EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM, USE OF SPACE, AND ADEQUACY ISSUES
This section of our report addresses the existing educational program offered in Lincoln’s schools, the use of space within the schools, and the adequacy of the existing facilities in the delivery of the educational program. We will examine each of the school facilities within the Lincoln School Department and consider the following questions with regard to each:
1. Do the site, the building, and building systems satisfactorily house the educational program that the school delivers?
2. Do deficits exist within the facilities with regard to their number, size, shape, available technology, environmental conditions, or the relationships among the facilities that limit their educational adequacy?
3. Are the current facilities of each school likely to adequately serve the needs of its students in the years to come?
Although comments about the adequacy of spaces are sometimes negative in nature, the reader is reminded that such comments are not to be seen as a criticism of the teaching or the learning that takes place within the schools. On the contrary, in our visits to Lincoln’s schools we have seen many examples of the staff and students making the best of what the facilities have to offer. We commend teachers, students and parents for what has been accomplished, but there is little doubt that most positive outcomes are being achieved in spite of the facilities and few because of them.
The standards used to judge the adequacy of Lincoln’s school facilities cannot be found in any single source. The Rhode Island Department of Education in its latest edition of Necessity of School Construction provides many recommendations, but does not mandate minimal facility requirements. Instead, it provides guidelines to ensure that the size of school spaces are sufficiently adequate to house both the teaching and learning activities intended to take place within each space. What is it that teachers and students are intended to do? The answer to that question determines the adequacy of the educational spaces.
On the secondary level, national studies on effective high schools (The Breaking Ranks Report) and middle schools (The Turning Points Report) both make a very strong link between the size, organization, and bell schedule of schools and the effectiveness of the educational programs that the schools offer. Both reports stress that the most effective secondary schools are smaller in size, create a personalized school climate, utilize extended learning periods, and are keenly attuned to needs of individual students. This thinking has guided our consideration of the Lincoln Middle School and Lincoln High School.
Perhaps the clearest statement of adequacy for all schools can be found in the standards of the accrediting agency for Lincoln High School, the NEAS&C Commission on Public Secondary Schools. Under its seventh standard, “Community Resources for Learning,” NEAS&C states that “The school site, plant, and equipment shall support and enhance all aspects of the educational program and the support services for student learning.” In the final analysis, that is the standard that has guided our analysis of all of the school facilities in the town of Lincoln.
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