Case Studies K-12 Education

Faulty heating and cooling systems making students shiver or swelter—not to mention dimly-lit classrooms—are not only uncomfortable, but also may result in lower scores on standardized tests, says Dr. John Bailey of the National School Plant Management Association. He should know. Bailey studied classroom environments as part of his doctoral dissertation and found mean scaled […]

When an organization is in the midst of a major renovation project, it usually doesn’t expect the new guy on staff to make a suggestion that impacts the bigger picture. But that’s exactly what Karl Ingoldsby did—and his idea is paying off in more ways than one. When he was hired as the facilities director […]

With his father working as a diesel mechanic for a railroad in Massachusetts, Harry Takesian has always wanted to work with tools. While attending Whittier Regional Vocational Technical High School in Haverhill, Massachusetts, Takesian enrolled in a summer program designed to give students even more hands-on experience with machinery and equipment. It was then Takesian […]

There’s an old saying that everything is bigger in Texas. It applies to ranches, farms, monuments, stadiums and airports. And a proposed $1 billion construction bonds for a north Texas school district. The Northwest Independent School District, located in the northwest portion of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, did what it could to ensure the passage […]

On one hand, 2020 was about keeping up with day-to-day developments; on the other, planning for an uncertain future. Director of Facilities Josh Schaffer and his crew at the City of St. Charles School District in Missouri started planning for the worst—then hustled to make the best out of a tough situation. “About the time […]

He didn’t have to go to college or vocational school. Instead, John Scalisi has harnessed the many opportunities to grow on the job since he was 18. The early stint with Nassau County Parks and Recreation’s electronic department taught him many of the basics that decades later he’d apply in his present capacity as director […]

For much of 2020, in California and along the West Coast, the day and night skies took on a permanent orange hue, a vivid reflection of the raging fires down below. Plumes of stinging, acrid smoke swirled into the sky, then settled as an uncomfortable haze shrouding houses, roads and businesses. The forest fire-induced haze […]

From farm animals and drones to striking architecture and on-site input from students, the new STEM facility at Broken Arrow Public Schools in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, is designed to educate—for life. Built in the Oklahoma soil and surrounded by 80 acres of usable land, the main building is a split-level design constructed to make the […]

It’s a standing joke that marks the end of an academic year at Milford School District SAU-40 in bucolic southern New Hampshire. An ordinary academic year, that is. “Don’t worry,” Bill Cooper is typically told after the students are dismissed in mid-June. “It’ll be a light summer. Just the usual projects on your to-do list.” […]

Experience counts, and Keith Watkins has tons of it when it comes to managing school facilities. For 30 years in towns and cities throughout upstate New York, Watkins has been on facilities management teams. He’s also led national and state associations of school facilities managers, all in the spirit of protecting and maintaining buildings, students […]