Anything but the Office

iep2 has been involved in many meetings where building or replacing administration spaces is on the table. This is when the controversy begins.  Many people are concerned, rightly so, about facility bond money going to “space for the student”, not non-student space, such as the administration office.  Don’t get us wrong we are all about improving student environments and understand that they are why we have schools in the first place, BUT just for a moment we ask you to consider something that often gets over looked.

Typical high priority list items in school planning are:

• Safety
• Welcoming Environments (AKA don’t make it look like a prison)
• Community / Parent Involvement
• Collaboration
• Creating  a Campus Identity

Now let’s consider what the offices designed at most 1940’s-1960’s schools have to deal with:

• No walk through access (which does not allow visitors to walk in one door pass through an office space and walk out inside the schools “safe perimeter”)
• Limited visibility to the school grounds and the entry ways onto campus
• Building located too close to the street edge which compromises proper drop-off and pick-up areas for the current driving population
• Tiny lobby spaces and small broken up rooms
• No room for counseling, child services, Safety Officers, phycologist or other services that may come to support students and families
• No conference rooms or parent meeting areas
• At the high school level, separate buildings for counseling, attendance and health offices from the main administration (which are hard to navigate for parents, less secure and inefficient)
• Limited staff space designed for when the teaching staff was half the size and collaboration was not the focus of professional development 
• Limited architectural interest or prominence as the campus’ front door

Working on an existing site and trying to bring it up to the 21^st century can be difficult, especially when the original site layout was for fewer students and when there were fewer cars and having multiple entrance points was OK.  Expanding the school capacity and creating a “proper font door”, central to the campus with a secure entrance and vehicle and pedestrian ways, typically requires a reorientation of the campus and this usually leads to the controversial discussion of a new administration office. 

So, before writing off administration as non-important because it is non-student space, please think about the role the “front door” and porches play in your house. Consider the functions within an office; they support families, communities and student health. And most importantly, school safety and security, which should always be considered at the top of our improvement list!