Standard D: Resource Management

cc. Conduct a (brief) facilities analysis for ADA. If a child in a wheelchair were to enroll
in your school, is the program physically accessible? Assume this child is cognitively capable,
i.e., does not need an assistant. What would have to be done to make the building accessible and
responsive to the dignity/safety issues that are the core of ADA?
Introduction
In order to have an effective school that runs smoothly and is conducive to learning, there
are many elements that must be frequently analyzed and improved upon. Students deserve to
learn in a building that is created to allow all students to maneuver easily regardless of disability.
In addition, students should learn in a building that is clean, well-maintained, comfortable and
aesthetically pleasing. For that reason, I have analyzed my elementary school building to
determine areas in which improvement in necessary.
Auditing the School
In order to analyze my school building, I used four instruments: The School Building
Rating Scale, The School Building Observation Form, The Americans with Disabilities Act:
Checklist for Readily Achievable Barrier Removal, and the School Safety Assessment Protocol.
These instruments are created to identify areas that need to be corrected in order to have a school
building that is conducive for learning and maintained in a way that maintains safety for all.
Strengths in the Building
The school building has a lot of adaptable space. There are many large classrooms that
have allowed different programs to be housed in our building. Regardless of the student growth
throughout the years, the layout of the building has allowed for the needed growth. However,
our building is very old, and even though it has been well maintained, there are many issues that

arise from trying to upkeep a sixty year old building. Our school is a well-respected community
school, and there have been no issues with vandalism or graffiti.
The school building was designed with a lot of natural light. Each classroom has a long
wall that is full windows. Many teachers are capable of teaching on sunny days without even
turning on the florescent lights. This is a great plus for our building because it adds a calming
feel to the classrooms. In addition, this provides an additional support to students with sensory
disorders that struggle learning with artificial lighting. Also, the school was designed to the scale
of the students. The water fountains, bathrooms, cafeteria and classrooms were designed to the
appropriate scale for young students.
Being a community school, our building does offer a sense of community. In the
cafeteria, there are tables set up for families to eat with students, and the playground is open to
the public in the evenings. In addition, being in an older building, many families are comfortable
in the building because it is the same classrooms they attended when they were young.
In terms of ADA compliance, our school is in a one story building that requires no
elevators, stairs, or railings. This makes all areas of the building accessible to students with
disabilities. This is crucial for our building because our school has Comprehensive Development
Classrooms (CDC) and the deaf education program for the county.
Areas in Need of Immediate Attention
The building in which I work has many strengths, but there are many more areas that
need immediate improvements. Some of these areas could be repaired quickly and easily, yet
others of the repairs will not be as simple. Regardless, they must all be corrected in order to
ensure safety for the students.

The School Building Rating Scale has several questions to analyze the quality of the
outdoor learning space. Our school has a lot of green space available with a large playground,
open fields, baseball field, outdoor basketball court, picnic tables and several courtyards.
However the screening tool made it obvious that the vast amount of outdoor space is not being
utilized to maximize learning. Most of this space sits unused each day. This is a missed
opportunity for learning. Another area of concern with the outdoor space is on the playground,
The School Safety Assessment Protocol (2000) points out that the playground must be covered
with an appropriate level of ground cover (p. 8). Our playground was covered with mulch
over a year ago. Most of it was worn off, and many areas of the playground expose the ground
surface. This sort of lack of maintenance can result in an injury to a student.
Another area of concern is the lack of space used for enrichment activities. The School
Building Rating Scale assess the quality of the areas of instruction for the arts and sciences, and I
gave our school a Very Unsatisfactory rating because there is no space dedicated to visual arts or
science labs, but there is a music room. In addition, the School Building Observation Form has
the statement that There are identified places where students can be noisy and engage in
physical activity (p.13). Our school has a room that is dedicated to be the gym for physical
education, but it is extremely outdated and poses risks to student safety. This year the foam
flooring was pulled out due to mold and now students run and play on concrete flooring. Also,
there are uncovered poles and low ceilings. For these reasons, the gym teacher takes the students
outdoors for class when the weather allows. However, the school should have a safe, indoor
place for students to play actively.
In many areas our school was ADA accessible, but there were a few areas that need
improvement. There is assigned parking that is handicap accessible; however, in the mornings

during student drop off, these areas are not monitored and are frequently misused by parents
dropping off students. These areas need to be monitored to ensure they are available if needed.
Another area from the Checklist for Existing Facilities is that our school does not offer signs in
the hall that are available in Braille. Last, the Checklist for Existing Facilities (1995) asks Is the
phone hearing-aid compatible? (p. 15). Our school does not provide phones that are accessible
for people that are hearing impaired. This issue needs to be corrected because our school has
many students and staff that is hearing impaired.
As I stated previously, our school building is older, and this creates issues that are not as
simple to repair. Two issues I noticed through these surveys are that classrooms do not have
phones in them. This is a safety concern because the only use of communication is the intercom
system. Another issue is that many classrooms have old carpeting that is coming up and has
bumps and rips that create tripping hazards in the classrooms.
Plan of Action
Now that areas of concern have been identified, a plan of action must be created to fix the
problems. Some of the areas of improvement have simpler fixes than others.
1. With the leadership team, I would discuss the issues with handicapped parking. We
would rewrite the procedures in the school manual to include areas such as, the teacher
on bus duty in the morning would inform the office staff if the handicap parking spot is
being used inappropriately. The office and administration would speak with the people to
insist that the handicap parking will only be used by vehicles with a handicap tag. At the
next faculty meeting, I would inform teachers of the new policy. I would include it in the
school newsletter to inform parents that the handicapped parking spaces must be used
appropriately at all times.

2. I would use money from the school budget to buy new hallway signs that provide
Braille and a phone for the office that is hearing aid compatible. I would meet with the
teachers of the deaf education program to determine if there are any other areas of
weakness to better prepare our building for the hearing impaired students. Our school
houses the students with hearing impairments, and it should offer the accommodations
and technology needed to accommodate students.
3. I would place a work order to contact central office to inform them that the school
playground needs mulch to be delivered during the summer to ensure the playground is
ready for students to play safely on the first day of school.
4. In order to have the outdoor space used for learning, I would reach out to community
members to ask for donations for seating for the outdoor spaces to create outdoor
classrooms. I would form a committee of teachers, parents, and community members to
design and create this new learning space.
5. The last few areas of concern are large issues that are passed the realm of the school
budget and resources. Each of these issues is a result of having an old school building.
The gym needs to be rebuilt or at the least it needs massive renovations to ensure students
can actively play without getting injured. The old carpeting in eleven classrooms needs
to be replaced with newer carpeting or even tile. Last, phone lines and jacks need to be
installed through the building to ensure that a classroom phone is available in each
classroom. In order to bring these issues to the attention of others, I would inform central
office of the problem. Also, I would invite school member such as, the director of
schools, superintendent, board members and councilman to look at these areas of concern
and ask for funding to create a safer environment.

Given the chance to do it again, how would you do it better?

Many of these areas of the assessment tools are subjective. You choose whether it is
satisfactory or not. When I am a school administrator, I would use these tools with a committee
that is composed of multiple stakeholders to ensure the assessment is completed without bias.
Multiple members of the team would complete the same rating scale, and the results could be
analyzed and discussed.
The next step would be to meet with the committee to discuss the areas of weakness and
determine a manageable action plan. Depending on the areas of weakness, different people may
need to be invited to join the team such as community members, school board members, parents,
etc. Last, I would organize a community work day to invite community members, teachers, and
families to help with tasks that were determined essential from the committee discussions.
Keeping the school building clean and up to date is a hard task that is only manageable if the
community contributes.

References
Checklist for existing facilities. (1995). Retrieved from https://bb5.utc.edu/bbcswebdav/pid63352-dt-content-rid87897_1/courses/SU14.EDAS.5770.30792/ADA_checklist_for_existing_facilities.pdf.
School building observation form. Retrieved from https://bb5.utc.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-63350dt-content-rid88105_1/courses/SU14.EDAS.5770.30792/School_Building_Observation_Form.pdf.
School building rating scale. Retrieved from https://bb5.utc.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-63349-dtcontent-rid88106_1/courses/SU14.EDAS.5770.30792/School_Building_Rating_Scale.pdf.
School safety assessment protocol. (2000). Retrieved from https://bb5.utc.edu/bbcswebdav/pid63353-dt-content-rid-88104_1/courses/SU14.EDAS.5770.30792/safetyassessment.pdf.