Visions of Modern Middle Schools: Participatory Design With Nonstudent Stakeholder Groups

Students are the primary users of school buildings. However, teachers, staff, administrators, parents, and caregivers of students, as well as members of the community, are crucial to the functionality schools. This research increases knowledge about how nonstudent stakeholders conceptualize new middle schools as transformative and supportive of teachers, student learning, and community vitality. Qualitative data were obtained by holding an in-person workshop in one community and distributing an online questionnaire in another. Nine categories emerged from a content analysis of participants’ responses. Despite geographic and economic differences between the two schools (e.g., “School A” served a small rural area with a lower income population and “School B” served a suburban area with a relatively high-income population), the frequency of particular categories was similar concerning nonstudent participants’ wishes for student learning, as well as what they believed would support teachers in a new building. Thematic differences were found concerning what would make their new school transformative and how it could bolster community vitality. Given that the inclusion of a broad range of users in the planning processes of new schools is becoming a best practice for architects, a growing record of nonstudent users’ visions of middle schools may afford more evidence-based decisions about postoccupancy design changes, feasibility of programs, and how the values and goals of a school might be best communicated to students, teachers, parents and caregivers, and the community at large