School Districts are facing pressure to incorporate technology into their curriculum to compete with other institutions who have already adopted 21st Century and New Tech programs. However, miles of wiring, hardware, software, white boards, wireless projectors and hand held devices aren’t the only technological concerns of modern schools.
Posts about Construction Management (2)
Construction of New Tech High Schools
The New Tech Network is designed to target disinterested students, while still reaching those who are already college bound. And it is working because their report, "2020 Impact Report", shows that New Tech High School students are 10% more likely to go onto college compared to the national average. And added 14 new schools to their network in 2020.
Hail Damage Risk for School Districts and Restoration Action
What do a pea, a quarter, a mothball, and a golf ball have in common? You probably guessed it, they are all used to describe sizes of hail. The bigger the diameter of hail, the bigger the damage it causes, especially for School Districts. You may wonder why a school would be worse off than most other structures, but when you consider that most Districts have a campus with multiple buildings in the same area, the cost to restore after a hail storm can add up quickly.
Michigan Schools Making Space for Robotics
At the 2018 FIRST Robotics World Championships in Detroit, there were 601 teams from Michigan. To say that robotics is growing quickly is an understatement. Through grants, bond programs, and sponsorships, Michigan School Districts are making room on their campuses to support those teams. The makerspace, as these rooms are more broadly called, can include a robotics lab. These areas are “dependent on the size of the robotics involved”, according to Douglas Rich of spaces4learning.com in his article, Designing Robotics Labs. “There is no difference between learning to program a demonstration robot or full-size robotics arm; so many schools choose the smaller robots to save space and money”.
Key Elements that Help Our CM Division Achieve Team Cohesion
Construction Management is the ideal delivery method for large, complex construction projects, such as those for School Districts. School Boards and Superintendents rely on their Architect and Construction Manager (CM) to form dynamic teams to fulfill a project’s goals and seamlessly deliver their buildings on time and within budget. Team cohesion is the goal on each of our projects. Taking into consideration that we are possibly working with new and diverse players with each new School District, this takes effort and coordination to achieve. An experienced CM typically will have vast resources and relationships with a wide variety of Prime Contractors, but when bidding projects, an unfamiliar contractor may be more suitable in achieving the schedule, budget, or meet proximity requirements of local contractor, therefore, we have tools that we use to initiate them onto the team as a cohesive member.
The Right Mix for Pre-Bond School Election Services
Preparing for a Bond Election is critical to school construction projects because if the election isn’t successful, there is nothing to construct. Therefore, Wolgast has developed Pre-Bond Election Services to set up School Districts for building success. While we haven’t won them all on the first try, we have maintained a 92% success rate for schools we’ve helped over the past 5 years.
Preparing for Michigan Schools’ Safety in 2020
Over the last year, a lot of action has happened to make K-12 schools safer for students in Michigan. While still in office, Gov. Snyder implemented legislation for a School Safety Task Force. The Task Force has been meeting to oversee School Districts and their Safety Plans for each of their buildings. Schools are required to have their plans in place by January 2020. Also, as part of the Legislation, starting in 2020, new construction and renovation plans for schools have to be shared and consulted with their local law enforcement agency for their evaluation from a safety standpoint.
Tips to Pass a School Bond Election
We have found that there’s not a single formula to passing a school bond vote. Every community is different in regard to their support of their school district, so each campaign needs to be tweaked and managed. However, Wolgast's School Facility Specialists have discovered a couple of tactics over the years as former School Superintendents on how to give every bond campaign a better chance for success and offer their expertise as part of our Pre-Bond Services.
First, the most important aspect of a successful millage election is staff and community involvement in the planning process. With that said, the likelihood of the passage of a millage proposal is determined days and even months prior to the election. The development of the bond proposal, the inclusion of groups that will be affected by it, along with the marketing plan and execution are all key ingredients that will help lead to a successful election.Four Steps for School Boards to Plan a Construction Project
So, you’ve been elected to your District’s School Board and have four years (or so) to help make the best decisions for the students and staff. You likely anticipate facing many issues that’ll require research plus your life experience to decide what’s best for your School District. One of those issues could be the maintenance, remodel, rebuild or relocation of school buildings. Do you know where to start? Below, we explain the steps you should take to have a successful construction project.
4 Reasons Why the Preconstruction Phase Is Key to Project Success
For both Design-Build and Construction Management delivery methods, the start of Preconstruction Phase is Architectural Design and it’s a very exciting time for most building owners. They love the ideas, options, and decorating aspects for their building. And then, when drawings are done, the owner is eager to get to the other main event of Construction Phase. But there is so much more happening during Design than they know and a lot more to be done before this Preconstruction Phase, “Pre-Con”, is complete. This is also when the contractor gets organized to save the most time and money during construction.