Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

A New Back-to-School Experience

  • By Yvonne Marquez
  • 07/01/20

As a nerdy kid, my absolute favorite part of the year growing up was back-to-school season. I couldn’t wait to receive my school supplies list and go shopping for new gel pens, highlighters, and notebooks. I loved it more than Christmas! I looked forward to meeting new teachers and new classmates and getting to learn so many new things.

As the 2020-2021 academic year begins soon, students, teachers, and staff alike are gearing up for an entirely new back-to-school experience. With coronavirus rates still increasing across the United States, schools and universities are rethinking educational environments in order to keep occupancy low and properly social distance.

Some school districts will be implementing a hybrid learning model where half of the student population attends in-person classes on certain days of the week while the rest learn online and then students switch. Some school districts will be taking an online-only approach for a portion or all of the first semester, while others are planning for a full return to the classroom with PPE in the fall.

This school year will require district leaders to be agile and flexible and push themselves to problem solve like never before. In this issue of Spaces4Learning, we have an insightful guide to rethinking school spaces and structures to help with the process. On our website under the “COVID-19” tab, you can find all our coverage of the pandemic and its impact on schools, colleges and universities. Online articles include how to incorporate signage for social distancing purposes and how school nurses are critical to the pandemic. Spaces4Learning will continue to cover how schools and colleges are tackling the coronavirus, along with other design, planning and management needs.

The weeks ahead will prove challenging but also provide a chance to try something new, to rethink what we thought was working and to forge a new plan for the sake of our school communities.

This article originally appeared in the July/August 2020 issue of Spaces4Learning.

About the Author

Yvonne Marquez is senior editor of Spaces4Learning. She can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • Dallas ISD Voters Approve $6.2B Bond Package

    Dallas ISD voters have approved a record-setting $6.2-billion bond package that district leaders say will modernize aging campuses, eliminate portable classrooms and reshape learning environments across one of the nation’s largest school systems.

  • Stanford Completes Construction on Graduate School of Education Facility

    Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., recently announced the end of construction on a new home for its Graduate School of Education, according to a news release. The university partnered with McCarthy Building Companies on the 160,000-square-foot project, which involved two major renovations and one new construction effort.

  • Vanderbilt to Partner with ABM for Campus Preservation and Modernization

    Vanderbilt University recently announced that it has selected ABM Performance Solutions for a preservation and modernization project at its New York City campus, according to a news release. ABM will deliver its end-to-end ABM Performance Solutions (APS) model to manage critical operations during renovation and maintenance.

  • Chicago District Completes Construction on New Elementary School

    North Chicago School District 187 in North Chicago, Ill., recently held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Forrestal Elementary School, according to a news release. The new school marks a major investment in military-connected students and families at Naval Station Great Lakes.