HOT TOPICS

• 2009 International CEFPI Planner of the Year

  PBK would like to announce that Irene Nigaglioni, AIA, and a Partner at PBK, has received the "2009 International CEFPI Planner of the Year" award. This award is the highest and most distinguished individual honor conferred by the Council of Educational Facility Planners International.
  
  
• Education: Benefits of Small Learning Communities

  Texas is a rapidly growing state, and school construction is escalating. School districts and design professionals face many challenges, and research has shown that learning is greatly affected by decisions such as school layouts and sizes. Design professionals and school districts are turning to the implementation of smaller learning communities. The United States high school graduation rate is 71-percent. Student achievement in American high schools ranks in the lower half of developed countries. Years of research have shown that small learning environments enhance education, and perhaps they are one clear solution to the achievement gap currently faced by public education.
  
  Smaller learning communities offer many benefits to large schools within large school districts: more personalized teacher-student relations, promotion of collegiality among teachers, and equal treatment of pupils. Several foundations and institutions across the nation provide funding and grants supporting education, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the George Lucas Educational Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education. In his latest article, PBK's President & CEO, Dan Boggio, highlights Atascocita High School in the rapidly growing Humble Independent School District (Humble, Texas). The project represents a model illustration of smaller learning communities, showing the design professional and school district's collaborative effort to design a large, 5A high school with a personal one-on-one "feel."
  
  For more about this article, please contact PBK Marketing at 800-938-7272.
  
  
• PBK leading efforts for TX-CHPS

  Public review has opened on a new assessment tool for green schools in Texas. The tool, developed by the Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS) and a Texas based advisory committee, called the Texas CHPS Criteria (TX-CHPS), creates a benchmark for the design and construction of Texas high performance school buildings that are efficient, comfortable, environmentally responsible and healthy spaces. TX-CHPS will help to ensure that the state’s schools have access to appropriate tools and resources to build high performance schools, schools that can improve student and staff health, improve student performance, increase a sense of community, reduce environmental impact, and reduce operating expenses. Texas joins a collaborative of ten other states that have high performance schools programs including California, Colorado, Washington, New York, Massachusetts and many northeastern states. You can learn more about TX-CHPS, and review and comment on the new standard through November 21, 2008 at the following website: www.chps.net/review/2009Edition/texas