News: Interview
Building Schools That Make Sense

One leader says teacher morale, student achievement is at stake.

Many people are pondering the perennial question: What makes a school facility sound? But few are making it their mission to encourage teachers and parents to demand a say in how those facilities should be built. Mary Filardo is one of them. Eight years ago, she started the 21st Century School Fund to raise money to rebuild her child's deteriorating Washington, D.C. school, Oyster Elementary. Now she's branched out, and with the help of Ford Foundation and others is aiming to change the way communities nationwide look at school construction and its impact on student achievement. A daughter of educators who has worked in construction management for 25 years, Filardo has written extensively about public school facility issues. She talked with NEA Today's Marilyn Milloy about some of her projects and ideas.

Tell us about the 21st Century School Fund--how it started, what it does.
Our primary mission is to build up the public will to modernize schools and build new ones. We particularly want the people who work in these buildings--the teachers, support professionals, students, principals--to really be a part of the process of planning and designing so that the schools themselves end up being the schools they want in their neighborhoods.

A lot of times communities get in too late--they notice something is happening when the site is being cleared. That's why our big message to folks is, "You need to worry early."

For me, it started with realizing that the classrooms in my children's school were really noisy--it drove my oldest child crazy. I started talking to the teachers and found out it was driving them crazy, too. So as a community we said, "Wait. We should be able to solve this."

How does school construction impact student learning?
We see the impact in several ways. One is in the delivery of the curriculum. If you don't have laboratories for your science, you're not doing laboratory science. If you don't have practice rooms for music, you're not doing instrumental music. If you don't have an art room with a sink in it, you're not doing very messy art work.

We also think learning is impacted by what we call "time on task"--how much time you're spending with core activities. In the school my kids went to, there was a bathroom on one floor, and so the entire class had to line up and wait for everybody to use it and get a drink of water before going back to class. I calculated they spent about 40 minutes in lines--and that's not even counting lunch lines. In the new school there's now a bathroom next to every classroom, and there's a sink with a drinking fountain in it.

What else eats up teaching time?
Emergency school closings because of fire code violations or asbestos--or because it's too hot or the boiler breaks down--all that affects time for teaching. So does absenteeism because poor air quality is aggravating allergies and asthma.

Then there's what we call acuity. A number of studies have found that if there are poor acoustics in a classroom, kids don't learn to read as well. If the lighting is dim, they can't see the board. If they're sitting in a room that's 90 degrees, they'll fall asleep.

Unfortunately, there isn't the research that sort of puts all this together, but it's what we've come to understand over the years, and we think it's significant.

So what are you doing to inspire parents, educators, communities to push for these kinds of improvements?
The Ford Foundation has agreed to fund an initiative we're leading with several other groups in four target communities--New Jersey, Ohio, Illinois and Washington, D.C.

Our first focus is to make sure there are local policies in place that support the participation of schools and communities in school facility planning. These would be things like public hearings, sign-offs by the local school before a project is approved by the school board. In Chicago, for instance, the Neighborhood Capital Budget Group is working very closely with the teacher's union on this front.

The other piece is monitoring and oversight. We're very concerned about the fiscal responsibility of school districts when they have billions of dollars they're looking at spending and have been spending on school construction.

You mentioned involving teachers--how important are they to this process?
Critical. We're actually doing a national teacher survey to understand better the way teachers experience their work environments--how these environments affect decisions about where they teach, what they teach, how they teach. We really want to involve them because we know the workplace affects morale and retention.

For communities that are already gearing up for capital improvement projects, are you offering any guidance on how their schools should be designed?
For now we're encouraging people to visit other schools. One junior high school I visited years ago--it was in an affluent suburb--really opened my eyes. The thing that got me was the home economics room. It had a demonstration table where the mirror lowered down so the teacher could show students how to cook. The English classroom had a little stage in the front--like a mini-theater. The teachers had offices off their classrooms and windows that allowed you to look into the rooms, and they had phones in every room. I thought, "This is amazing!" It really opens you to the possibilities.

But where do you draw the line between what's a luxury and what is truly necessary to enhance learning?
It's difficult. You really have to look at it and weigh. Obviously, if you have to decide between a science laboratory and a demonstration mirror, you pick the science lab. You also have to pay attention to air quality. Carpet, for instance, is a big problem. Many heating and ventilating systems are problematic. And you don't want to send six-year-olds up three flights of stairs to use the bathroom.

There's a lot, but the big message is that people need to get involved.

Isn't it all pretty ambitious--getting parents and teachers fired up amid budget crises and battles over salaries?
The job of rebuilding these facilities is going to be huge, yes, but it is our generation's responsibility. My kids went to schools that were built in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1885, and those communities sacrificed to build those schools. I think we have an obligation to make sure we leave schools in better shape than we got them.

Mary Filardo, executive director of the 21st Century School Fund, can be reached at 202/ 745-3745. Her E-mail is: mfilardo@21csf.org. The Web site: www.21csf.org.