www.cefpi.org
Because most jurisdictions formulated their facility policies on the basis of CEFPI’s 1970s guidelines, the Trust approached CEFPI, along with partner groups, including Smart Growth America, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Park Service. CEFPI officials were already in the process of reconsidering the guidelines to better reflect evolution in educational philosophy, so they agreed to consider preservation and smart growth issues as well. With input and advice from a variety of partner organizations, CEFPI has rewritten its recommendations in four new publications that will eventually reshape the process of school construction:
• Creating Connections: The Council of Educational Facility Planners’ Guide to Educational Facility Planning, replaces the old Guide for Planning Educational Facilities, which was the bible for school planning for the last quarter of the 20th century. This new guide significantly expands recommendations for community input and participatory planning and erases pejorative attitudes about older buildings.
• A new Appraisal Guide for Older and Historic Schools will balance an existing evaluation tool that tended to make all older schools appear unresponsive to contemporary education. This new document will provide a framework for a far more objective dialogue on the value of existing schools.
• Schools for Successful Communities: An Element of Smart Growth summarizes new recommendations regarding the way schools fit into communities. It eliminates arbitrary acreage standards and presents several case studies that demonstrate the applicability of these new ideas.
• A Planning Guide to the Renovation of Older and Historic Schools is a new publication intended to help balance the decision-making process between renovation and replacement. It directly dispels the myths about school renovation and offers advice on how to avoid real pitfalls. Again, a series of specific case studies illustrate the potential of older schools.
Preservationists recognize that not all old buildings can—or should—be saved. All they ask is a level playing field that allows older and historic schools to compete, to demonstrate their potential without prejudice. The new CEFPI guidelines will provide that balanced view—but only if school boards make the effort to become familiar with these new recommendations before making critical school decisions
Primer: Renovate/Rehabilite Older/Historic Schools, shop.cefpi.org/product.esiml?PID=106
Appraisal Guide for Older/Historic School Facilities (2005),
