Education specs

What are District-wide Educational Specifications?

District-wide Educational Specifications, or Ed Specs, are a set of facilities guidelines that establish the ways facilities support program and curriculum, and establish baseline, equitable facilities standards across the District. As a specific school site approaches significant modernization, the Ed Specs are tailored through a master planning process to suit the individual school, program and community through staff, student and community engagement with design professionals. Ed Specs will also inform regularly occurring program changes and space planning considerations in schools not undergoing full modernization.

How will PPS develop Ed Specs?

A consultant team lead by DOWA – IBI Group Architects will assist the District in the development of Ed Specs in two phases over the winter and spring of 2013 in two phases:

• Phase I     Envision the future of educational facilities reflect and calibrate aspirations
• Phase II    Recommend standards and specifications

Phase I will engage internal and external stakeholders in a collaborative process that listens to and reflects stakeholders' interests and process desires for the development of Ed Specs. Additionally, in Phase I the process will bring to all stakeholders a broad awareness of exemplary facilities from around the world that support current learning and teaching. Phase I will calibrate expectations, catalyze imaginations, and raise aspirations. The process for community engagement for both phases of the project will be designed collaboratively with an advisory committee that will be representative of the District’s learning, teaching, parental, and neighborhood communities.

Phase II of the process will, through organized stakeholder engagement, produce a set of facilities recommendations that follow from the Phase I visioning work, and are suitable for district-wide application. These 'Ed Specs' will serve as broad guidelines and standards that will be individually tailored to school sites as the capital program progresses.