PSBA's 2001 survey regarding school construction shows that the planned construction for the next five years will closely match the actual construction pattern of the last five years.

Renovations to existing buildings is the most common form of school district construction occurring in more than one-half of all construction projects (see Table 1).  Historical data, reported by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, indicates that renovation and addition projects account for about 80% of all school district construction.  The survey responses for the last five years indicate that renovation and addition type projects accounted for 83.5% of all school district construction projects.  Planned projects for the next five years anticipate 83.9% of all school district construction projects will be renovations and additions.  New construction projects accounted for 16.5% of all projects over the last five years and are anticipated to account for 16.1% of the projects over the next five years by the districts responding to the survey.
 
 

The data presented in Table 2 shows that over the past five years elementary buildings were the leading focus of school construction projects with more than 40% of all projects.  Elementary construction projects were followed by construction projects on high school buildings.  Planned construction projects addressing elementary buildings for the next five years account for 48.8% of the projects identified by the districts responding to the survey.  High school construction over the last five years were 29.4% of all projects and the planned projects for the next five years show 21% of the projects will be high school buildings.
 
 

Districts responding to the survey indicated that the primary reason for school construction was the age of facilities for all buildings.  The second reason listed most frequently for construction projects for high school and junior high/middle schools was improvement of technology, followed by inadequate instructional space.  Elementary building construction project reasons were the same, but in reverse order.

The districts were asked to identify the age or last major renovation project for any buildings that were replaced.  Table 3 shows the results for both the past five years and next five years.  Among the facilities that were replaced over the last five years, the last major renovation or original construction of nine buildings was prior to 1920.  Only 32 of 167 buildings replaced over the last five years had some type of construction project within the prior 20-year time frame.
 
 

According to survey results, the pattern of replacement of facilities is similar between the two time periods.  As the results shown in Table 3 indicate, building replacement over the past five years averaged three-quarters of a building per district.  The planned replacement over the next five years averages one-half a building per district.

One important element of school construction is designing the facility to meet educational needs.  Among the educational or curriculum-based needs identified most often for school construction projects are technology, science and hands-on labs, and special education requirements

Summary

School construction has been and will be focusing on elementary buildings.  Buildings that are replaced tend to be older facilities.  Renovations and additions are used more frequently than new construction.  Educational considerations such as technology, science and special education are of primary importance in planning school construction projects.

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