Checklist: Is Your School a Community-Centered School?
Community-centered schools are accessible via multiple modes of transportation ? including those that keep our kids active and healthy.
When a community considers renovating or constructing a new school, its first objective is to provide a safe, healthy place for children to get a good education. In addition to meeting education goals, however, the school building and its surroundings can also support the community's vision and goals for its future – goals such as preserving the vitality of the surrounding neighborhood, encouraging a healthier population, and conserving open space.
While not every characteristic will be present, many of the following components exist in community-centered schools. A community-centered school:
- Is located near the families it serves, allowing students to walk or bike to school and frequent interactions between students, teachers, and parents.
- Uses expands, or adapts centrally-located schools or other types of buildings to provide a 21st century education.
- Is accessible via multiple modes of transportation.
- Is included in the school district's master facilities plan and is integrated with other land uses through a broad community planning process.
- Uses existing roads and sewers and avoids extending infrastructure when possible.
- Shares space with other entities and allows after-hours access to school facilities.
- Is broadly supported by the community – including passage of bonds for upgrading school facilities – because the facilities are used by residents of all ages.
- Is relatively small – based on reasonable enrollment sizes and draws from catchment areas – so that it fits well within the neighborhood.
- Reflects good civic design that generates public pride and allows it to be centrally-located.
