As the birthrate plunges, a resourceful building team finds school construction activity shifting to conversions, renovations, and the design of new schools called human resource centers. Describes programs in Thomas Jefferson Junior High School in Arlington, Virginia; the Whitman Center in Pontiac, Michigan; and the John F. Kennedy School and…

Reclaiming readily available government, commercial, and other facilities for school use can help solve many of the present and future school housing problems. (Author/MLF)

Examples from some of the successful major techniques to use vacant spaces for special programs and services that will benefit students and the community. (Author/MLF)

Five educational planners make brief predictions about how the current baby boom will affect schools' organization and facilities. Common themes include the need to upgrade existing facilities, to make long-range plans, and to design new schools that are flexible and could be converted to other uses. (MLF)

This publication describes economical ways to provide better housing for students and provides examples of workable solutions to the problem at various colleges and universities. For more economical and better housing, the author recommends (1) humanizing existing dormitories by changing the standard double rooms into suites of bedrooms with a…

The use of many public school facilities now closed due to declining enrollment could generate substantial savings for new federal construction projects. Responses to a questionnaire sent to all 50 states by the General Accounting Office (GAO) show that there were 2,493 vacant schools in 19 of the 23 responding states at the beginning of the…

After a quarter of a century of rapid and sometimes spectacular growth, an increasing number of school systems are finding themselves faced with shrinking enrollments. The problems have changed from what to do about overcrowding, double sessions, and temporary facilities, to what to do about empty classrooms. The report examines this…

This publication attempts to simplify the complex issue of declining enrollment and surplus school space. Part 1 is devoted to a thorough discussion of enrollment decline. Text and tables are used to explain enrollment projections, large city public school enrollment decline, birthrates, population mobility, expenditures for education, and the…