School Furniture Blog

Who says schools have to be bland and beige?  Not anymore….  Read how five schools drew their inspirations for interior design from the great outdoors.  Each has a different look that is relevant to their surroundings while keeping the students and faculties interest.  See how schools can be both functional and beautiful at the same time

NO MORE BLAND INTERIORS
 
by Michael Fickes
Time was, interior designs for schools imitated the worst examples of institutional blandness. But times change. 
 
Today’s newest school designs challenge the assumption that a school must look bland and institutional. Where did that idea come from anyway? Certainly not from Sandstone, Minn., which recently opened a new K-12 school that brings the great outdoors indoors. Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood has no time for boring school interiors, either. Witness the new Whittier Elementary School and its maritime interior design themes. In Dearborn, Mich., the new Michael Berry Career Center has adopted an exciting industrial design look. Milford High School in Highland, Mich., recently turned its new recreation center into a zoo. And if you don’t care for design themes, you can follow the lead of St. Benedict at Auburndale High School and design interiors with the look of sleek new furnishings. Institutional design? Well, these five schools are institutions. So their designs are institutional. But they are not, by any stretch of the imagination, bland.

To read more about how and where schools get the inspiration for their interiors, click here.
 

How do you make sure you equally distribute the school districts budget for furniture between 47 schools?  That’s the challenge Kathy Ely faces everyday when she works to provide the best facilities for the 30,000 students in her district.  Read how Kathy Ely, Spokane’s director of Purchasing Services, shares her district’s secrets for ensuring everyone’s satisfaction.  

by Ellen Kollie 

Here’s how administrators at Spokane Public Schools make sure all teachers have the furniture they need. 

Most administrators would agree that they would rather see money go directly toward student education than toward furniture purchases. And most would agree that they do their best to make sure this happens.

Even so, there are times when money simply must be spent on furniture, whether for replacing worn desks and chairs or for outfitting new facilities. When this happens, it’s important for teachers to feel that the money has been well spent and the furniture both evenly distributed and distributed where it’s most needed. The process needs to feel equitable and fair.

With six high schools, six middle schools and 35 elementary schools serving close to 30,000 students, administrators in Spokane Public Schools, in Washington, know what a challenge it can be to equitably distribute furniture throughout schools. Kathy Ely, Spokane’s director of Purchasing Services, shares her district’s secrets for ensuring everyone’s satisfaction.

To learn more about how Kathy Ely distributes furniture throughout her schools, click here.

We have always heard first impressions count… but thought it referred more to having a spot on your tie or smudged makeup.  This article talks about how first impressions of your educational facility buildings and furniture decor influence the decisions of prospective teachers in making their contract signing decisions.  In an age of teacher shortages, the physical surrounding that the teachers will be working in are influencing which school contracts they accept and sign.  

by DR. SCOTT M. KOENIGSKNECHT 

According to a recent study, potential teachers are influenced by their impressions of the educational facilities in which they will be working during the interview process.

Most of us have heard the story of the heavily recruited college athlete who visits a multitude of campuses only to settle for the one with the most advanced, state-of-the-art facilities. This scenario is played out hundreds of times a year on college campuses across the country. Colleges and universities spend hundreds of millions of dollars designing and building facilities that will draw the best athletes to their campuses.

What most of us don’t know, however, is the fact that public school teachers also place a high degree of importance on the condition of a district’s facilities when contemplating a job offer. Often times, highly qualified and heavily recruited teachers choose to accept contracts with school districts with better facilities. This notion is incredibly powerful and should make all districts examine the role their facilities play in the hiring of new teachers.

To read more about how first impressions impact teacher recruiting, click here

This article discusses how the changes in school furniture design are actually helping schools in many ways.  School administrators and designers are able to move furniture around the classrooms based on ever changing curriculum needs instead of having to discard and re-buy furniture.  Buying moveable furniture provides the school the ability to offer more flexibility in school classroom design

by Michael Fickes 

Is built-in school furniture becoming a thing of the past?

As the interior designer worked her way down the furniture punch list at the then new Olathe Northwest High School in Olathe, Kan., she marveled at all the furniture moving through the halls. The school was preparing to open (in September of 2003) and the district’s facilities department was swapping furniture among rooms to get ready.

The custodial staff was moving desks, chairs, and storage cabinets out of a classroom and carting it off. Other workers were carrying lightweight conference tables and a wheeling a custom-made console with electrical and data connections into the room.

The school had just inked an agreement to offer students a distance-learning language lab through a university two hours away. Fortunately, the school’s flexible furniture design made it possible to design and build a distance learning language lab in a couple hours.

“They didn’t have to hire anyone to come in and rip stuff out of the wall; they just moved it,” says the designer, Pegge Breneman, IIDA, who heads up the interior design department at the Hollis & Miller Group, an architectural firm in Overland Park, Kan.

 To read more about this, click here.