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State of Safety

The Hawaii Department of Education relates school safety efforts to academic success.

Restrooms: Green From Top to Bottom

In reality, there are green or sustainable alternatives for every product used in a restroom from the ceiling to the floor, including those components that are located behind the walls. Designing a sustainable restroom requires the same approach that must

Are Teacher Layoffs Around the Corner?

The Center on Education Policy (CEP), an independent, nonprofit organization, recently released the results from a survey of 233 randomly selected school districts dealing with the state of these districts' budgets in the upcoming 2010-11 school year

Space and School Design

How much space should we provide (and of what type) to accommodate the program we want to run now and into the 21st century? And that, more than anything else, is the question your district should answer first when it contemplates adding new school space.

Classroom Amplification

One of the latest and fastest growing trends in high-tech is classroom amplification. But just buying a sound amplification system and installing it does not necessarily make an improvement in students' hearing. It may make it worse. On the other han

Students Helping Students: Collegiate Emergency Medical Services

Higher education institutions across the nation are establishing a growing trend in providing EMS from within the institution, often with student-based volunteers. According to the National Collegiate EMS Foundation (NCEMSF — an advocacy group for co

Weathering the Storm

How do you prepare for a natural disaster? When Hurricane Ike struck Texas, the University of Houston was ready, and eventually received $26.3M for both obvious physical damage and hidden moisture damage as a result of the storm.

Paper Tigers

Campus safety assessments can reveal how different paper plans and actual practices are at institutions of higher learning. The gaps found and corrected through these processes are often the types of concerns that can recur if a system is not developed to

Walls, Ceilings and Learning Environments

What do walls and ceilings have to do with creating a good learning environment in K-12 schools? Aren't these building systems simply supposed to look pleasant?

The Art of the Filter Change

More and more, there are requirements for our departments to provide our campuses a safer and healthier living, working, and learning environment. Studies performed by ASHRAE link student performance to IAQ conditions. It is up to us to ensure our custome

Goodbye Chalk, Hello iPhone

Advances in technology have led to multiple types of distractions; texting while driving or difficulties staying focused on college homework. Yet, the latest classroom technology is perhaps changing that course by requiring students to be more responsive

Staying Safe at the Construction Site

When it comes to K-12 phased occupied construction, it is critical to keep students safe. However, students aren't the only ones using the site — so are construction workers, teachers/administrators and visitors. Keeping everyone safe starts wit

A Brave New (Interactive) World

It's hard to believe that summer vacation is almost over and students will soon be returning to the classroom. For me, the summer has been filled with traveling to conferences and trade shows to find out more about what is on the horizon for educatio

Space Race

As professors and programs jockey for position, how does your school determine who gets the real estate, who gets wait-listed, and who gets the Friday 8 a.m. slot? We ask a few schools for some answers.

Safety 101: A Contractor's Perspective

With activities on most college campuses occurring year-round, there are many instances in which construction must occur while school is in session. Therefore, safety in and around a university construction site takes on a whole new level of importance. T

Food Waste Generates New Revenue Stream

Colleges and universities now have a new way to help mitigate the amount of methane gas entering the atmosphere and earn carbon offset credits that can be sold on the carbon market, generating revenue. The Climate Action Reserve recently released the Orga

Is It an Emergency if No One Is Listening?

The largest hurdle for colleges is to get the student population to provide their cell phone numbers in order to receive first-hand alerts. Without access, security officials must rely on individuals to forward messages or multiple systems that come at a

Brief Explores Portfolio Districts

In response to the United States' "failing" public schools, portfolio districts have been loudly championed as a new approach to school reform. A number of school districts in large cities have implemented this approach. Despite this, there are

The Sustainable Campus: Working With Nature

From the point of view of sustainable practice, a campus is a group of buildings and a landscape that operate together. When we connect sustainability to the idea of campus planning, it is essential that we look at the broader picture; not only at the imp

Net-Zero Schools

Imagine… if a school could be designed and constructed to produce as much energy on site as what is consumed from the electric grid; electricity and gas bills at 10 percent or less of that of a typical building. No water bills for site and landscapin

Green Cleaning, Sustainability Related, But Not the Same

When it comes to green cleaning, many administrators and custodial crews are now sitting back, comfortable that they understand it and have properly implemented it in their facilities, making their schools much healthier with a reduced impact on the envir

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