What do our teachers imagine is possible in a new middle school building?
They might know best. Let's elevate their voices.
When Dr. Sanville initiated a public conversation about the potential construction of a new middle school, we had the pleasure of hearing from a few corners of the community.
The administration shared its slide deck presentation, which outlined the costs and benefits of the new structure.
We heard from some loud taxpayers who voiced their concerns about the proposal, despite not spending much time inside the middle school.
A few parents of current students spoke up about their experiences and considerations related to the matter, with some in favor and others expressing concerns.
I noticed, however, that we heard little from the teachers. The teachers are essential stakeholders in this decision, more critical than taxpayers, I might argue. Taxpayers are easier to replace than teachers and have a less significant impact on the school's operations.
Each teacher contributes far more to the school community than any individual taxpayer. Even a diehard capitalist must admit that the market values the contributions of a teacher (via their salary and benefits) at multiples more than what the average taxpayer contributes to support the school. Yet their voices seem to command less attention in the conversation.
Some teachers are also taxpayers. Do they get two votes? 🤔
The teachers have some of the most intimate knowledge and insight to explain and envision why a new structure might be the best investment to elevate the educational experience for our children. Perhaps the administration incorporated some of that information into their decisions, but it was unclear to me how the teachers' perspectives influenced the analysis.
The new building is expected to carry an anticipated price tag of $120 million (plus interest on the municipal debt). We all agree that's a lot of money; not an investment to take lightly. It's fair to extensively explore why the existing structure doesn't meet the needs of our community.
The administration outlined a list of physical upgrades necessary to ensure the school continues to operate safely and successfully for the school community. I delve into those changes in this article, which include everything from electrical and parking lot upgrades to ADA compliance and natural lighting.
However, many in the community question whether the marginal benefits of a brand-new building over maintenance upgrades provide meaningful educational enhancements worth $120 million plus interest.
Can't we continue to meet the needs of students with the current building?
In the grand scheme of public school buildings, ours isn't that bad, is it?
Shouldn't we invest in educational initiatives and programs instead of new windows, walls, and doors?
Is it wasteful to discard everything we have for something entirely new?
These are fair questions. I’m not discounting them. However, I think they deserve answers that provide qualitative insights beyond the quantitative costs of the project.
I think the teachers can offer some valuable insight about these questions. So I reached out to ask them!
I connected with a few current middle school teachers. I asked them to share ideas about how a new school might provide engaging and dynamic learning opportunities that are limited by the current physical space of Patton Middle School. Sometimes, infrastructure informs or limits educational opportunities.
Should a new middle school come to fruition, it may not address every idea or concern these handful of teachers shared. However, these ideas, generously shared by teachers, help us understand how a brand-new building might enhance the educational experience of our students in ways that remodeling and updating the current structure cannot achieve.
A few notes about the teachers’ ideas and reflections
Most in our community come to the table with the best of intentions. We welcome conversation and ideas that may not align with all of our perceived notions. I love this about our neighbors.
I ask that you approach this conversation with an open mind and a willingness to listen. Love an idea and have some tweaks to make it even better? Let’s hear it. Want to commend a teacher for respectfully sharing their opinions? Please do!
If, however, you’re rolling up your sleeves and flexing your keyboard fingers to fire up Facebook complaints to publicly criticize these teachers for vulnerably sharing big ideas, please see yourself out. This is just a brainstorming session, not a list of demands. If you don’t love an idea and can’t offer respectful dialogue about it, channel your inner Elsa and Let It Go.
These teachers have incredibly valuable experience working in the building with our children every day. They can help us think bigger about what the future of education for students in our district can offer. Embrace that.
Note: All responses were shared with the teachers' permission. I am grateful to the teachers who are willing to share their ideas! A new middle school may not accommodate all of these ideas from the teachers, but I love it when we can think outside the box, envision big things, and make the most of what our budget can carry to elevate our students' experiences.
Below are some quotes from teachers (provided via email and lightly edited, at times, for clarity) who shared ideas about what they might like to see in a new middle school building that upgrades or renovations of the current infrastructure can’t achieve.
Music and performance spaces:
"In a new middle school, I imagine a more cohesive and collaborative music department and performance space. The music department classrooms would be bigger to allow for more movement, more instruments, and more students. All of the music rooms could form a music suite to build a stronger connection between the music teachers and the ensembles.
The music suite would be right next to the auditorium to allow performance ensembles and students more opportunities to practice on stage. The performance space would be the latest in sound architecture and technology.
The auditorium seats would be enough for the whole school to gather and unite for different occasions to celebrate, learn, or commemorate. Our current music rooms and auditorium limit Patton's performance possibilities but I imagine a new school where practically anything is possible!”
- Gabrielle Stringham
Large instructional and gathering spaces to create a stronger community. Also bathrooms(!):
"As an assistant director for the Patton musicals, I would love to see a larger auditorium, where our whole school could gather for assemblies and performances. As it stands, we show a short preview of our musical to the 3 grades separately. This is exhausting for the students involved in the performances. It also does not allow for special performances for the neighboring elementary schools or sensory-friendly performances for our students who struggle with flashing lights and louder sounds.
A space for the whole school to gather together would provide an opportunity for students to see the caliber of the shows and a space to host other performing arts activities as well.
It would be helpful to have more storage (near the stage) for both large set pieces and costumes / props. Currently, any large set pieces that we have stay in one of the wings of the stage because the doors are not large enough to take them out. We don't have enough wing space to store many, especially during the show when we are moving up to 150 cast, crew, and staff members (and this year, even a DOG) around backstage!
As an English teacher, I would love to see a space like a "black-box theatre" or an LGI (large group instruction), where we could have poetry readings, act out plays / novel scenes, or meet together with other classes to collaborate. There are numerous times when our students are participating in Book Clubs (literature circles) and we combine students from each of our classes in order to make more books available, but there is no current space for this collaboration to take place. It would also be helpful to have a bit more storage / bookshelves!
Students and teachers LOVE the natural light from our windows (I'm one of the few who is lucky enough to have them currently) and it would be great to have a brighter space for students and teachers!
Furthermore, I would love access to a closer staff bathroom. Currently, the nearest staff bathroom is fairly far, and with the students in the hall between classes, it's impossible to get there and back within the 3 minutes of "passing time."
- Kristin Light
Collaboration and team-building spaces, and more bathroom problems(!):
I'm incredibly excited about the new building, especially the addition of a Large Group Instruction (LGI) room. This isn't just more space; it's a game-changer for collaboration. I imagine teaming up with other classes and having the perfect venue to showcase our work to a larger audience. I immediately think of events like spelling bee qualifiers, "vivid verb" cheer competitions, and poetry qualifier rounds in one space.
I am looking forward to having flexible seating options which will be beneficial so my special education coworker and I can work in small groups with students more effectively. It would also be helpful to have a private grade-level faculty room or shared-planning space, which we do not have in the current building.
As a coach, I am excited about the prospect of finally having a proper off-season home for our equipment. Moving away from using bathrooms and shower stalls means we'll have a secure, organized space, which will ultimately save us time and effort and allow us to focus more on planning for the season.
- Ilyse Jarman
More shared space for mentoring and relationship building, and the bathrooms(!):
Right now there isn’t a large space for collaboration. We have had several ideas proposed for things like book groups across grade levels or mentoring programs between sixth and eighth graders, but we lack the space for congregating. Every single space in the building is signed out every day.
The Library is considered a communal space, so it is also signed out for these events and groups. That means when a teacher wants to provide time for students to look for books, they often can’t. Our students are (anecdotally) reading so much less than they used to, and I genuinely believe not being able to be in the Library often is part of that.
The layout of the building does not make sense anymore. Right now there are several hallways that do not contain a student bathroom. That means that if a student needs to use the restroom, they need to go into another hallway - sometimes another grade level’s hallway - and could be gone for twice as long. This can lead to loss of instruction or even behavior and safety issues when students are far away from adult supervision.
- teacher chose to remain anonymous, responses above reflect collaborative ideas shared by many teachers
Safety concerns, many of which cannot be addressed by the current infrastructure:
When I think about what I want in a new school, all I can seem to focus on is safety. I have always wanted my students to feel safe with me, but also to actually be safe. I spend way too much time thinking through safety plans in case a variety of different scenarios should happen. So, what do I want in a new school?
Well, I want bulletproof glass in the windows, multiple exit points from each classroom, doors that are easier to lock, hiding places in classrooms, some sort of whole school bell system that would signal distress, a safe place to line up when we have our drills (that is not a glorified cage trapping kids in next to the woods where shooters could be hiding)1, things like that...
I know I took this to a dark place and to talk to me you probably would not know that this is what is racing through my mind at any given moment. You'd probably expect me to say windows, nice new classroom furniture, a big auditorium that can seat the entire school and can really host our incredible performances, a building made with materials meant to last, bathroom stalls that you can't see through, and I want all of that, too. I just want it secondary to safety. I love my students and I want to see them thrive in a safe and pretty environment.
- teacher chose to remain anonymous
I appreciate that these teachers were willing to share their experiences and ideas. This is only a fraction of the teachers (ones whom I happen to know). It’s not even close to a statistically relevant sample. If other teachers are interested in sharing their perspectives, anonymously or publicly, I’d love to hear your ideas (even if you think the current building is just fine).
bathrooms
Did you all know about all the bathroom issues?! And that’s not even the whole story with the bathrooms.
There are not enough bathrooms.
They’re not close enough to classrooms for staff to use the bathroom between classes (can you imagine?!).
Storing sports gear in bathrooms and shower stalls?!
Lack of privacy when you can see into the stalls?!
special education
Only one comment above touches on the significant limitations related to meeting the needs of the special education community at the middle school. Dr. Sanville mentioned the ADA compliance concerns that a new building could address. However, there are also not enough spaces to offer the quality and extent of special education services that a school of our caliber presumably wants to have available.
Death by 1,000 papercuts
The current building isn’t functioning well. There’s not a single major issue that’s an obvious point of failure. Instead, the building has a nearly endless list of small and medium-grade failures that, individually, are fixable. In communion, it’s a wreck.
One of the teachers ended their email by saying, “There are about a million more reasons, but these should give you a good idea of where many of us stand.” When compounded, the experience of trying to provide the highest-caliber education expected and cherished by the UCF community in a very broken building is akin to death by a thousand papercuts.2
We can easily belittle each paper cut as unworthy of an overhaul. Eventually, though, there are enough papercuts that band-aids are not cutting it.
A building that better fosters creativity, connection, and community in the face of AI
A common theme from the teachers is the lack of space to foster creativity, make connections with others (especially across grades and subject matter), and build community outside of a single classroom with desks lined up in rows. The current building was constructed for an era of rote instruction, and now it’s outdated.
Education has undergone significant changes in the last few decades. We can expect to see substantial shifts in the next few years as we transition into a future dominated by artificial intelligence.
As machines take over routine tasks and mechanize much of life in ways we cannot yet even imagine, human connection, collaboration, and creativity will be essential to adapt to the radical changes coming our way.
Collaborative learning spaces, events to celebrate our shared humanity, and educational opportunities that include but extend beyond math, reading, and writing (as machines will soon handle most of these tasks) will be at the core of our existence. Maybe that’s just my projection, but the teachers seem to think it’s an integral part of a fulfilling educational experience, too.
Currently, the middle school building isn’t meeting those needs, and the physical space within the current footprint doesn’t afford those opportunities, even with the most sophisticated upgrades.
A new building will likely offer a multitude of options to design a school facility better suited to meet the physical, technological, safety, relational, and curriculum needs of the modern era. Whether or not it’s time for a fresh start, our teachers are attuned to these needs more than almost anyone else. Let’s elevate their voices.
I believe this teacher is referring to the turf behind the middle school. I hadn't thought about it this way, but I can understand this description when I picture the space.
It’s just a phrase to convey an idea. I’m not equating an old middle school building to death. I promise.