Can Existing Schools Get to High Performance? An Update on School Modernization Strategies

Signs are that funding and community interests may be shifting toward modernizing existing schools instead of building new ones. Old school, meet high performance.

Layne Evans

The recognition that the school building itself can deliver "high performance" must be one of the most positive developments in modern education. Dozens of wonderful, innovative new high-performance schools exist around the country, incorporating sophisticated daylighting, advanced HVAC systems and controls, sustainable materials, and a host of other remarkable features from garden roofs and harvested rainwater to outdoor learning spaces and windmills used as teaching tools.

But for every shining new exemplary high-performance school, there are scores of existing schools, most built in a time well before protecting the environment or developing a student's potential by improving the classroom's light was part of the program. Modernization of existing schools often seems to be something of a poor relation to the spectacular new design concepts for schools built from scratch. Achieving high performance in an existing school is hard for many reasons: existing schools are often in less than ideal sites and are oriented "wrong;" materials and systems were probably cheap to start with and are now showing their years of deferred maintenance; and improvements are often done on a district-wide schedule, replacing light fixtures one summer, maybe switching out a few windows next summer, without much attention to the specific needs or possibilities in each individual school.

This is exactly when design professionals who can see the high-performance "big picture" are most needed. Although funding for school modernization is a mixed and shifting picture, as we'll see, federal, state and local dollars are becoming available, and high performance and sustainability are explicit priorities in many of the plans. There are signs that many localities may be shifting resources, for a number of reasons, away from new school construction toward modernization projects. And new products and technological advances are making it more feasible than ever to build high performance into even basic improvement measures.

Improvement projects in schools around the country are going forward, many because the needs have become so critical that delay is no longer even practical, and excellent sources are available to track them. Decisions made now will determine whether the projects will be done in a piecemeal fashion, based mostly on budget or to solve immediate problems, or whether each school upgrade project large or small will contribute to an overall long-term vision for moving the school toward high-performance goals.

The McGinnis School in Perth Amboy, NJ is over 100 years old, but its performance is thoroughly modern, after a modernization including new state-of-the-art windows that let the building's character shine through. The beautiful circlehead windows had been boarded up since the 1950s. Photo: Pella Commercial

The Schools We've Got

The pressing need for modernizing the nation's school facilities is not in dispute. There are over 130,000 public and private K-12 schools in the U.S and about 13,000 public school districts. Even if every brand new school built in the last few years had been a high-performance school (possibly a debatable point), they would still be vastly outnumbered. About 28 percent of all public schools were built before 1950, and 45 percent were built between 1950 and 1969. Chronological age is far from a definite indicator of whether the building should be torn down or not, but there are strong indications that a large majority of these older buildings are not aging all that gracefully.

According to the last comprehensive in-depth study of school buildings, the landmark Condition of America's Public School Facilities (U.S. Department of Education National Center of Education Statistics), in 1999 about three out of four school buildings were considered in need of "repairs, renovations or modernization in order to reach good condition." Ten years later, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) 2009 Report Card for American Infrastructure gives schools a D, lower than grades for bridges, rail or public transit. Among other conclusions, the report found that "Despite increasing federal mandates on school performance, school facilities in the United States are primarily a local responsibility and there is ample evidence that local communities are struggling to meet this responsibility."

The 1999 study observed, "If schools are unable to obtain the funding they need to perform maintenance or construct new buildings when necessary, facilities problems multiply, which can result not only in health and safety problems, but also in increased costs of repairs." This has proved prescient. The cost estimated in 1999 to bring school buildings into good repair was approximately $127 billion. A 2002 study by the Association of School Business Officials estimated the maintenance backlog in schools at $226 billion. Currently, the National Education Association's estimate is $322 billion.

Section Resources: Condition of America's Public School Facilities ASCE 2009 Report Card on American Infrastructure

Shifting toward Modernization

Ordinarily, school authorities facing this backlog of problems in their buildings tend to prefer building a new school. A rough guideline often used in deciding whether to modernize an existing school or scrap it altogether and build new has been that if the renovation will be 60 percent or more of the cost of a new school, then new construction is preferable. But there are signs that any bias in favor of new construction might be shifting towards preserving and modernizing existing schools instead.

Cost is one straightforward reason, especially with bonds and referendums facing a decidedly debt-weary electorate. When the Pennsylvania Department of Education analyzed the 33 new school construction projects and 94 renovation/addition projects approved between October 2003 and December 2006, it found that the average cost per square foot of the new schools was nearly twice the cost of the renovations and additions, with new schools at $212.99 sq. ft. and renovations/additions at $114.62 sq. ft. when all project costs were included (the buildings were all brought up to code and to the same life expectancy as the new buildings).

In a February column titled "2010: The Year of the Existing School," CHPS Executive Director, Bill Orr cited a number of localities shifting resources to modernization, including California, where state school funds for new construction have been largely exhausted but about $1.6 billion in modernization and $80 million in high-performance incentive funding still remains, and legislation has been introduced to make funding for modernization more accessible.

But there is also a growing recognition that there are good environmental and community reasons to modernize existing schools when possible. Preserving existing schools reduces the need to manufacture new steel and other materials, fosters walkable neighborhoods and reduces the need for busing, builds local jobs, and takes advantage of existing infrastructure like water, roads and sewers. The very process of demolishing a building is highly resource intensive, producing an estimated 20 to 30 times as much debris as new construction.

Far from causing a trade-off of high performance when schools are rehabilitated instead of built from scratch, some older buildings can actually be easier to adapt to the 21st century than those built more recently, when cheaper materials and short-cutting techniques became the norm. School buildings built between 1900 and 1940 are commonly solidly built masonry structures, "overdesigned" by today's structural standards and built with workmanship and quality virtually unknown in newer buildings. They often have generous window areas and high ceilings, readily adaptable to daylighting and natural ventilation. In the 100-year-old McGinnis School in urban Perth Amboy, New Jersey, for example, a special sub-frame installation was designed so that new windows could provide state of the art daylighting and thermal performance but preserve the grand character of the building. Even the original circlehead windows, boarded up since the 1950s, are now open to the light and restored to a new life.

The John Henry Neff School originally constructed in 1929 was the first public school in Pennsylvania to employ geothermal heat pumps when it was renovated in 1996. Preserving the best of our existing schools does not rule out incorporating our best new ideas.

Renovation, even though normally less expensive overall, does tend to require more planning and design input from experienced design professionals and knowledgeable manufacturers, particularly when high performance is among the project goals. Historic buildings will require particular expertise, but at the same time often evoke the strongest community support for preservation and modernization.

As in all issues related to schools, the three most important considerations are local, local and local. Individual state departments of education have created publications describing their decision processes and priorities for school facility improvements, and many are on-line. The National Trust for Historic Preservation is one good source for these, and another, as in all issues school construction related, is the National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities (NCEF).

In addition, the major rating systems are beginning to give existing buildings much greater emphasis, and to provide the kind of guidelines for evaluating and improving existing schools that have been so successful in "greening" new schools.

The Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS) released its new Report Card tool this year on April 26, National Healthy Schools Day. The Operations Report Card is a low-cost, online tool that benchmarks current performance, analyzes existing conditions and recommends green and healthy improvements for existing school buildings. CHPS is was one of the first and still one of the most influential forces in the high performance school movement. In addition to over 300 schools underway around the country seeking CHPS recognition, eleven states have state or region-specific high performance school building criteria based on CHPS, including California, Washington, New York, Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, and Texas and Colorado are under development.

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) offers the Green Existing Schools Toolkit, providing guidance, best practices, policy and planning templates to assist school officials in seeking LEED for Existing Buildings: O&M certification. LEED for Schools, although primarily targeted at new construction, applies also to major renovations.

Section Resources: "Renovate or Replace," published by organizations in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Department of Education is a comprehensive guide to the strong case for preserving and modernizing existing schools. National Historic Preservation "Older and Historic Schools: A Roadmap for Saving Your School" CHPS Operation Report Card USGBC's green schools website NCEF Resource List: "Build or Renovate School Facilities"

Follow the Money

The decision about whether and how much to renovate existing school buildings will be strongly influenced by - surprise - money. In 2008, spending by educational institutions actually went up, reversing a four-year downward trend. Total spending on new, addition and modernization construction by school districts and higher-education institutions increased to $43.3 billion in 2008 from $32.9 billion the year before, according to the American School and University's 35th Annual Official Education Construction Report. But the report notes that this increase was mainly due to projects already in the pipeline before the worst of the economic downturn hit. The projection over the two-year period 2009-2011 for both new construction and modernizations is $63.3 billion. And of course, as research indicates, maintenance deferred only becomes more expensive and difficult.

Looking at the trends for where funding will go from here involves reading mixed signals. Some districts have been adversely affected by the overall financial meltdown, with the decline in housing prices hitting state and local budgets in areas like Florida where population booms formerly led to school construction booms. Nationally, about 47 percent of money for schools comes from state governments, 44 percent from local taxes and 9 percent from the federal government. At least 46 states are dealing with budget shortfalls for the upcoming fiscal year (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities). The ASCE Report Card cites examples including delays on 12 major school construction projects in Maine, and a decision not to build an elementary school in Cumberland Country, North Carolina because of the failure to find buyers for the county's construction bonds.

At the same time, even in hard hit California, Los Angeles Unified has raised $28 billion to construct 131 schools and to take on 1,319 repair and modernization projects, and similar bright spots can be found in Massachusetts, planning $215 million toward school construction and renovation projects in a dozen communities, and Montgomery County, Maryland, moving forward with a six-year, $3.9 billion capital budget providing for renovation and additions at about 28 schools. Even in Detroit, Michigan, where 32 schools are scheduled to be shuttered, work is scheduled to begin this summer on 18 school modernization projects creating an estimated 11,000 jobs. (Of course, all this can change quickly, so checking NCEF and other links that track school construction can help track the latest plans.)

Up until the last possible moment, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) was on track to be a major national impetus for school modernization, with $14 billion specifically allocated. But when the last votes were being swapped, the money ended up on the cutting room floor, and school repairs became an "Other" in the $8.9 billion Public Safety category. The final summary is shown in the chart below.

ARRA Summary

2009-2011 Billions Education $115 State Fiscal Stabilization Fund $53.6 Elementary, secondary, postsecondary, early education $39.6 Performance measure incentive $5 Public safety and "other services," including modernization and repair of public school facilities $8.89 New Qualified School Construction Bonds (zero-interest loans for renovations or new construction) $22 Total: $787

Based on information from the National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities Summary: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009

But possibilities to utilize ARRA for local modernization projects still exist. The Act set aside $22 billion for Qualified School Construction Bonds, essentially zero-interest loans for building new schools and renovating and repairing existing ones. Similar but smaller programs were also created: Qualified Zone Academy Bonds ($2.8 billion over two years for rehabilitation of schools), and Build America Bonds, a new type of low interest municipal bond for states and school districts. Early indications are that the loans are being under-utilized. A report by the 21st Century School Fund indicated that only 32 of the 100 largest school districts have used their tax credit allocations.

But even though ARRA clearly prioritized money that could be spent very quickly, school district machinery moves slowly, especially in the current stiff headwind of economic conditions, and may just be gearing up. In June, for example, Pennsylvania announced that 46 school districts will receive more than $600 million in bonds through ARRA, for construction, energy and water efficiency, and science labs. The districts have already planned over 100 projects.

Another bright (green) spot is ARRA's wording directing spending to include "modernization, renovation, or repair of public school facilities and institutions of higher education facilities, including modernization, renovation, and repairs that are consistent with a recognized green building rating system." Although no particular system was specified in the final bill (LEED had been called out in some earlier versions of the legislation), states are writing their own priorities, and so far they, too, are specific in asking for sustainability to be prioritized.

NCEF keeps track of specific state and local initiatives related to ARRA, and also to additional national legislation being proposed to add to funds targeted to school modernization. The federal site recovery.gov also tracks ARRA spending. The bottom line is that many fewer billions of dollars are available for school modernization than are needed, and funding is trickier to navigate, but in the projects that are going forward, energy efficiency and high performance tend to be important factors.

Section Resources: NCEF's Federal Stimulus Funding for School Modernization webpage provides useful information on funding for school modernization, renovation, and repair in ARRA. Data about where grants are going Bestschoolfacilities.org also keeps track of innovative practice and projects and funding issues. 21st Century School Fund

Getting to High Performance

It's not just devoted environmentalists and architects specializing in sustainable schools who are becoming more cognizant of these issues. The American School & University 35th annual Official Education Construction Report surveys chief business officials at the nation's school districts and colleges. When asked "Are green/sustainable concepts important in determining the types of materials/products used in your construction projects?," 70.7 percent said yes. They reported incorporating "green" decisions about lighting and controls (86 percent), HVAC systems (77.3 percent), building materials (61.6 percent), roofing (56.3 percent), and flooring and carpeting (54.1 percent).

Every guideline and list of what makes a school truly "high performance" may differ a bit, but most experts would agree on the basics: a high-performance school is healthy and productive, safe and sustainable, and ideally the elements of the building itself can be used to teach lessons about sustainability.

When designing a brand new school, each of the essential strategies for achieving these goals can be optimized and built in from the beginning, and an overall whole building approach can integrate the strategies for maximum performance. When approaching an existing school, constraints are built in with every aging window, roof, wall, fixture and furnace. But the goals and the basic strategies remain the same, often implemented with new products and technologies - and imaginative design solutions.

Daylighting: abundant natural light, views to the outside, visual comfort, and energy efficiency.
Key improvement products: high performance window units with flexible replacement options, advanced shading either external or internal, advanced lighting control systems, greater expanses of interior glass (if chosen carefully for fire and impact safety).

Healthy and Productive Indoor Environment: thermal comfort in all seasons, acoustic performance, excellent indoor air quality and energy efficiency. Key improvement products: highly efficient HVAC systems and electronic controls, and new high-performance interior walls, carpets, flooring, paints and other environmentally preferable materials.

Safety and Durability: safe, secure, accessible, durable structures with long life cycles and high energy efficiency. Key improvement products: high-performance interior safety glass, and new energy-efficient and long-lasting roof and wall cladding products.

Sustainability: All of the above, plus on-site renewable energy production where possible.
Key improvement products: usually not off the shelf! But definitely do-able in school modernizations. For example, local grants for renewable energy in schools such as Pacific Gas and Electric Company's Solar Schools Program often include money for solar panels, as they can be easily installed and used as teaching tools, too.

Buildings that Teach: Here is where new schools have been most imaginative, with everything from exposed structural elements and systems (in a Texas school it's the sprinkler system) to teach kids how they work, to constructed wetlands teaching them about conserving resources and sustaining our environment. But imaginative updates of existing schools can include these, too, although once again, not likely to be an off-the-shelf solution. However, for inspiration, consider that New York City's P.S. 216 in inner city Brooklyn is turning its asphalt parking lot into an edible schoolyard!

Every classroom should have abundant natural light and views to the outside. Good daylighting contributes to almost every aspect of student and teacher performance. Here, the view through the new high-performance windows in West Elementary School in Laurel, Montana. Photo: Pella Commercial

Even this basic list shows the importance of a vision that can recognize and maximize the potential synergies. For example, new safety glass technology incorporates a fire-retardant gel, which dramatically increases safety, but which also improves acoustic performance. Some advanced window products feature operable blinds built into the glass, which has a number of benefits including significantly improved indoor air quality compared to classrooms with dusty, grungy blinds and curtains. The timing and selection of new HVAC equipment can be considered not just in terms of immediate payback, but for how it will integrate with - and possibly be sized down as a result of - new, more efficient daylighting systems and controls.

An additional consideration is that piecemeal improvements made without an overall vision, while almost always providing immediate paybacks in energy savings, can subtly work against long-term sustainability, by delaying or even taking the place of more integrated improvements. The U.S. Green Building Council has released a new publication, "Paid-from-Savings Guide to Green Existing Buildings," making the case that schools should "bundle" green retrofits, using savings from low-cost system upgrades to pay for more comprehensive "deep" improvements.

These are all additional arguments for keeping the "big picture" of high performance clearly in mind when planning school improvement projects, whether they are done one summer at a time or as part of a full scale major renovation or addition.

In that spirit, what follows are examples of common school modernization measures that start in two places - inside and out.

Inside, it is settled science that the wired glass used for decades in the interior glass in schools presents a clear and immediate danger for students and all other occupants, but wired glass is still in place in hundreds of schools, and just "switching it out" is not a simple matter. New glass technology can make it possible for these improvements to contribute not just to greater safety but to better daylighting and design flexibility, as well.

On the outside, window replacement is one of the most basic and common modernization projects schools undertake every year. But those new windows will determine the performance of the school building for decades to come, and will influence almost every aspect of the building's energy use and the occupants' comfort and productivity for decades to come − positively, if those making the decisions are paying attention to high performance.

Section Resources: NCEF Green Schools News and Resources

Fear Factor: Replacing Unsafe Wired Glass

Discussions of improvements for a school building's performance tend to focus, quite rightly, on the positive opportunities for better resource efficiency and better environments for learning, but in some cases the improvements are not just to improve life inside the school but quite possibly to save it.

It's easy to overlook (see right through?) how much glass is used inside the school building. Vision panels, sidelights, doors, corridors lined with interior windows, even atria and cafeterias - students and teachers inside a school are surrounded by glass. So it is an alarming fact that much of that glass is still a basic type of wired glass that has been used extensively in schools for decades. Wired glass was favored for its fire rating, and was actually considered stronger than regular glass, its superiority so taken for granted that codes made special exemptions for the low impact resistance of wired glass.

Unfortunately, in reality wired glass is about half as strong as a single pane of ordinary glass. The wire acts as a break plane for the tiniest nick or flaw in the glass, giving wired glass less strength than picture frame glass. But it's not just the weakness of the glass that presents a critical safety problem, it's the hazard posed by the wire, which tends to "trap" objects that break through it - including human hands and feet - and make them almost impossible to withdraw without injury. Injuries can be severe and debilitating, and they continue to occur, an estimated 2,300 a year attributed to unsafe wired glass in schools.

In yet another measure of how long it can take schools to make even the most urgent improvements, the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) restricted the use of wired glass that fails to meet human impact standards in all doors and associated windows in 1976. Traditional wired glass doesn't come close to meeting those standards, and it was banned in all building types in 2004 yet it still is present in many school buildings around the country.

The need to replace this glass in schools, where every day children are jostling, kicking, pushing and generally being children, is an obvious and urgent "no brainer."

However, the need for the brain is still there, with thoughtful consideration necessary to ensure that the wired glass is not replaced with something only marginally better. New glass technology exists that protects fully against the basic dangers posed by interior glass: fire and impact. Only one glass will be installed, but it must do both jobs effectively.

In addition, the newer glass products are so effective that they can be used in large expanses, unlike the old wired glass, limited to an area of 9 square feet because of its low impact resistance, or even like many current fire "protective" glass products, limited to smaller areas because of their lack of resistance to radiant heat. The more glass that can be used - now, safely - the more design flexibility there is for bringing in the abundant natural daylight so essential to high performance in schools.

But, before being beautiful, the glass has to be safe, and the key issues are fire and impact.

Fire Resistive or Protective? Discussions of this extremely important distinction in interior glass products can be difficult for designers to present to decision makers. In layman's terms, what we're all looking for is fire protection. The fact that a glass product that is heat "protective" could actually be less protective than one that is heat "resistive" at first appears to be a bit of a tongue twister.

But in terms of fire ratings, "resistive" and "protective" are very specific technical terms, and in an emergency situation, the difference could save children, teachers and others from severe injury or even death.

In the simplest terms, the difference is protection from radiant heat.

Fire ratings are expressed in terms of minutes, 20 minutes, 45 minutes, etc., the time in fire testing that the product was able to withstand heat and/or flames. In general, fire protective assemblies are fire rated from 20-45 minutes and block the immediate spread of smoke and flames. They do not protect against the intense radiant heat passing through the glass. This presents an "invisible" and lethal danger.

A corridor, for example, may be free of flames and thus look "safe," especially to a group of panicked people. But well before 45 minutes, the radiant heat could be so intense that it can cause spontaneous combustion and be more than enough to cause severe burns. Even if people are stopped by the heat before they get far enough to cause injury, that can prevent them from reaching exits, if egress is not completely protected. Heat radiating from the fire can set curtains, clothing - even flammable adhesives in laminated building materials - on fire within minutes. This is why the use of fire protective glass is limited to 20-45 minute applications and 25 percent of wall area. There are door applications that allow the use of 60-90 minute fire protective glass in the vision area, but its size is limited to 100 square inches.

Fire resistive assemblies, on the other hand, can withstand smoke and flames and radiant heat for up to 2 hours. Fire resistive glazing is tested in accordance with ASTM E 119 or NFPA 251 (Standard Method of Tests of Fire Endurance of Building Construction and Materials), which limits the temperature rise on the non-fire side to less than 250 degrees F. above ambient. Because of this ability to limit the passage of radiant heat, fire resistive glazing does not have the 25 percent wall area limitation that fire protective glazing has. When combined with equally rated framing systems, designers have the freedom to create wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling glazing applications while still meeting the fire and safety requirements of the code.

"Protective" and "Resistive" are important technical terms that can have critical importance in an emergency. Graphic: SAFTI FIRST

In an educational facility, where safety is at a premium, fire resistive glazing provides the most protection against all effects of fire.

Not without Impact: Fortunately, the increased fire/heat resistance in new safety glass technology comes along with impact resistance, too. But that's not true of all fire-rated glass.

Consumer Product Safety Commission 16 CFR 1201A is the federal safety glazing minimum standard established in 1977 to protect against accidental impact with glazing. Two categories were established. Category I is for small glazing areas (less than 1,296 inches). This glazing is meant to survive an impact of 150 foot pounds, which sounds substantial but in real life is comparable to impact from a small child (foot pounds do not equate to actual pounds). Category II, for larger glazing areas, must survive an impact of 400 foot-pounds, or the weight of an adult. (Just for context, the force of a running teen-ager has been estimated at about 1,500 foot-pounds.)

It's easy to see how the fire ratings and impact ratings are both critical in an emergency. For example, fire rated glass lining a school corridor may not afford sufficient impact protection for a large group of jostling, probably frightened, ninth graders being evacuated from a fire. For safe egress in a school, or in areas of high traffic and exposure to all but the smallest children, the glazing used in these areas must meet CPSC impact standards. Fire safety and impact safety are not separate goals − you must maintain both.

But even apart from emergencies, interior glass that is not adequately impact resistant can present a constant cost as well as danger. According to NCEF, in many schools, glass replacement is the highest routine maintenance cost.

In the Reece School in New York, NY, abundant light reaches interior spaces during normal use, but egress is protected by fire resistive and impact resistant high performance glazing. Photo: SAFTI FIRST

Daylighting and Design Flexibility. Although a school building could hardly be very "high performance" if it didn't offer occupants protection from fire and impact, there's another aspect to selecting safe interior glass for a school improvement project. The ability to use clear, fire rated glazing in applications where brick walls or sheet rock might have been used gives architects an opportunity to combine increased transparency, visibility and maximum fire safety in designs for interior glass in classrooms, interior corridors, study areas, libraries, laboratories and other areas where getting daylight into interior spaces or maximizing artificial light between shared spaces are integral parts of high performance.

Designers should also be aware that a wide range of other products are available that can replace unsafe wired glass in schools and still provide fire and impact safety, including a certified field filming program that can upgrade existing unsafe wired glass to a CPSC Category II impact safety rated product. This program can be a safe and cost effective means of achieving compliance within tight budgets. The important thing to know about field filming, however, is that it must be performed to exacting standards by a fully certified provider in order to be compliant.

Case Studies

North Layton Junior High School Layton, UT

In the North Layton Junior High School, architects AJC Architects of Salt Lake City kept the look of the existing media center while renovating it completely and adding a new counseling center. They used glazing that was fire resistive and impact resistant to Category II. The existing hollow metal storefront glazing walls were upgraded to 1 and 2-hour fire walls, providing a safe path of egress in the event of a fire, but also transparent surfaces on every normal day, letting light from the library migrate into the corridor.

Photo: SAFTI FIRST

National Center for International Schools San Francisco, CA
The National Center for International Schools replaced all its unsafe wired glass across its entire 1,300-student campus with fire resistive and Category II safety rated glass, with varying fire ratings depending on precise location and application, including 140 20-minute door vision lites, 30 45-minute side lites and interior windows, and 33 90-minute door vision panels using a certified field filming. "The possibility of a student impacting a door lite or sidelite was a major concern, particularly at assembly area doors equipped with panic hardware," said Daniel Klingebiel, CFM, CFMJ, Director of Facilities and Planning for the school.
Photo: SAFTI FIRST

California State University Recreation Center Fullerton, CA
Requirements of the Cal State Fullerton Recreation Center included superior fire resistance but interior glazing that matched the look of the exterior, non-rated glazing system. The resulting 2-hour separation wall with 90-minute pair doors protects the exit enclosure against fire, smoke and radiant heat, offers transparency and penetration of natural light - and matches beautifully.
Photo: SAFTI FIRST

Replacing the Windows: Fountain of Youth for Existing Buildings

Perhaps no single feature of a high-performance school is more prominent than its daylighting. Abundant, natural light contributes to just about every goal of a high-performance school, from reducing the need for electric light to improving the health, productivity and general satisfaction of teachers and students. By now it is well documented that test scores go up, sick days go down, and a host of other benefits accrue to the lucky occupants of schools with well designed daylighting. And when modernizing an existing school, maximizing the daylighting means getting the windows right.

A number of flexible replacement options are now available to meet tight budget and time limitations in school projects. In older school buildings with historic significance, or in the rare case when windows are so damaged and deteriorated that nothing can be salvaged, a complete tear-out may be the only option, although this is typically an expensive and labor intensive process, and will probably require custom designed window replacements.

But if the existing frame is in good condition, another approach is to remove the operable sash, and keep the existing frame. Fully assembled aluminum-clad wood or fiberglass replacement windows are available that can be easily slipped into existing window "pockets" with no damage to the existing trim, paint or plaster. If the external trim is not in good condition, sashes can be replaced by inserting a new window within the existing frame and using frame expander products to update or cover exterior trim.

To reduce labor and disturbance to existing construction, standard subframe systems (to replace wood windows) and T-subframe systems (for metal windows) can be preassembled and installed from the interior of the building, eliminating the need for exterior scaffolding or lifts.

Once installed, today's high performance windows are designed to help control all the thermal, visual, acoustic and other factors related to effective daylighting. Some of the opportunities available to get the most performance mileage out of replacing windows include:

Superior Energy Efficiency: High-performance windows have lower heat loss, less air leakage, and lower unwanted solar gain. Windows with a whole-window U-factor of 0.4 or lower and a solar heat gain coefficient of 0.5 or lower, with dual or triple glazing, are recommended for use in schools. The U-factor of the entire window unit - center of glass, edge of glass, window sash and frame − is more relevant than that of the glass alone. Low-e glass transmits visible light but reflects excess heat and ultraviolet light. Modern wood in frames is a natural insulator, about 1,000 times more effective than aluminum. Some new fiberglass composite frame materials offer similar thermal performance. New integrated window units offer dramatic energy savings over the leaky windows often found in existing schools.

Comfort for Concentration. Minimized heat loss in the winter and heat gain in the summer means that teachers and students are comfortable and can concentrate in all seasons, even in areas right next to window glass. Warmer window surfaces in high performance windows improve comfort and minimize condensation.

Innovative Shading: Side by side with the abundant benefits of daylighting come formidable solar control challenges. The innovative structural exterior shading often found in new high-performance schools is often too expensive or not feasible for modernization projects. For schools, a popular alternative is the between-the-glass blind, either "tilt only" or fully operable by teachers. Compared to roomside blinds, between-the-glass blinds reduce solar heat gain by 43 percent, according to the ASHRAE Fundamentals Handbook. But they have a number of other advantages, providing acoustic insulation, improving indoor air quality and eliminating dust, dirt and allergens associated with typical hard to clean roomside drapes and blinds. The cost of constant replacement of damaged blinds is also avoided. As a plus in the classroom, they provide more "tackable" space in the classroom for student art work.

"Re-orienting" an Existing Building? In 2010, a new high-performance school would be sited with exquisite care to take maximum advantage of the sun and natural surroundings, but in the 1960s? Not so much. Replacing the windows, however, comes as close as it is possible to get to remedying the less than ideal orientation of an older school building. Windows can be customized by the needs of various areas, for example by putting high performance double glazing on the south side, triple glazing on the north side, and new between-the-glass shading on the east and west sides.

With the right new windows, an existing school can achieve the same high performance as a new school. This requires educated design and a sophisticated manufacturer. But the good news is that in 2010, whatever else we are short of, both of those are available.

One of the improvements most popular both with school districts (for the savings in energy and replacement) and classroom teachers and students (for the comfort and tackable space) are between-the-glass blinds for high-performance windows. On the left, typical grungy non-helpful roomside blinds, and on the right, between-the-glass blinds. Photo: Pella Commercial

McGinnis School Perth Amboy, New Jersey

Set in a densely populated urban area, the McGinnis School built in 1899 badly needed expansion and modernization, but two of the school's walls sat on property lines, so an addition was out of the question. Yet the school's magnificent old "bones" were clearly worth treasuring. Vitetta Group Architects of Philadelphia found 28,000 additional square feet by enclosing an interior courtyard, adding a mezzanine level, turning the auditorium balcony into library space, and converting the basement into a cafeteria by relocating the mechanical systems to the attic. New double-hung windows with blinds between the glass replaced existing aluminum windows that were in such disrepair they were regularly literally crashing down on the occupants. New fixed frame windows were incorporated into the octagonal staircase area to help bring abundant natural light into the space. There are even new high performance windows to grace the space where the magnificent original circlehead windows had been boarded up since the 1950s.

Photo: Pella Commercial

West School Laurel, MT

Built in 1956, with an addition in 1979, West Elementary School's original aluminum windows served as more of a hindrance than a help in the learning process for both teachers and students. Noise from the playground distracted the students. Teachers had no control over temperature; it was always either too hot or too cold. The school has no air conditioning, and attempting to open the nonscreened single-pane windows for improved airflow resulted in bugs flying in - including bees that would scare, distract and sometimes sting the children. Windows made of engineered fiberglass composite were selected. The material is more durable than aluminum and offers the thermal efficiency of wood, but is priced competitively with vinyl, and does not require painting. But the low-e insulating glass in the windows also improves performance, reducing heat gain and protecting from UV rays, making the windows extremely energy-efficient in the harsh Montana climate. The school district worked directly with the window manufacturer and local general contractor Fisher Construction. Since having the new windows installed, in addition to the energy savings in the first year, the school has noticed that the constant complaints about discomfort have stopped. And no more bees.

Photo: Pella Commercial

So, Can Existing Schools Get to High Performance?

Ample proof has been found that the performance of students and teachers is deeply linked to the performance of their school building.

The answer is yes − and maybe. Our national record even on keeping up with repair and maintenance of our schools is not very promising. We've let a $322 billion backlog build up, and after the first few hundred billions, you're talking real money. This is before we even begin talking sustainability and human potential.

But no one can ignore the sheer design inspiration and commitment to children, teachers and the environment shown in hundreds of examples of high performance schools around the country. Ample proof has been found that the performance of students and teachers is deeply linked to the performance of their school building. Now we have to bring that knowledge to bear on the special challenges of 98,000 existing schools (just counting public K-12) in all their amazing diversity of ages, neighborhoods, construction types and states of bygone stateliness or crumbling disrepair. Architects can play an indispensable role, helping to optimize modernization programs but also helping to keep an overall vision strong whether the improvement lasts one summer or unfolds over several years. About 50 million students are waiting for that high-performance light to shine in.

Layne Evans writes about buildings and the environment. She is the former Executive Director of the Sustainable Buildings Industry Council, and was Director of Information Systems for the Construction Criteria Base program at the National Institute of Building Sciences.