In this episode of Laying the Foundation, we sit down with Courtney Koch, a Principal Architect at CMBA Architects, to discuss the MMCRU School project. We delve into the importance of community involvement in school design, the role of the architect in creating flexible and adaptable learning spaces, and the long-term impact of school facilities on student success. Join us as we explore how CMBA Architects helped MMCRU create a school that supports the entire community.
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Episode Transcript
Skyler: Welcome to another episode of laying the foundation.
Skyler: And welcome back everybody to another episode of the laying the foundation podcast. Once again, I'm your host Skylar. And today joining me or rejoining me is Courtney, one of our amazing architects. Here at CMBA.
Courtney: Thanks, Skylar. I love being here.
Skyler: Well, I'm so glad. I'm so glad with how often I've had you on.
Skyler: I'm glad that you don't hate it. No, this is
Courtney: awesome. This is amazing.
Skyler: Fantastic. So today, Courtney, you're going to tell me all about the MMCRU. There we go. We have a lot of acronyms that we use. So I always like I'm trying my best not to get them mixed up. But MMCRU MMCRU. Um, partially the, the school project, but this, this whole project as a whole became a lot more than that.
Skyler: And I want you to tell me all about, just give me the baseline of like, what was the beginning of the process for this, where, how did we get approached or what was kind of the circumstances there?
Courtney: Yeah. So we've been working with NMCRU for a very long time now. Uh, it started as a master planning process.
Courtney: So. Planning out what they needed to do for the next 10, 15 years. What made sense for that roadmap for them to move forward. And one of the first pieces that came up was career and technical education. So we started with them with a CTE addition to their existing facility that has now taken off and even needed more space.
Courtney: Hey,
Skyler: that's exciting. Yes.
Courtney: In any good master plan, there are multiple phases to follow. Well, the next step came up and we ran a bond, uh, about two years ago now. And that project is what we're going to talk about today. And what was it? It was a complete renovation of the high school building. Okay. A new elementary addition to the building, which.
Courtney: Completely took out their existing elementary and replaced it and older building.
Skyler: Okay,
Courtney: um and Developed a community child care center at the school
Skyler: all three levels all
Courtney: put together Wow in the MMC Marcus campus to be able to support the city of Marcus and and the community Okay
Skyler: And so when when the city of Marcus or the MMCR you kind of approach us about this What what was their thinking as far as wanting all of this incredibly massive, you know You Um, age spanning project as far as the schools go.
Courtney: Originally daycare was not part of our master plan. Our master plan was strictly for the elementary, the high school, how they could grow into spaces, additional classrooms, the CTE addition, um, some gym. Additions potentially even to support, you know, athletics and, and, um, school programming, but when we came back to the next phase of the project, the community was going through a daycare crisis.
Courtney: There was not available daycare and a lot of community members had to look outside of the community to find. Resources for their children while they were at work. And so the school saw this as a piece they could take on to be able to help lessen that crisis, to keep people in the community and to provide the students a safe place to go.
Courtney: And even those young kiddos to be able to start as a Royal in Marcus.
Skyler: Yeah, absolutely. And for those listening, Royals is kind of their, their mascot, right? They're kind of bland. You could almost say as far as the school goes. So the
Courtney: child care center is the little Royals daycare.
Skyler: That's great. That's awesome.
Skyler: I love when that brand, I mean, I'm in marketing. So obviously seeing that kind of the, uh, uh, well used and well utilized as always, uh, a breath of fresh air. Well, and it's
Courtney: awesome because when you think of getting, you know, children into a building, into the school system at eight weeks old, you then are a little Royal.
Courtney: If I would ever try to make my children move to a different district and they've been in school for so long, I think it would be really hard to try to, you know, Shift their mindset to not be the mascot they've been since they were young. So just even creating early learners through the daycare center is, is building that awareness in the community and that, that brand recognition.
Skyler: Absolutely. So going into that, seeing that a daycare or schools in general are kind of like a very big cornerstone. We've talked about that before on the podcast, how important a school is to a community. But can you talk a little bit on. Um, how much that, that kind of affects the rest of the community and how much that spans and then why that daycare is a big piece of that.
Courtney: Yeah, in any recruiting to communities, you need to provide all of those services. If someone is moving into a new, new area, new district. Mm hmm. Naturally, they're going to look at the school first if they have young children, what, where are my children going to be going? What are we looking for for education?
Courtney: But then on top of that, if you have younger children, what are they going to do for, for childcare when you're at work? And most of our homes now are two income parents. We are just that society. So we always have to be thinking with little ones, what is our next step? What is that plan? And having the school as that heart of the community, because.
Courtney: Like we see if the, if the school is a strong community component, those communities are built around them and they provide those services. They, they keep people in the community and people returning home to the communities they grew up in to come back and raise their children and their families. So being able to have all of those resources put in place to be able to support.
Courtney: Young families is really the piece that the school is going to make that connection with.
Skyler: Absolutely. That makes a lot of sense. So when it came to the MMCRU project and the desire to integrate this Um, this daycare into their whole school project. Were there any key challenges that had to be overcome?
Skyler: Is this something that maybe the, some communities might look at and they'd be like, Oh, we don't see a lot of schools that do this kind of thing. Is this normal? Is this weird? Are we, you know, kind of the first in a, in a line of possible, uh, uh, improvement within the systems. What, what was going on there?
Courtney: Yeah. I think this was a great opportunity for them to, to try this and, and trailblaze this really, because it's. The same resources that you're going to have when you reach the kindergarten level. So when we did start looking at design of the facility, we wanted to make sure that it was integrated so that you, you started that school, you know, feeling and the building welcomed you just like it would when you become a kindergartner, but at a level of.
Courtney: you know, early childhood when you're, when you're a little and you're not in school yet, but it still has that same, that same branding, that same awareness. Um, some of the traits that we had in the facility itself, we have neighborhoods that we've created. And I think we've talked about this on other podcasts before of being able to create a network.
Courtney: Um, of students, different ages and, and sizes of student around kind of a home, home base and a commons, um, to support them. Well, we set up the neighborhood for the daycare exactly the same way, but instead of having their, you know, general classroom space, they may have more integrated space with play areas.
Courtney: Okay. Where. You know, early childhood and kindergarten students are doing more hands on and social activities, too. We're just extending that to younger, younger children as well. So maybe in their open neighborhood space, they have, uh, small mounds of furniture that look like grass that they can climb on.
Courtney: Right. And they have an indoor kind of, you know, Exercise park that they can, they can play in and just find all kinds of things. We built integrated cubbies for all of their different activities to, to house them so that they're set up in a very similar way as the kindergarten, first, second, third, fourth, fifth pod.
Courtney: And it, it naturally kind of ages as you move up into each of the neighborhoods.
Skyler: Right. And they're obviously going to be a little bit familiar with the rest of the school because. The daycare was attached to the elementary, right? Yes. So
Courtney: when you come in the elementary entrance, you have the administration area for the elementary school on one side of that entry, and on the other side of the entry you have the child care center.
Courtney: Okay. So for before and after school parents, they're not having to access the entire school. There's an entrance that they can use so the building is secure. They also have their own playground. But the beauty of being able to share the same building with the school is that they can also rely on some of the same services.
Courtney: So lunch can be provided from the cafeteria and brought down to the daycare. We have additional playground space. There's a large multipurpose gym that can be used. So there's a lot of amenities that instead of replicating at another facility that would be just used for daycare, we can program that building all day now.
Skyler: Wow. And that's going to cut down on, you know, necessary staff because obviously finding staff to work these spaces, which is necessary, um, can be difficult, right?
Courtney: It can be. And what's really exciting about this because Marcus Campus is unique. It's an elementary school on one half of the building, shared resources in the middle, cafeteria, media center, gym.
Courtney: And on the other side of the building is the 9th through 12th grade.
Skyler: Okay.
Courtney: So. So anyone in the high school that is interested in early childhood education, any of those family and consumer science students can come down, do early childcare and help in that daycare center and be able to have that education that they wouldn't get otherwise.
Courtney: It's
Skyler: hands on learning. Hands
Courtney: on learning. Holy
Skyler: cow. That's incredible. You're also
Courtney: staffing your daycare center too.
Skyler: Wow. What a, what an ecosystem that we created. Like even more so than just making a school, which benefits the community. I mean, you have built. An ecosystem of support from like three different areas.
Skyler: Plus, you know, obviously the staff that's actually part of the school too. Um, that's pretty incredible.
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Skyler: To learn more about our available positions, visit the careers page at cmbaarchitects. com and apply to join the CMBA team. That's pretty incredible.
Skyler: It's a,
Courtney: it's a wonderful project that they have going on and we just can't wait to continue to see it build and grow. And what can, what can come of this, this community piece?
Skyler: Awesome. So you had mentioned the family and consumer sciences, uh, as one of the notes in here. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Skyler: Because I'm, I'm a little bit unfamiliar. Um, we just had, my wife and I just had our baby, so I haven't looked too deep into, you know, where things are at when it comes to schools, especially elementary school. Um, so I'm a little unfamiliar with a lot of this stuff. So tell me, tell me about that.
Courtney: Sure. So family and consumer science is kind of the new name for what used to be considered home ec class.
Courtney: Oh,
Skyler: okay.
Courtney: So being able to do early childhood development, um, domestic, you know, cooking, baking, sewing, things like that. And then all the way to programs that bring in culinary and hospitality arts that kind of start bridging that gap. So there's a wide range of what's considered that. Okay. But again, anything that can be learned and kind of that mentoring process through.
Courtney: Early childhood education that you want to study and learn and having that facility there to be able to bridge that and see that happen in real time is just the same as what we see in career and technical fields, where you can do the hands on in welding and agriculture and and construction. Now we can see that in real life.
Courtney: The early childhood center as well.
Skyler: Gotcha. And that's that tie in with the daycare and the high school and being able to kind of get that, like you said, hands on experience,
Courtney: having those resources available, mentoring is huge too. We see that all the time of being able to have the younger students meet with the older students and do reading activities and different hands on activities.
Courtney: I think it's just as beneficial to. The young students as it is the older. Oh,
Skyler: absolutely. Both are learning so much in that opportunity right there. What about, um, before and after school care or programs? Obviously, you know, some parents work different hours, um, and maybe need to have their kids at the daycare for, for a longer amount of time or whatever the case.
Skyler: Um, what about when it comes to the staffing there and just in general how the school functions? Um having those kind of odd hours that normally wouldn't be involved with the school
Courtney: yeah, and they are available before and after school because that is a huge time commitment when parents do need to get to work and Even if your child is student or school age, you still need a place for them to go so that they are not in that limbo when you do have to go to work.
Courtney: Um, shift work is, is a great example of that because you have to be there when your shift starts and sometimes school does not allow that. Start at the same time that you need to go to work. It's
Skyler: true.
Courtney: So being able to provide those services also continues that continuity where the students don't need to ride a bus to a different facility.
Courtney: They literally cross the hall and they are at their place. So as a parent to at work, you're not worrying. Did my child get on the bus? Did they get delivered to the right facility? They could stay contained at the school and at the same facility they've been at all day. So when they get there in the morning to the time they get picked up, you have that level of.
Courtney: Of trust of where they are for the day.
Skyler: Absolutely. And then, so I guess kind of the last question that I can think of is, so for me sitting here, hearing about this, I mean, I might be a little bit biased, but this sounds like a pretty incredible concept. Like I said, just putting everything in a perfect ecosystem altogether connected.
Skyler: There's a lot of development opportunity. There's a lot of hands on learning opportunity for every age group. Um, are we seeing this concept moving, uh, to more like, cause I, I don't know if there's a lot of schools out there that have, you know, all of this stuff kind of all attached and part of what they're doing.
Skyler: Are we seeing more of this happening?
Courtney: I have had a few clients that are now also inquiring about this project specifically and how that process works. So we're working on getting the right parties connected as well so that we We can all learn from each other. There's always someone that starts the process, but what can we learn from what went well, what might've not gone so smoothly and how can we make that work better?
Courtney: So we're always trying to integrate those pieces that will really build the community the way they need to. Now it might not be the right fit for everyone, but for those that do need those resources. We find that that synergy between the two to be really exciting and something we can bring together.
Courtney: One of the pieces we didn't touch on that I think was huge for this as well is in a smaller community recruiting faculty and teachers to your school is a huge thing. Being able to, you know, Get them there first and then being able to retain teachers. But as we know, teachers have kids too, they have families.
Courtney: So having that resource available to them in their community, in their building, your child can come with you, you drop them off and then go to your classroom. You could even stop by planning period and make sure they're okay. I mean, it really integrates everyone through the process that. It's good for the students.
Courtney: It's good for the teachers. It's good for the community as a whole.
Skyler: Wow, that's incredible. That's super cool. Just like literally every, it just works for everybody. It does. It's really helpful for everybody from every facet. So, and this is why we have amazing, uh, architects like you guys designing these concepts that are I mean, again, in my opinion, pretty revolutionary.
Skyler: So, and we have an
Courtney: incredible team that loves getting to problem solve these kinds of issues too. We're not, we're not a team that will just come in and give you the same thing either. We need to make sure that it meets your community, your needs, and that this building is unique to you because. You can have a daycare attached to your school, but what is going to make it unique to your community that makes you the heart of that community?
Skyler: Absolutely. And those resources, like you mentioned before, you know, those strategies of putting the shared resource in between the spaces that are all connected to each other. That way it's easier for the staff to move around, you know, things like that, that are just those things that. Um, again, like you said, yeah, sure.
Skyler: We can attach a daycare to the school, but did we do it strategically in such a way that's going to help with the staff that are working at your school to be able to sort of mitigate some of the work or just be more efficient? Like this is, this is the reason why you get architects that are passionate about what they do.
Skyler: They're doing research. You guys are looking into, you know, some of the psychology of things. Um, I've definitely, you know, seen a lot of that when we recorded the episodes about the K 12 and just some of like the learning opportunities and just things like that, it's incredible. So awesome. Well, thank you, Courtney, seriously for sharing about this project and sharing some amazing wealth of knowledge.
Skyler: As far as, um, schools, K 12, all of that good stuff. And, and of course, early childhood development and daycares and everything like that, like it's, it's incredible. It's incredible to see this kind of like connection coming together and how important it is, of course, for the community that it's a part of.
Courtney: Well, thank you for letting me be here. I love sharing these and I can't wait to be back.
Skyler: Absolutely. All right. Well, thanks again. And, uh, we will see you guys next time. If you'd like to find out more about the Laying the Foundation podcast, you can head over to any podcast streaming platform such as Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, and others.
Skyler: You can also find out more about CMBA Architects through social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Additionally, you can head over to the CMBA website at cmbaarchitects. com. If you're an architecture or design professional, or an intern looking for an internship within those fields, Please be sure to check out our website and click on the careers tab to find out more about what opportunities we offer.
Skyler: This has been another episode of the laying the foundation podcast. We'll see you next time.
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December 11, 2024