Volume 1, Number 9 November 1999

INSIDE THIS ISSUE Ohio Students Tell Challenge West Virginia that "Kids Can" Help Start a National Clearinghouse on Rural School Finance Barriers to Place-based Education:Join the Discussion Matters of Fact Rural Teacher Shortages Forest Lands Funding to Rural Schools Riley Recognizes Community Role in School Design and Use About RPM RPM Archives

Riley Recognizes Community Role
in School Design and Use
Citizen involvement and community learning stressed

On Wednesday, October 5, US Secretary of Education Riley held a news conference at the headquarters of the American Institute of Architects to announce an important policy initiative on school facilities. Building on the Symposium on Schools as Centers of Community held last year at which participants, including the Rural School and Community Trust, approved the Six Principles of School Design outlined in our September issue.

Riley made four key points:

• Citizens need to be more involved and engaged in planning and designing schools;
• We need to build smaller schools, rather than "schools the size of shopping malls," and rural schools that have resisted consolidation can serve as models to which all schools should aspire;
  
• We need to build new schools that serve the entire community and can be used by the community throughout the year and at all hours; and
  
• We need to look at every community as a living classroom and help
  students find new pathways to learning.