Decade after decade, school districts face many challenges that demand continuous improvement. From novel teaching methods to modernized classroom environments, schools place students at the center of every decision to best prepare them for the future. Whether through renovation, rehabilitation, or new building projects, construction managers (“CM”) have long partnered with schools to support them in achieving their construction goals.

Safety, quality control, cost efficiency, and timely delivery of the project are universally accepted goals across industries. What makes K-12 and higher education construction unique?

Construction of academic spaces poses countless obstacles that require establishing well-thought-out, strategic plans many months prior to the first shovel hitting the ground. As the school district or state university (the “client” or “owner”) prepares their next building project, construction managers can smooth the field and advance the objectives of our educators. Primarily, the project management team must safeguard students’ interests, promote parent and community involvement, exercise fiscal responsibility, and employ open and transparent communication throughout construction.

Alignment of Incentives: Minimizing Disruption to School Programs

A common misconception in the construction industry is that schools have operational breaks and construction work can be performed, without disruption, in the summer, winter, or fall and spring breaks. In reality, although schools may not be in regular academic session, the institutions frequently host numerous activities year-round. Summer camps or high-intensity academic sessions, standardized examinations, athletic conferences and practices, music performances and art expos, faculty or staff training and development, and in-house maintenance procedures are a few of the common practices during breaks.

Throughout the regular academic sessions, parallel concerns arise. School events should be built into the construction schedule (e.g., conferences, athletic events, performing arts, tests and examinations, and rentals or other revenue-generating operations for the school). Left unmanaged, noise from construction operations will impair student studies and staff instruction. Certain operations with anticipated high noise levels should be scheduled during second and third shifts or weekends. In addition, work areas can be isolated through physical barriers and enclosures. Temporary floor-to-deck, insulated and sealed walls will dampen noise, control dust, prevent moisture and mold, maintain indoor air quality in instructional spaces, mitigate disruptions to life safety and security systems, and increase overall safety by eliminating and reducing construction hazards through engineering controls.

School districts seek to maintain safe working conditions for their faculty and staff and a safe and healthy environment for their students and visitors. Aligning the incentives of school operations with construction teams through communication, coordination, and a defined contractual assignment of responsibilities will enhance the building experience.

Community Relations: Parents, Neighbors, Taxpayers, and Authorities

Educational institutions across the country are likely to be the single, most significant catalyst of economic impact, traffic, and employment within their communities. The National Center for Education Statistics recently reports approximately 50 million students attending PK-12 institutions, another 20 million students in higher education, and over 4.5 million faculty across the United States. The breadth of impact spans far beyond the numbers. How does this translate to construction?

Construction projects will have an effect on learning environments and their communities. While surrounded by residential neighborhoods—or even more densely populated areas of the cities’ downtown—educational institutions that undergo construction (and the authorities having jurisdiction) must anticipate an impact on traffic. The CM should assess logistics in parking, laydown spaces, access and egress for the construction site, and re-route of traffic patterns. In allowing for an increase in heavy traffic flow from equipment and material deliveries, the construction team is responsible for coordinating the closure of lanes, ensuring safe paths of circulation for building users, and conforming to work and delivery hours at the site.

Although logistics plans are developed during the pre-construction phase, these plans must be live, flexible, and communicated regularly. At institutions of higher education, students may come from across the city, state, country, or from abroad. Different languages and cultures merge around our schools and community centers. Each year, new residents in the district will increase enrollment, and new houses or businesses will increase traffic. The community is not static, therefore logistic plans should not be either. Understanding the demographics of the community and allowing for continual input from authorities is pivotal to the success of these plans. Fire, police, and emergency medical response teams all share common goals with educational institutions in matters of health and safety of the occupants and their surroundings.

In addition, community relations span beyond safety concerns or physical impacts. Fiscal responsibility increases ROI outside the school’s administration and generates a positive impact on taxpayers and the community that the institution serves. The CM is customarily responsible for understanding the project’s risks and performing constructability reviews of documents prepared by the architect, engineers, soil and environmental consultants, and other experts employed by the design team or client. Fiscal responsibility initiates by advising the client of such risks and integrating these while developing budgets and recommending a bidding strategy. The CM must assess the project and establish construction contingencies and allowances that support the strategy. During construction, the CM should then control the cost by implementing combined change review efforts with the design team, and by providing the client with frequent budget updates, projections, and forecasts to allow the institution’s representatives an opportunity at making well-informed decisions. The CM should complement these change management efforts with a thorough pay application process. This starts with requiring contractors to provide detailed Schedules of Values outlining work materials, equipment, and labor, per construction phase, area of work, and scope activity. An accurate review of pay applications, and the timely payment of progress to the construction team enhances performance, increases profitability at all levels, and facilitates communication of well-defined expectations.

Planning: Balancing Institutional Objectives While Maintaining Construction Integrity

Facility management and planning are ongoing, ever-evolving tasks. It starts many months before construction, and it ends many years after the building is turned over to the client. How can the CM maintain the integrity of the construction process?

Early Planning Stages

During Early Planning Stages, the CM should request the client information on existing building conditions, including mechanical, electrical, fire protection, and security systems. Many of our country’s schools were built between the 1950s and 1980s. Hazardous materials, such as lead and asbestos, may be present in paint, roofing, insulation, and other building systems. Addressing these concerns through building inspections and recommending the abatement of hazardous materials in a timely manner will give the construction team the best opportunity to maintain a schedule.

Similarly, the CM and design team are best suited to mitigating and communicating environmental impacts to the client and other interested parties. Tree demolition, grading and landscaping changes, as well as new improvements to the stormwater management systems, can impact the project site and adjacent properties. Even after several phases of technical reviews with the design team (internal and external), the project team is certain to face issues with temporary conditions during construction.

The CM should establish emergency procedures for construction operations and ensure participation from the construction team in existing protocols established by the school. Clearly communicating lockdown measures, severe weather plans, and having building emergency response plans in place for fire, water damage, or other emergencies, will increase the probability of managing unanticipated events successfully.

Pre-Construction Planning

Besides planning for work schedules, site logistics, noise and indoor air quality, traffic management, temporary barriers and enclosures, abatement of hazardous materials, and other controls discussed above, construction managers must also focus on security and life safety systems and incorporate such in project phasing.

• The schools’ access control systems must be updated when adding or removing building doors (whether temporarily or permanently), and video surveillance may be impacted as renovation or additions to the building are erected. Phasing plans developed by the CM should anticipate these changes, and the construction budget include contingencies or clarifications to address security system updates.
• Equally significant is the review of mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire alarm, and fire suppression systems to ensure that phasing plans and project schedules align with the proposed design and client objectives.
• Major shutdowns for tie-ins to existing systems or complete replacement of facilities must be coordinated with the school’s administration.

During Construction

After breaking ground, the client, CM, and overall project team must promote a culture of safety at the job site. Fundamental factors that affect safety and performance include housekeeping, personnel security, training, and communication.

The CM can effectively manage a housekeeping program by requiring daily cleaning, performing weekly inspections, establishing tobacco-free policies, implementing lean principles, providing regular safety audits, and promoting coordination between all parties in foremen meetings and pre-installation meetings.

With an increase in the number of personnel entering occupied buildings during construction operations (at times exceeding 100 people), security programs become critical. Security programs should include background checks (as required by law), personal badging and vehicular identification, keying control and contractual accountability for loss, designated entry/exit points for construction personnel, creating fenced perimeters along exterior construction operations, and increasing video monitoring or surveillance. Along with contractual requirements and coordination efforts, training and site orientations will allow new personnel to become familiar with the policies and procedures in place during construction. 

Construction Managers must also guide clients in establishing strong communication procedures for internal and external parties. Stakeholders to these channels of communication may include faculty, staff, students, parents, authorities, neighbors, maintenance personnel, third-party providers for cleaning operations or food service, construction personnel, utility companies, and others. A strong communication procedure allows for feedback to flow across the established channels freely, in an organized manner, and is properly documented. The CM will frequently set up a series of recurring meetings to address construction concerns. The traditional weekly meeting is not enough.

• Pre-Construction and Pre-Installation meetings will assist construction managers in onboarding each independent contractor at the job site.
• Owner-Architect-CM Meetings should continue after the design process and be of regular occurrence during the construction phase.
• Progress meetings allow for regular updates among the project team and for concerns to be raised. Controlling the conversation and agenda will avoid progress meetings from turning into coordination meetings.
• Coordination meetings with trade partners and school administration may be held independently with the CM, or jointly if it would be best fitting in the given circumstances.
• The CM should promote safety committees, huddles, or toolbox talk meetings with stakeholders at various levels.
• Weekly updates and detailed lookaheads should be developed after each coordination meeting and communicated to all parties.
• Project signage, traffic signage, and safety signage allow communication with street and foot traffic.
• An efficient use of social media by the school administration or construction manager can prove valuable in communicating updates, closures, or other construction activities with neighbors, parents, students, and general stakeholders.

After Construction

Lastly, the CM should establish a strong operations and maintenance training program for school staff. Recent innovations in building materials and systems are frequently specified by the design team in terms of technology, wall and floor surfaces for multi-use purposes, security systems, new finishes, and collaborative equipment. Proper training and compliance with warranty provisions will extend the lifecycle of the products and reduce overall maintenance or replacement costs for the institution.

Education: Adding Value to the Classroom Setting

The inconveniences of construction should not dissuade the construction team or the institution from exploiting the myriad of opportunities that construction operations may bring to the classroom. Exposing students to construction practices during workshops, visits from construction professionals, supervised project site visits, and in-classroom training, enhances the students’ experiences. These options may broaden the students’ vocational choices or expand their skills in engineering, manufacturing, and sciences programs. As an example, in a youth-outreach effort, Georgia Tech Research Institute and OSHA have offered 10-hour training programs at Georgia high schools in the past.

Introduction of construction practice and hazard identification to students promotes safer environments while building occupied facilities. These efforts may complement hands-on curriculums such as those employed by Project Lead The Way, senior capstone or elective courses, and extracurricular groups or activities.

Nonwovens: Management of Occupied Facilities

In short, the construction of occupied facilities is complex, it requires an agile project management team willing to adjust to the needs of the client, and it rewards pre-planning efforts to ensure the successful delivery of the project. The construction manager’s seal on a construction project must be carved by the educational institution’s interest. To best serve its client, the construction management team must embed itself into the fabric of the school, understand its operations, and become an extension of the institution’s administration.

Nelson S. Frech, PMP (nfrech@Skender.com), is a senior project manager with the construction firm Skender.