A is for apple

In honor of the first day of school for all my teacher friends, I'd like to comment on a Strib story about the new Shakopee High School. After several paragraphs describing how the new school design will better serve students and community members, the article reads:

Although mostly pleased with the way the school turned out, Tomczik noted that you can't always get everything you want. Teachers' lounges, for instance, are small and unappealing. And because of the small learning pods, there are no centralized departments for specific subjects.

In short, the new design fails to recognize that a school is also a workplace. Now I know it's all about the kids, but research shows good teaching is the second most important factor in student achievement after the kids' own families and experiences. And I would hazard a guess that happy teachers are better teachers. So I'm just saying I'd probably try to accommodate their needs a weensy bit.

(It is quite possible the Shakopee design does provide some nice features for teachers that were not covered in this article. If so, I apologize to Shakopee for using it as an example of a wider problem.)