The Emerald Ridge facility supports collaboration through numerous flexible common spaces, both large and small, for students, staff, and others to work together in various-sized groups. It supports integration through its nondepartmentalized arrangement of learning spaces. The 550-seat performing arts center, for instance, has been created as a showplace for student performances and also as a laboratory for students to study the technical and artistic aspects of theater. The on-campus health club and weight room provide spaces for students to pursue personal health and fitness and also a context for those in the sports medicine program to apply their learning. Finally, the building design supports the kinds of community access and connections required by a society that promotes lifelong learning.
All stakeholder groups deserve a place at the table.
People tend to support what they help to create. Therefore, wide-spread community involvement in the school planning process is vital to success. A recurring theme among representatives of the 10 Creative Solutions Schools featured at a 1998 national school design symposium in Washington, D.C., was the way they had involved their constituents in planning schools and connected their plans to the priorities of their communities. Broad-based participation of both internal and external constituents is equally important. During the two years prior to the opening of Emerald Ridge, I took part in approximately 120 meetings with different segments of the community, including more than 30 public forums and more than 20 presentations to service clubs, school boards, and business groups.