How to Create a Community Schoolyard: Vision

STEP 5: Secure Additional Partners

We recommend that you seek additional partners throughout the entire process of creating and activating the community schoolyard. Partners will make your project stronger, provide additional resources, and help to activate the space after construction.

Stormwater management partners
If your city is under a consent decree (a federally enforceable agreement that resolves violations of the Clean Water Act), you may have the opportunity to bring in funding to manage stormwater by creating rain gardens or detention basins. In addition to bringing in significant funding, these elements could beautify the schoolyard and provide long-term support for maintenance. For example, in New York City, a consent decree allowed the Department of Environmental Protection to allocate significant funds toward a Community Schoolyards partnership with The Trust for Public Land, supporting the inclusion of green infrastructure elements like rain gardens, trees, pervious turf fields, bioswales, and porous pathways. The 49 green infrastructure playgrounds implemented to date capture a total of 40.9 million gallons of stormwater per year. If you decide to manage stormwater, make sure that this scope is included in your design services contract and that your school district is on board.

Artistic partner
Working with an artist on the project adds context to the overall design and placemaking. Artists are great to include during the community design phase because they add creative engagement and thoughtful analysis. Artists can help generate community-specific improvements such as murals, sculptures, or installations.

Physical education partners:
Sports organizations and other physical education partners can not only offer programming support once the schoolyard is built, they also may want to support projects financially. New York Road Runners has supported many Community Schoolyards that include running tracks.

Health partners
Public health foundations, hospitals, insurance companies, and wellness and disease research nonprofits typically share the public health and wellness goals that Community Schoolyards help meet and may be able to provide funding.

Environmental education partners
Schoolyards offer a tremendous setting for hands-on, nature-based learning. Many environmental educators would be thrilled to support the project and bring out resources for activation and learning. Sometimes a partnership with an environmental education partner can help you secure a grant for the project. The Horticultural Society of New York and the New York Botanical Garden have helped provide gardening programming at our schoolyards.

STEM partners
Bringing in partners from the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math can make your schoolyard a richer educational environment. In New York, The Trust for Public Land has partnered with UrbanMathTrails to create a Math in the Playground curriculum for K–5th graders.

Physical education partners engaged early in the Community Schoolyards process may be
more likely to provide programming at your site after construction has been
completed. They may also be able to help locate funding.
© FRANCES M. ROBERTS

STEP 7: Community Vision Statement

A community schoolyard is an asset for the school and the entire community. A successful community schoolyard is designed in a comprehensive process that allows for multiple voices, priorities, and perspectives. Establishing a common vision will bring everyone together around a shared rallying point. Doing this early in the process will help everyone involved to unify on common goals through the design and development process.

At the Southwark School in Philadelphia, the diverse community established the vision “Our Park: Weaving Together Cultures,” in which the schoolyard serves as a park for the many ethnic groups who reside in the neighborhood. This vision will ensure that the final project will be well used and cared for into the future.

To develop a comprehensive vision, we recommend you work closely with the following groups:

School teachers and staff:
Schedule a time to talk to teachers during their professional development time to brainstorm ways they might take students outside for learning. You will be surprised to find that many teachers, beyond science and physical education, will be excited to use this new amenity. Come to them with questions and listen deeply to what they have to say.

Students
Children are terrific to involve in the design process. The Trust for Public Land’s signature Participatory Design process engages students in all the important design decision-making. We have found that they have the capacity and creativity to produce unique, high-quality designs that serve the entire community. The design process is also an amazing hands-on, project-based learning opportunity that can foster a tremendous sense of pride and accomplishment once the schoolyard is constructed. Follow this link to learn more about The Trust for Public Land’s Participatory Design process through a case study at William Dick Elementary in Philadelphia.

Parents
Often the schoolyard doubles as the plaza or “common” for parents when they drop off or pick up students. This place, made better for socializing and playing, can become a tremendous asset for building stronger connections within your parent community. Engaging parents in the design process is important for long-term use, may help recruit additional support for the project, and will help cultivate stewardship long after the project is complete.

Community
Schoolyards, when designed for the community, have the potential to become a center of community life. When they are designed to welcome neighbors into the space after school, on weekends, and during the summer, they bustle with activity and improve the quality of life for your entire neighborhood. Convene neighbors, community stakeholders, and local businesses to help build the vision for the schoolyard. Reach out to your local housing authority or day care or senior center to bring as many folks into the process as possible. When people are engaged early, they care forever.

Establishing a shared vision for the project together with the larger school
community will help give your process direction as you move forward.
© LORENZO DAWKINS

After community visioning, you will have a good sense of priorities regarding the final use of the schoolyard. To ensure that your vision for the yard includes something for everyone and will be well maintained, use this checklist to narrow down your wish list. Is your schoolyard design:

Equitable
A well-rounded schoolyard design will serve everyone. It is important that the design is balanced with features that support use by multiple age groups and accommodates all physical abilities and interests. Include categories that resonate with your community, either by age and gender or by activities like play, sports, learning, socializing, and art.

Nature-rich
Make sure you plan for the schoolyard to become nature-rich. Nature play and garden classrooms are a great way to infuse nature into schoolyard use. Plan to install plenty of trees and to de-pave some hardscaped areas. Some nature-rich landscapes include the following:

• • Pollinator gardens are planted with flowers that provide nectar or pollen for a wide range of pollinating insects.
  • Vegetable gardens can provide fruits and vegetables for school lunches.
  • Sensory gardens are designed to stimulate the senses through the use of plants and materials that engage a person’s sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing. These types of gardens are particularly beneficial to people who have sensory processing issues, including autism and other disabilities.
  • Native habitat gardens benefit the environment by supporting habitat for wildlife. They also reduce air and water pollution since they require less fertilizer, pesticide, and mowing than most landscapes.
  • Urban micro-forests involve planting native species close to each other so that the greens receive sunlight only from the top and grow upward rather than sideways.
  • Flowering trees create color in your garden and support pollinators.
  • Shade-tree groves can help cool a hot schoolyard.
  • Evergreen buffers can help create a visual screen from the surrounding area.
  • Rain gardens are planted basins that absorb runoff from impervious surfaces like roofs and concrete.

Realistic
Filter program elements by what is realistic. What will be approved by your school district? What will be approved by your school’s principal? What will provide excitement and challenges while still being safe for multiple students to use at once? Make sure you talk to the custodial lead and crew who will be tending to the daily maintenance needs of the school. Understand what daily maintenance currently involves and let them know that the schoolyard will be more complex once it is renovated. Be sure they participate in some way in the design process, especially when time comes to design the garden, locate the trash receptacles, and work on the maintenance plan. Custodians should see and feel supportive of any concept plan.

Fundable
The final program will help establish your budget and help you to design concept options. Make sure your final program is feasible within a reasonable budget.

Maintainable
Maintainable. While plantings and trees are what help make a schoolyard green, make sure your final design list is based on realistic expectations about schoolyard maintenance. Assess interest and capacity for care of new trees, gardens, and landscaped areas in terms of water source, size of planted areas, and local expertise. Remember, vegetable gardens need tending during the summer when schools are typically not in session and new trees need watering two or three times per week during warm months in order to get established.

Engaging students in the design process builds a sense of ownership and pride.
© JOE SORRENTINO

STEP 10: Create Draft Concept Plans

A concept plan is a rough design for your schoolyard, drawn in color and easy for a layperson to understand. It is not as precise as the finalized designs to be developed in STEP 12, but it should incorporate the elements from your program in a way that could realistically fit on your site. Plan to develop a couple of options for the school and community to review. Important considerations:

Design for nature
Schoolyard greening is not only good for the educational setting, it’s good for the environment. Include nature and sustainability in your design. Design to capture stormwater in gardens and tree pits and permeable surfaces like pavers and turf fields. Clean the air and reduce heat islands by adding many trees, creating low maintenance native gardens, and de-paving hardscape that is not essential. Amenities should come from local providers, where possible, to reduce transportation. Amenities should be sourced from manufacturers who commit to sustainability and do not generate harmful by-products during manufacturing. Use cool pavements to reduce urban heat gain.

Design by students
The Trust for Public Land guides students through the process of creating concept options for the schoolyard. This is an amazing hands-on, project-based learning opportunity for students and builds a sense of ownership and pride in those who will use the yard the most. If you have a teacher, volunteer, or nonprofit partner willing to work with students, your design will be the better for it.

Design for budget
You don’t want to set unrealistic expectations of what the schoolyard will be when it’s complete. Make sure your concepts are designed with a target budget in mind. For example, don’t show your community a $500,000 piece of custom play equipment if your budget is $500,000.

Design for school logistics
Let’s face it, the schoolyard also serves utilitarian functions. It’s sometimes the only place for delivering supplies like lunches. It’s a functional backdrop to school facility maintenance and an important place of egress each day and during an emergency. All these uses are important to plan for. Understand the frequency of vehicular access and advocate for a separation between students and vehicles when possible. Schoolyards are sometimes the only place where schools can locate their dumpster. Ideally you do not want vehicles driving across your schoolyards, so it may be worth considering whether or not the dumpster can be moved. Review your fire code to make sure schoolyard improvements will not block access to the building during an emergency.

Kids need access to nature! Nature play and garden classrooms are a great way to infuse nature into schoolyard use.
© JENNA STAMM

STEP 12: Finalize Concept Design, Cost Estimate, and Project Budget

Once the community has selected a preferred design direction, combining favored design elements from the earlier concepts, it is time for your designer to develop the final concept plan, synthesizing the community’s input into one final rendering.

Once the concept design is complete, your designer should create a construction cost estimate. This will in turn help you to create your project budget. Your project budget is the combined cost of the construction and the design services and testing. Your project team should keep an overall project budget that includes the construction cost estimate plus all the costs associated with design, including professional services for design, survey, environmental engineering, and testing. Your project budget should include both design services and the capital budget. The capital budget is the cost to do construction; this will include area-specific breakouts of construction cost, line items for demolition, materials, labor, general conditions, overhead and profit, and contingencies.

Using the feedback received in the previous step, work with your designer to finalize the concept design.