Building & Classroom Quality

BENEFITS

• Higher test scores: Students in newer, better buildings score 5 to 17 points higher on standardized tests than students in substandard ones. tn

• New construction: Building new elementary and middle schools raised reading scores by 0.15 standard deviations six years later. brookings

• Moving buildings: Elementary students who moved from an old school to a new one gained about the equivalent of 35 extra days of instruction.tandfonline

• Air quality: Poor air in schools is linked to asthma, sick days, trouble concentrating and lower achievement. Run-down school buildings are linked to a 16% higher hospitalization rate for children with asthma. aft

• Mold and moisture: Visible mold, humidity and poor ventilation were each linked to more absences in New York schools. healthybuildings.hsph.harvard

• Maintenance: Schools without big repair backlogs have 4 to 5 more students attending per 1,000 each day, and 10 to 13 fewer dropouts per 1,000 each year.

• Temperature: Students did worse on tests for each school day above 80°F, and extreme heat also increases absences and discipline referrals.nea

• Daylight: In one study, students with the most natural light progressed 20% faster in math and 26% faster in reading than those with the least.sites.psu

• Noise: Quieter classrooms are linked to more engaged, higher-achieving students. Good acoustics also mean teachers don’t have to strain their voices. files.eric.ed

• Space: Crowded rooms make it hard to use group work and cooperative learning, and they add to teacher burnout.

• Keeping staff: Teachers in Chicago and D.C. who rated their buildings as poor were far more likely to plan to leave their school or teaching altogether.files.eric.ed

• Morale: A building’s physical condition affects teachers’ morale, sense of safety and feeling of effectiveness. In one district, renovations gave teachers renewed hope and a sense that the district cared.

• Community: New construction raised public school enrollment by 17% and can also raise nearby property values. brookings

HOW TO

Facilities master plan: The National Center on School Infrastructure suggests these steps:school-infrastructure

• Write down what the instructional program needs from its spaces (sometimes called educational specifications).

• Involve the community and update enrollment projections.

• Review each school’s capacity and how its space is used.

• Run facility condition assessments.

• Estimate costs and funding.

• Rank needs with a scoring rubric everyone agrees on.

• Condition assessments: Architects, engineers or maintenance teams inspect each building’s systems to judge age and condition and to identify needed upgrades. Scoring each building with a Facility Condition Index makes buildings comparable.school-infrastructure

• Priorities: Put safety, critical replacements and legal requirements first. Then rank by instructional needs, capacity changes, fairness across schools and neighborhoods, and available funding.school-infrastructure

• Keep the plan current: Check it briefly every year or two, and do a full update every 5 to 10 years.baysingerarchitects

• Budget benchmark: Set aside 2 to 4% of the buildings’ current replacement value each year for maintenance and repair. If maintenance is underfunded, repair backlogs grow and buildings wear out early.rga.lis.virginia

• Written preventive maintenance plan: List the tasks that keep systems and equipment working. The EPA offers templates for this. epa

• Involve teachers and students: Students and teachers who will use a space should help design it, working with the architects and the principal.tandfonline

• Design priorities: The UK HEAD study found that light, temperature, air quality and sound accounted for about half of the building’s effect on learning. Flexibility and students’ sense of ownership made up about a quarter, and color and visual complexity the other quarter.eun

• Spaces alone don’t change teaching: Moving into flexible learning spaces also requires new ways of organizing teaching. In one study, renovation alone wasn’t enough to change how much students moved during class.

• Give teachers time together: Let teachers learn how to use new spaces through discussion and peer observation. Your Teaching Strategy Cycles would fit this well. eun

• Furniture matters: Teachers with flexible furniture used more student-centered approaches, while teachers with traditional desks used more teacher-centered ones.ecu.edu

• Free EPA program: The EPA’s IAQ Tools for Schools is built on what worked in more than 1,000 school air-quality programs. Its steps are to organize, communicate, assess, plan, act and evaluate. It also names an air-quality coordinator and team and calls for regular building walkthroughs. epa

• Low-cost basics: These include the following: epa

  • Change filters on schedule.

  • Bring in outdoor air at the rates set by ventilation standards.

  • Keep unit ventilators clear of books and papers.

  • Hold indoor humidity between 30 and 60% to prevent mold.

• Daylight: Daylighting can raise test scores without raising construction or maintenance costs. For rooms without windows, light pipes are a fairly low-cost retrofit.docs.nrel

CHALLENGES

• National shortfall: U.S. schools are underfunded by about $85 billion a year compared with what good upkeep requires. About $57 billion of that is for capital projects and $27.6 billion is for maintenance and operations. Note that this report is from 2021;  static1.squarespace

• Unequal ability to pay: Poorer districts often can’t afford to replace worn-out systems, even when replacement would be the cheapest long-term choice.

• No money set aside for maintenance: In California, districts no longer receive funds dedicated to maintenance. It competes with every other budget priority, so it gets put off. auditor.ca

• Many systems need replacing: In a 2020 national survey, 54% of districts needed to update or replace several building systems. 41% needed new heating and air conditioning in at least half their schools, about 36,000 schools. gao

• Delay costs more: 55% of districts said their facilities budget wasn’t enough. Putting off maintenance raises costs over time, and districts with little preventive maintenance had more chronic problems and more disruptions to instruction.contractingbusiness

• Old buildings: The average U.S. school building is about 50 years old. aasa

• Custodians: Before the 2024–25 school year, public schools had filled only 74% of custodial positions on average.fbgservices

• Skilled trades: HVAC technicians and electricians are among the hardest positions to fill. In one district, the HVAC staff was so small it could only fix units that had already failed, with no time for routine maintenance.meetings.boardbook

• Noise in open plans: Noise and distraction are among the most common complaints about flexible learning spaces, from both teachers and students. Younger students and students who struggle are more likely to be distracted and off task in open-plan rooms. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih

• Acoustics cut to save money: Sound design is often overlooked or cut during budget reviews (“value engineered” out), which can leave open spaces that teachers consider unfit for teaching.acoustics.asn

• Sensory overload: Without enclosed quiet areas, students can become overwhelmed, particularly neurodivergent students and teachers. dael.euracoustics

• Too much on the walls: Kindergartners in a heavily decorated classroom were off task 39% of the time versus 28% in a sparse room. Their learning gains were 18% versus 33%. This was a small lab study, but it shows that more decoration is not always better. fordhaminstitute

• Professional learning gaps: Common problems include adjusting to the change, collaborating with colleagues, and not getting professional development to prepare for it. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih

WHAT NOT TO DO

• Don’t wait for things to break. Districts with little preventive maintenance had more chronic problems and more disruptions to instruction, and delayed repairs cost more over time.  Instead, budget 2–4% of the buildings’ replacement value each year for upkeep.rga.lis.virginia

• Don’t judge projects by construction cost alone. The cost to build a school may be only 10–15% of what it costs to run over 30 years. Compare options by their long-term costs.education.stateuniversity

• Don’t add space without adding staff. New wings without more custodians lead to less thorough cleaning and more worker injuries NYSUT

• Don’t save energy by cutting fresh air. The EPA says reducing outdoor air below the standards degrades air quality and is not recommended. Demand-controlled ventilation and heat recovery can lower energy costs without cutting fresh air. epa

• Don’t run ventilation only when heating or cooling is on, and don’t let teachers switch off noisy units. Both are common reasons classrooms fall below ventilation minimums. indoor.lbl

• Don’t cut acoustics to save money. Sound control is often cut during budget reviews, which leaves open spaces teachers consider unfit for teaching.acoustics.asn

• Don’t build only open space. Provide enclosed quiet areas to prevent sensory overload, especially for neurodivergent students. Forum Acusticum 2025

• Don’t leave maintenance staff out of design. As one facilities expert put it, “If you don’t engage the maintenance operations staff when you’re putting specifications together, you probably missed a big item”.facilitiesnet

• Don’t design without the people who will use the space. Bring teachers and students into the process.tandfonline

• Don’t expect the building to change teaching by itself. Renovation alone may not be enough to change practice.ouci.dntb.gov

• Don’t cover every wall. In a small lab study, heavily decorated rooms raised kindergartners’ off-task time and cut their learning gains nearly in half. fordhaminstitute