Unanticipated consequences of conventional school renewal BY LANCE W. ROBERTS, PhD, UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA
Facility Management Evolution
ment model of school facility renewal.
For decades, school facility manage-
The latest models employ a “mission-
ment has been guided by an engineer-
relevant” perspective. The mission-rele-
ing-based, property management model.
vant model centres on making school
Within this model, school facility manage-
renewal investments responsible for
ment has evolved. Traditional concerns
answering the question, “How will this
with the health and safety of participants,
investment improve the quality of the
as well as operational functionality of
teaching and learning environment?”
buildings, have been supplemented with more recent attention to energy and
Measuring Mission-Relevant
operational efficiency, as well as asset life-
School Renewal
cycle sustainability and carbon footprint reductions.
Conventional property-management school renewal is based on measures like
Most recently, progressive schools are
the facility conditional index. These meas-
moving beyond the property manage-
ures are useful since school buildings and
components are subject to deterioration and, as such, need to be maintained. The limitation of these measures, and the property-management approach that justifies them, is that schools are not just buildings – they are buildings with a very important public purpose. Mission-relevant school renewal adds value by taking the educational purposes of schools into account. Like all bestpractices, mission-relevant school renewal requires valid and reliable means of measuring school conditions. For Canadian schools, I have developed two measurement tools that provide this information. The Principals’ Assessment of Schools Survey© identifies which schools in a division’s inventory are most in need of mission-relevant school renewal. The Learning Environment Roster© then identifies what specific hindrances within each classroom require remediation. Evidence from almost a thousand schools in four provinces demonstrates the utility and validity of this mission-relevant approach. What a Mission-Relevant Perspective Reveals It should come as no surprise that when educators provide informed assessments of the adequacy of school facilities, their evaluations differ from judgements made by engineers. Different kinds of professional judgements provide different kinds of insights. The Learning Environment Roster© provides valid and reliable information to facility managers about what components are hindering effective teaching and learning. Recent evidence from hundreds of classrooms suggests that the following mission-relevant hindrances are typical:
14 Ops Talk • Fall 2010
