Building the Digital Backbone for Modern K-12 Schools
Today’s structure of K-12 education is largely different from the standard systems of 10 years ago. In such a short span of time, primary and secondary schools have completely overhauled their approach to technology in the classroom. Rooms that once supported only a single data drop for a teacher computer or an audiovisual smartboard display are now carrying far more technology—in today’s digital-forward environment, the average K-12 school follows a 1:1 or even 2:1 device-to-student ratio. Laptops, mobile phones and touchscreen tablets follow a school’s population throughout a building and support most educational materials.
Schools are increasingly treating facility safety as a priority just as crucial to educational excellence. Security capabilities have upgraded, bypassing human capacity. Access control systems are now tied into security camera systems that can detect intruders, weapons, or suspicious activity and deny entry.
As technology continues to trend upward and outward, schools are responsible for maintaining wireless access, bandwidth and power. Schools are no longer simply a physical location to facilitate learning. Rather, they are platforms that sustain a connected network where teaching, training and instruction are the end goal. Technology infrastructure is now fundamental to how a building operates and how education is delivered.
Effectively, this means that K-12 buildings are often physically outdated and limited by their construction. Many times, hindrances manifest in the form of the materials the building is made of. “Older buildings usually present the most challenges when trying to provide a new Wi-Fi layout,” says BrightTree Studios Senior IT/Telecom and Security Designer Dylan Curran, RCDD. “These buildings were constructed when Wi-Fi was not a consideration.”
In school buildings constructed before the outset of connected tech, Wi-Fi signal degrades most when it passes through metal beams, columns and panels. Thick masonry and brick walls pose similar difficulty. Solid wood, drywall and glass create the least interference, but schools are often built with materials that were never intended to support wireless connectivity.
Basements containing uneven ground, varying elevations, and concrete partitions often interfere with connected technology in a school setting. Open layouts like these create connective disruptions, even when they are a characteristic feature of the average school building. Gymnasiums, auditoriums, and cafeterias may need to support a high concentration of users at one time. “Wireless design can’t just achieve coverage throughout the building. It also needs to providing enough capacity where large numbers of devices may be operating simultaneously,” says BrightTree Studios Associate Principal and Audiovisual Designer Andrew Smith, CTS-D, RTPM.
The solution to old-fashioned construction and outdated infrastructure can be an investment made early on, long before education is obstructed on any level. Schools can be intelligently prepared for new tech as it happens without the need for a new build every time. “The infrastructure of a network is the foundation for which all information transmitted within the network relies upon,” says Curran. “A good infrastructure design can limit maintenance requests by providing necessary clearances, convenience drops, and proper documentation within equipment rooms.” Curran advises that a model design provides 20% or more additional capacity for future growth: This rule applies to anything from port counts on passive and active equipment to PoE load capacity.
Schools need to consider the available technology beyond just the early days of use. Leading designers are looking for not only what they can add to support the future, but also what they can leave out, and spaces they can leave empty. “The goal isn’t necessarily to install equipment today that may not be needed for ten years,” Smith says. “It is to make sure the underlying infrastructure doesn’t prevent or make it prohibitively expensive to add that equipment later.” Smith’s best practices reasonably incorporate capacity in spare racks, additional fiber strands, available switches and cooling. “Good future planning means providing enough space and capacity in those permanent building elements so the school can adopt new technologies without having to significantly renovate the building every time technology changes,” Smith says.
IT and telecommunications rank equivalent to electrical and mechanical utilities when it comes to strategic planning. Technology touches every level of a school building, and modern education cannot continue without it. When planned early in the design process, IT is the key to successful operation with limited interruption. “Early IT discussions should include what features the client wants to see from the design and how these features can integrate into their standards and their current systems,” says Curran.
Telecommunications rooms need appropriate locations and sizes. Wireless access points need to coordinate with ceilings and architecture. Some technology may even require underground pathways. “When those requirements are identified early, they can become part of the architecture and engineering rather than something everyone has to find space for afterward,” Smith says. “It is particularly important during renovations. Existing buildings may have limited ceiling space, inadequate telecommunications rooms, outdated cabling, or pathways that are already at capacity. Understanding those conditions early can have a significant impact on the design.”
Modern technology and K-12 education are continuing to grow, shift, and change exponentially. Even the most modern schools built today will need to find ways to support advancements that do not exist yet. Designers recognize trends in sensors, automation, analytics, cloud-connected systems, and AI-enabled tools. Many already consider bandwidth, PoE capacity, fiber capacity, wireless density, cybersecurity and network segmentation, electrical power, cooling, equipment space, and pathways as interconnected parts of the technology infrastructure.
What sets a stable, successful design apart is the space and versatility to account for the next steps. The best way to prepare a school for technologies that don’t exist yet isn’t to try to predict what those technologies will be. It’s to provide a strong, flexible infrastructure that gives the school the ability to adapt when they arrive.
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