In a previous job, Afandie Winter, TLIS, once learned that planning was underway for a construction project. He started asking simple questions: Where will phones plug in? How will Wi-Fi be delivered? Where will the printers go? Will the spaces have displays or projectors? How about audio?
“That kind of silenced the room,” said Winter, director of technology at Children’s Day School in San Francisco. “Folks started to realize that, yes, I should be invited into the room. Let’s rewind and start planning this out again.”
As independent schools infuse physical spaces with technology that propels their missions of shaping future leaders and thinkers, they are also future-proofing new construction and renovation projects to maximize learning and the resources that make it powerful.
Students and teachers might not notice that their learning spaces are future-proofed with conduits and cables, but they know when an environment is comfortable, user-friendly, and has “holding power,” said Buck Crockett, director of technology at Almaden Country Day School in San Jose, California.
“It’s a warm, comfortable, emotional response to the learning process,” said Crockett. “A key component of that is their learning environment. If we do it right, it’s magical.”
Power of Ideas
Future-proofing begins with people — collecting the ideas, needs, and wants of students, teachers, parents, staff, trustees, and all other stakeholders in the school community.
As Children’s Day School began envisioning a state-of-the-art Early Childhood Center, teachers participated in discussions to share what was working and not working, what they wanted to see in the space, and how they could collaborate toward shared goals. That input created a foundation for problem-solving, working with the project budget, and thinking about future needs, said Shelly Luke Wille, head of school who also serves on the ATLIS board.
Students also had a say. After reading If I Built a School by Chris Van Dusen, they shared their ideas with the architect. Sadly, the unicorn ranch didn’t make the cut, said Wille, but their rooftop slide is a centerpiece of the Early Childhood Center, aka The Treehouse, which also features art, tinkering, and digital innovation spaces.
“We started with students and teachers and what they wanted in the project,” said Wille. “Anyone with relevant engagement questions and ideas is welcome to the conversation.”
At St. Stephen’s Episcopal Day School in Coconut Grove, Florida, the design and construction of the Arts and Innovation Center was rooted in a 2016 strategic plan envisioning St. Stephen’s as a “global model of learning and inclusivity.” By connecting diverse people and ideas, the center’s space was purpose-built to “enhance curricular programming in the performing arts and science while fostering creativity and innovation among students and faculty,” said Inge Wassmann, director of innovative teaching and learning.
“Flexible spaces empower students and encourage engagement. Our goal is to have a real-world transfer of learning.”
Inge Wassmann, St. Stephen’s Episcopal Day School
The school community joined in the planning, Wassmann noted. Teachers contributed their thoughts on what they need now and in the future. “Storage, storage, storage” became a running joke, but the plan accommodated that request with common and classroom storage spaces.
The process for St. Stephen’s yielded a flexible, multipurpose structure featuring a first-floor great hall/performing arts center, plus another two floors of collaborative spaces; design studios; connected classrooms for science, math, music, and art; and a recording studio that students can operate and that supports audiovisual uses.
“The building is thoughtfully equipped, and it promotes student STEAM learning and strategic thinking through that intentionality of planning and creating purposeful learning spaces,” said Wassmann. “It integrates the arts, science, performing, and music. It fosters curricular collaboration, trying to eliminate those silos. Flexible spaces empower students and encourage engagement. Our goal is to have a real-world transfer of learning.”
When planners convene, the director of technology must be at the table. Wassmann works closely with technology director Felix Jacomino and a team of innovation coaches to dovetail vision and innovation with the hardwiring of technology, all toward the goal of “inspiring and empowering our whole learning community,” she said.
At Children’s Day School, Winter led discussions on the sense and relevance of each technology proposed for The Treehouse. In one instance, Wille wasn’t sure that a flex space intended for preschoolers and adults could accommodate a screen display that could be lowered and raised, but Winter “persisted with that idea in a really positive way,” she said.
The room’s presentation technology now makes sense for small children and adults. “That’s a small thing that has a big impact,” said Wille.
In the Walls and Floors
The secret to future-proofing? “Conduits everywhere,” said Winter.
“Conduits, conduits, conduits. Pathways everywhere.”
At Children’s Day School, those pathways radiate from the new Early Childhood Center to the school farm and garden. They also extend into the common yard, enabling plug-in live streaming of graduations, performances, and community events “instead of pulling out a 100-foot reel each time,” Winter said.
Some of the school’s conduits are empty but were installed to anticipate future needs that didn’t fit in the capital budget such as charging stations for electric vehicles. After extensive research, Children’s Day School also found that capabilities for preschool assistive hearing devices were cost-prohibitive, but with a plan that put the power, mounting capabilities, and, of course, conduits in place, they can be installed in the future.
Almaden Country Day School conducted overlapping capital projects, building the flexible, multipurpose Fisher Event Center while renovating the library and technology education areas into the Imaginarium makerspace, library, and middle school science laboratory. Crockett future-proofed the projects for rising data needs by adding extra ethernet cable, fiber lines, and empty conduits in and between campus buildings.
By moving network data from a local-area network to a broader wide-area network, the Almaden Country Day School Wi-Fi has enough bandwidth to work when 20 students are on their tablets — or when 200 parents are streaming a performance to grandparents.
Uptime in the 99th percentile is Crockett’s measure of success. “When there’s Wi-Fi in every inch, then you’re delivering,” he said.
Crockett also future-proofs by thinking beyond current expectations. If the standard for ethernet cables is Category 6a, then run two Category 7s, he said. Avoid the need to duplicate spending on costly trenching, labor, and permitting in the future by running extra cables and conduits.
“You have to know when to compromise and when not to compromise, and ethernet is something you don’t want to compromise on,” Crockett said.
“If you have an ethernet pipe big enough to hold that video bandwidth, that’s going to cover a lot of bases in the future. For the next generation of people, that’s what they’re going to coast on.”
St. Stephen’s developed its Arts and Innovation Center by working closely with its world-class, locally based architectural team, while auditing existing technology and consulting with experts on future needs, said Wassmann. Through that process, planners realized they had to relocate the main distribution frame from another spot on campus into the center for its centrality to the campus.
Planning for the center focused on “an inclusive environment that encourages collaboration and exploration,” said Jacomino.
“The design incorporates flexible classroom spaces, integrated smart technology, and advanced audiovisual systems that support both virtual and in-person learning experiences,” he said.
“Key technologies include interactive whiteboards, wireless connectivity, 85-inch OLED televisions, and specialized design tools for both the arts and sciences.”
Planning for the Unknown
Who knew 10 years ago that virtual classrooms and meetings would be commonplace today?
Technology not only accelerates but transforms daily, making prognostication impossible. But reviewing history can help inform future trajectories, said Crockett. Since the advent of cloud computing, history shows that data will keep moving in ever-growing quantities.
“We’re not going to move less data,” he said. “We’re always going to be moving it. You just want your pipes to be as big as you can and plan for a future where you’re going to have more.”
Nontechnology needs can also be anticipated and future-proofed. Children’s Day School embedded and capped plumbing infrastructure in a room’s foundation in case a bathroom is needed, while other spaces are adapted. The same logic applied to bathrooms for preschoolers, thinking ahead to adaptations if the area is reconfigured for older students.
When weighing budgetary considerations against overloading on technology and facility equipment, “everything we do is filtered through the mission,” said Wille. “In a crunch, that’s what we had to lean on. What can we not go back on? What is a decision that can’t be made after this? If we think something is a possibility, that was the internal decision-making matrix.”
St. Stephen’s called on the principles of scalability and adaptability to ensure robust Wi-Fi, connectivity, power, and data systems, said Wassmann. Technology partners share updates and insights on tech advances in the near or distant future. Reconfigurable spaces can adapt to emerging technology. Designs can anticipate the equipment and materials that aren’t imperative but can be foreseen such as the exhaust system built into the Arts and Innovation Center for a laser cutter that was envisioned in the plan and purchased after the space opened.
Adequate electrical power is essential to future-proofing. Crockett worked with the electrical engineer to make sure the Almaden Country Day School makerspace included a 20-amp circuit for each pull-down glue gun so their simultaneous use wouldn’t trip the circuits that are also feeding computers and power carts.
If he could redo his projects, Crockett added, he would have overshot on the plant’s electrical needs — not just things such as electric vehicle chargers but more power for the heating and cooling that is increasingly going electric and drawing more load.
“That’s where everyone’s consistently under-scoping — their electrical needs,” he said. “You want to aim high.”
Talking the Talk
A human-friendly but future-proofed facility is designed with the end user in mind, and independent school tech leaders note they sometimes must be advocates for those users during planning, design, and construction. Architects and contractors will adhere to standard materials and systems, but schools that know their students and faculty will find the alternatives and push for better.
That can mean arguing for fiber-optic cables that move data at the speed of light instead of speed-of-sound ethernet. Or it can mean, as Winter experienced, convincing the builder that dual-cellular technology with Voice over Internet Protocol and battery backup would be a viable alternative to trenching and laying copper phone lines — a budget-busting delay — for the elevator emergency phone. The builder said the wireless system wouldn’t pass inspection, but Winter’s research found it certified and being used in hospitals.
“You have to know when to compromise and when not to compromise, and ethernet is something you don’t want to compromise on.”
Buck Crockett, Almaden Country Day School
As people from different fields convene for planning, the jargon will fly. Learning the terminology of other team members can foster productive communication, said Crockett. Reading manuals, watching videos, preparing thoroughly for meetings, and “being honest about what you don’t know” enables independent school tech directors to put the pieces together and represent their communities more fully.
“I will ask those ‘dumb questions’ and say, ‘Thanks for helping me learn this better,’ because I want to be able to read the plan they’re giving us and feel like I’m comprehending it as close to the level as an industry expert,” he said.
Intensive collaboration and inclusion “make for good decision-making generally and good project focus,” said Wille. In the case of the Children’s Day School Early Childhood Center, the collaborative spirit was critical in delivering a facility on time and only slightly over budget.
“That was not easy, and it was not a coast,” she said. “It was dedicated, intentional, focused, collaborative experts working together, respecting all of the different layers.”
Future-proofing With a Purpose
When the Children’s Day School project was completed, Winter did a favor for “the future version of me” by acquiring the “as-built” plans from the architect and contractor. He and his team had once spent weeks seeking out an elusive connection between buildings by pulling cords to see where they led. As-built plans help save time and prevent confusion by depicting the realized project as it is, from room numbers to cable installations, instead of the planned intent shown on initial blueprints.
Meticulous documentation throughout the process also prevents mix-ups and lost time in case of mid-project personnel changes. Winter shares knowledge and emergency notifications with his team for a seamless transition “if I tragically got hit by a bus.” Wassmann gathered every piece of information possible in furnishing and equipping the rooms of St. Stephen’s Arts and Innovation Center, for meticulous documentation that facilitated a smooth transition in the director of technology post.
An intentional approach to building design, technology, and ongoing maintenance and upgrades is one that empowers teachers and staff, said Wassmann.
“Someone comes in with an idea,” she said. “We listen. We make sure it aligns with the curriculum and learning principles. If it aligns, then yes, let’s check it out.”
Winter feels fortunate that he was invited to planning meetings for The Treehouse, Children’s Day School’s whimsical Early Childhood Center. His advice to other tech leaders is to “do the work” and get themselves invited if they know a project is underway.
“Knock on doors,” he said. “Go into offices. Talk to the powers that be. Make sure you are at the table, listening in, giving advice. Know what the organization of the school is wanting to accomplish, because you are needed.”
