Colorado district groups with Faculty Specialty to furnish and equip a $60M facility from finish to finish.
Jennifer Murtha, principal of Del Mar Academy in Aurora, Colorado, had a imaginative and prescient for what she wished the brand new faculty’s studying environments to appear like and the way they’d perform.
“I wished a much less institutional appear and feel,” she says. “I wished gentle and laborious seating so that youngsters had selections.”
Murtha and different leaders from the Aurora Public Colleges turned to Faculty Specialty for assist in bringing this imaginative and prescient to life. Led by Senior Studying Atmosphere Specialist Belinda Engles, Senior Inside Designer Emma Kopatich, and Strategic Account Chief Paula Florian, a crew of Faculty Specialty professionals designed, furnished, and geared up a brand new faculty constructing that college students may take delight in—one which conjures up them to be taught day-after-day.
“We serve lots of youngsters who’ve grown up in poverty and who’ve had fairly tough occasions of their lives,” Murtha says. “There hasn’t been a brand new faculty on this neighborhood in 67 years. For them to have a lovely constructing is very nice. The neighborhood deserves it, our employees deserves it, and definitely our youngsters deserve it.”
Welcoming and Inclusive Studying Environments
The brand new Del Mar Academy, which opened in August 2023, serves college students in prekindergarten by seventh grade, with eighth graders being added for the 2025-26 faculty 12 months.
In designing the brand new facility, district leaders wished to create trendy studying environments that may be welcoming and inclusive for everybody, with comfy seating selections to accommodate college students with completely different preferences, wants, and studying kinds.
Versatile furnishings empower lecturers to rearrange their lecture rooms in ways in which assist completely different educational methods, whereas quite a lot of seating kinds empowers college students to decide on a mode that’s most conducive for them to be taught.
Fashionable, hands-on studying areas like a STEM lab and a digital arts studio allow college students to be taught future-ready expertise like coding and digital music manufacturing. “It’s about giving high-quality grade-level instruction to each pupil,” Murtha says.
The varsity’s center faculty lecture rooms embody tall group tables in order that college students can stand and work in the event that they select. Elementary lecture rooms embody conventional chairs and likewise swivel stools for college students who’ve problem sitting nonetheless. Preschool lecture rooms embody quite a few center-based actions similar to water tables as a substitute of simply desks and chairs.
A sensory room throughout the new faculty is designed to satisfy the wants of scholars who require extra sensory enter. It’s geared up with a bubble tube and different gadgets that present sensory stimulation. As an illustration, sensory ground tiles create liquid patterns when college students step on them, and LED furnishings cubes change colour when college students contact them. This helps college students assert management over their surroundings, which promotes self-regulation expertise.
The sensory room is used for neurodivergent learners and those that need assistance calming down or regulating their feelings.
“It’s primarily for our special-needs college students, however our occupational therapists pull out college students from common schooling lecture rooms who want that degree of consideration as nicely,” Murtha says. “The great thing about this room is that youngsters can select what to do. We don’t inform them what to do in that house.”
Even the cafeteria is designed to present college students selections, with conventional cafeteria tables but in addition café- type seating for small teams of two or three youngsters.
“College students can get their meals after which discover a seat that’s most comfy for them,” Murtha notes.
“On the finish of the day, no person needs to eat with 300 individuals. This can be a solution to give youngsters somewhat extra company.”
Deliberately Designed
The neighborhood’s response to the brand new faculty facility has been overwhelmingly constructive. “The primary phrase that everybody says is gorgeous,” Murtha says. “It’s a lovely faculty.”
The varsity’s fashionable, trendy studying environments give college students a way of delight and self-worth whereas altering their outlook on coming to high school.
“We’ve surveyed our college students during the last 12 months, and what we’ve heard is: ‘I like my faculty. I prefer it when my dad and mom come to my faculty,’” Murtha says. “After I inform our older college students, ‘We spent $60 million on you,’ they undoubtedly really feel necessary.”
Not solely is the brand new constructing enticing, but it surely’s extremely practical as nicely. Lecturers like having the ability to configure the furnishings simply to assist completely different groupings and actions. The sensory room helps put together college students to be taught who’re anxious or who’ve bother focusing.
“We have been very intentional with our design,” Murtha says.
Working with Faculty Specialty on the design of the brand new faculty’s studying areas has been “a dream,” she provides, noting: “They’re simply so fantastic. The true testomony of any relationship is what you do when there’s battle. We had some gadgets on again order, issues that Faculty Specialty couldn’t management, they usually have been unimaginable in working to make sure that we opened on time and inside funds. They bent over backward to assist us discover the best furnishings.”
She concludes: “I’d suggest them to anybody.”