impeding the teaching and learning process, and therefore what investments are needed to support the mission. While this ‘informing’ process (hindrance abatement) does not extend to planning, managing or executing the facility renewal process, its invaluable guiding the deployment of facility renewal capital in support of the academic mission.

Research has demonstrated the value of this ‘informing’ process has, in various ways, demonstrated a clear connection between the physical condition of learning spaces and educational outcomes.2 The significance of this form of educator assessment can be demonstrated by the research findings of Dr. Lance Roberts, in which teachers rated physical hindrances to learning in two distinct groups of learning spaces; those rated by educators to have high-hindrance rates and low-quality teaching and learning environments (poor classrooms), and those known to have low-hindrance rates and high-quality teaching and learning environments (good classrooms).3 The results indicate that ‘poor classrooms’ have more than three times the number of physical hindrances than were reported in ‘good classrooms’, as shown in the

following chart:

This type of mission relevant information is NOT included in current property management and engineering assessment methodologies since their focus is primarily on measuring the facility condition index. It is the critical element that disconnects traditional facility condition assessments to the academic mission of school facilities.

HoW MucH oF an eFFect do pHysIcal HIndrances Have on student outcoMes?

There is a complex interplay between facility conditions and educational outcomes, with schools that have better facility conditions generating better school climate and student achievement.4 However, student performance is an outcome affected by many variables.

A recent review of the published research on academic achievement indicates that over 60 variables have significant effects.5 Multiple studies suggest that a reasonable estimate of missionrelevant school effects on students’ academic performance is about 10 per cent. Although school facility effects are not as large as social class and teacher behaviour, they are consequential enough to warrant serious investment attention.

While it is not uncommon to find students doing well in facilities that are in poor condition, such examples do not support the idea that facility conditions are unimportant. Good teachers can, and often do, mitigate many influences that impede learning. The important question to ask in these cases is, “How much better would students perform if facility hindrances were removed?”

tHe convenIent trutH aBout enerGy-eFFIcIency InvestMents

Research has consistently demonstrated that the top four physical hindrances that effect student outcomes are (1) thermal comfort; (2) lighting; (3) ventilation; and (4) acoustics.6 Facility renewal investments that change these four factors, intentionally or coincidentally, are bound to have a corresponding effect on student outcomes.

In the normal course of planning and executing facility-renewal investments, most school facility departments will make changes that are intended to reduce energy costs where possible. This effort commonly occurs when projects are focused on upgrading lighting, heating and cooling equipment, ventilation systems, and sound-absorption or amplification systems. This is a common investment practice that – with the benefit of the educator’s view – can reduce physical hindrances and improve the quality of the learning environment, and can also provide a convenient platform for driving learning-environment improvements.

The overlap between investing in energy-efficiency improvements and reducing physical hindrances can be illustrated as follows:

In simple terms, to ensure that energyefficiency upgrades do not exacerbate physical hindrances in the learning environment,7 the planning and implementation processes must include a welldefined element that allows educators to ‘inform’ facility planners about the condition of the learning environment. Clearly, energy-efficiency improvements can and should be done in lock-step with hindrance-abatement programs; every change in energy use potentially impacts hindrances, and most hindranceabatement activities will impact energy use.

The commercial landscape is populated by many organizations that claim their product or service will “improve the quality of the learning environment”; yet the evidence is clear that in the absence of a classroom-based ‘educator’s assessment’, these claims cannot be relied on as inevitable outcomes of facility-renewal investments.

MultIplyInG tHe FInancIal value oF InvestInG In Better learnInG envIronMents

It is self-evident that the mission of K-12 organizations, and their success, is routinely measured by some form of

student outcome; student grade-point performance, graduation rates, and post-secondary enrollment rates. By the age of 18, most students will have spent 24,000 hours (15 per cent of their time) in schools, and most teachers will spend close to twice that amount of time in a school building. In the course of this time, the stewards of Canada’s school organizations will have invested billions of dollars to produce educational outcomes that are intended to improve and sustain Canada’s ability to compete in global markets, and generate optimum benefits for the Canadian economy.

The common compelling justification for most investments is defined by the ‘return’ on the investment.

However, informed investments that are intended to improve the quality of the teaching and learning environment can produce high value in the form of many outcomes. These higher-value outcomes require a dedicated guidance, and strategic focus, from the senior education executives. The literature demonstrates that – when properly guided by educators – investments made in creating high-quality teaching and learning environments pay-off in the form of multiple returns.

The improvements in school climate that can be realized from carefully planned hindrance-abatement programs will manifest themselves in the form of improved student and teacher morale and commitment, student and teacher enthusiasm, cooperation and respect. Hindrance-abatement programs can also reduce the physical environment stress experienced by teachers and students and the benefits will manifest themselves in reduced student and teacher absenteeism, lower staff turnover rates, increased enthusiasm for academic demandingness, and pride of place.

In real dollars, a five per cent reduction in absenteeism will produce higher financial returns than most energy-efficiency investments; as will a five per cent reduction in staff turnover rates. The financial benefits of higher graduation rates and increased post-secondary enrollments could easily produce the highest financial/economic return on investments made in creating and maintaining high-quality teaching and learning environments. In this regard, combining hindrance-abatement investment with energy-efficiency investment can create enormous financial and educational value.

Much is already being done to incorporate quality learning environment guidance when designing and building new schools, but the sobering fact remains that 80 per cent of all the schools that will be occupied 20 years from now already exist. The stewards of Canada’s school facilities need to look more seriously at the significant and positive returns that can be realized today by investing in well-planned hindranceabatement programs. The focus needs to shift from creating better-looking school buildings for the future to creating high-quality learning environments for today.

reFerences:

1 Picus et al. (2005), Bowers and Urick (2011), and Horswill (2011) 2 Earthman et al. (1996), Hines (1996), Crook (2006) Uline and Tschannen-Moran (2008),

Roberts (2009) 3 White Paper, Roberts and Cole (2012) 4 Uline, Tschannen-Moran and Wolsey (2009) 5 Zwaagstar, Clifton and Long (2010), Hattie (2009) 6 Earthman (2004) 7 Roberts, Unanticipated Consequences of

Conventional School Renewal (2011) b

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