Public school districts across California, particularly those in low-wealth areas, experience significant funding shortfalls for their facilities. Industry benchmarks suggest the state's K-12 school districts should spend nearly $18 billion a year to maintain their inventory, ensure buildings are up-to-date, and to build new spaces to handle…

This study aims to inform the California Department of Education (CDE) in ensuring the standards contained in Title 5 appropriately promote the planning and design of healthy, safe and educationally suitable K-12 school facilities. The study gathers and analyzes K-12 facility standards in ten case study states across the country to understand…

The purpose of this study was to inform the California Department of Education (CDE) in ensuring the standards contained in Title 5 appropriately promote the planning and design of healthy, safe and educationally suitable K-12 school facilities. The study gathers and analyzes K-12 facility standards in other states across the country to understand…

Indoor environmental quality (IEQ) may not be the only aspect of a green school, but it is one of the most significant. Advanced environmental instrumentation technology now provides school business officials with tools to measure the factors that contribute to their schools' IEQ. These new devices make it possible to identify the toxic or…

Doors serve a variety of needs and purposes in schools: (1) Exterior doors provide building security and protection from the elements; and (2) Interior doors control the movement of people among school spaces, help control noise and air flow, and act as flame and smoke barriers during a fire. In a lockdown, they serve as safety barriers. From a…

This publication discusses conditions that feed wildfires, how a building catches fire, determining the school's risk, creating a survivable space for the school, the importance of maintenance, the fire-resistant school, meeting code requirements, and related flood and mudslide risks. Much of this publication has been adapted for schools from the…

At the request of the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, the National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities (NCEF) has conducted "a literature search and review to identify best practices in [school] building design for accommodating the evacuation and sheltering needs of individuals with special needs or…

Public or private, K-12, college or university, no one knows their facilities better than school maintenance and operations staff--from the front-line custodians to facility managers. When it comes to planning restrooms for new construction and renovation, operational experience is especially critical. Applying best practices in advance can save…

Adequate school plants are essential to a modern educational program. The school plant that is not properly maintained soon fails to provide the service for which it was intended. The total program of maintenance, including repairs, renovation, remodeling, rehabilitation, and modernization should be carefully planned. Some tasks will recur at…

This bulletin is designed as an outline to direct the attention of local officials to various features and steps meriting attention in planning and carrying out a school-plant construction program. Planning, administration, and construction practices and procedures may vary with buildings of different sizes or types of construction or with those…

During the past fifteen years, educators and electronics specialists have been experimenting with language facilities, usually by modifying equipment components which were originally designed for other purposes. The rapid growth, wide diversity, and newness of these electronic aids to language learning have created the need for a study of the most…

This bulletin is one in the series on pupil transportation issued by the Office of Education. Its purpose is to furnish information and guidance for local school administrators and others who are concerned with school bus maintenance. Programs of school bus maintenance vary among the 48 States. Presumably all contract vehicles are maintained by…

School fires endanger pupils' lives and take annually a heavy toll in school property losses. If not controlled, these potentials may be changed quickly into serious losses. School officials, teachers, parents, and the public have an interest in school fire safety. Because of other interests and a lack of assigned responsibility in this area fire…

Because of the individual authority of each State for its own educational program, practices and policies differ widely among them in many respects. Yet in the midst of differences there are also common elements of development. The U. S. Office of Education, in presenting this series of monographs, has attempted to point out those common elements,…