District Administration - March 2007 - (Page 40)

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Athletic programs require supplies and accoutrements that all need a home. • Anticipate ongoing maintenance costs. Pick materials that are easy to maintain; if most spaces are made of sealed concrete, for example, you can hose them off to clean them. • Include parking that can accommodate both home team and visiting team vehicles. • Create ﬂexible and multipurpose spaces. According to PBK's Irene Nigaglioni, a multipurpose facility can mean signiﬁcant savings. For instance, building a stadium, arena and conference center in one location will save money on building parking lots. • Get the most bang for your buck. Work with architects to research systems like sound, video and scoreboards to ensure good value. Consider dual sound and acoustics and lighting systems that will handle both an athletic facility as well as a ﬁne arts venue for multiuse purposes. • Include meeting and classroom spaces for teams and others. • Don’t ignore technology. Union Public Schools’ superintendent Cathy Burden included wireless technology in her district’s multipurpose facility. For example, hosting trade shows requires much electricity and computer power. “Fortunately, that was built in from the beginning,” Burden says. PIT TSBURGH’S North Hills High School’s Indians play their opponent at Martorelli Stadium. stadium, has a 5,662-seat indoor arena with a ﬂoor for four basketball courts but that also can be used for the prom and can be rented for trade shows or other events. UMAC has 27,500 square feet of exhibition space and 5,000 square feet of meeting space. The suburban school district in the Tulsa area lacked anything like a civic center, says Cathy Burden, superintendent of Union Public School District. “It actually stabilizes and identiﬁes our community as Union. We’re a school district that doesn’t have its own city—we’re part Tulsa and part Broken Arrow—and no one knew who Union was. Now they do because we have a beautiful facility that offers us an identity.” Burden says when people visit the high school, it’s often confused with a college campus. “When you realize we’re a high school that doesn’t have a town, you understand the reason,” Burden says. The district has about 1,900 students enrolled at the senior high school. UMAC also has the Redskin Room, a VIP room with a balcony that overlooks the football ﬁeld. For $1,000, one can join the RedZone and have a catered dinner in the Redskin Room, then sit in the stands. Local restaurants make bids, and one gets an annual contract to cater dinners. To help offset the costs, the district gave the Union Schools Education Foundation the right to sell sponsor recognition for spaces, such as rooms and facilities, within UMAC. The money, which ranges from $1,000 to $750,000 depending on the space, is controlled by the foundation, which raises revenue to help fund teacher grants and other district programs that would otherwise not be funded. For instance, John Q. Hammons, the Springﬁeld, Mo.-based hotel developer and owner, was building a hotel nearby and gave the district an endowment for its foundation, so now his name is on the arena. The facilities are rented to outside groups to offset security, upkeep and utilities costs. UMAC hosts more than 1,000 events each year, ranging from home and garden shows to cheerleading competitions, although most beneﬁt students and staff. “We do quite a juggling act between district and revenueproducing events,” says Sarah McBryde, marketing director for Union Public Schools/UMAC. Of 1,007 events last year, 77 were outside, revenue-producing events. “Any revenue that is produced goes back to the district and helps offset operational costs,” McBryde says. The outside events brought in nearly $250,000 last year. “We never expect to break even on our operational costs,” she adds, “because we use the building so much more for district events.” DA Peggy Bresnick Kendler is a freelance writer based in Connecticut. Using the stadium for only football can be questionable. But when it’s a multi-use facility, it’s easier to justify the costs. —Tina Vojtko, spokeswoman, North Hills School District, Pittsburgh, Pa. District Administration 40 March 2007 hsstadums.inndJH.indd 7 2/13/07 11:16:24 AM Warning : Unknown : The session id contains invalid characters, valid characters are only a-z, A-Z and 0-9 in Unknown on line 0 Warning : Unknown : Failed to write session data files . Please verify that the current setting of session.save_path is correct /var/lib/php/session in Unknown on line 0

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - March 2007

Contents
Editor's Letter
Update
Inside the Law
Curriculum Update
District Profile
Administrator Profile
Friday Night Fever
Creating an Effective Virtual School Program
Hunting for Talent
Multimedia Man
Do These Web Sites Work?
Finding Funds for Student Laptops
Curriculum Crassifieds
Gearing Up for Science Assessments
New Products
Computer Literature
Speaking Out
Principal Opinion
The Online Edge
Calendar of Events
Problem/Solution
Research Corner

District Administration - March 2007