Overview

At BuildStrong Education, we are leaders in focusing on the valuable connection between education and community. We support builders such as Oakwood Homes who are creating intentional planning processes which result in master plans not only for a community but also for education.

An education master plan is becoming an essential component of new community development and existing community revitalization.

Increasingly, developers, homebuilders and community leaders are collaborating with school districts and other public and private agencies to ensure a broad range of attractive, high achieving schools. Why is this necessary when only a few years ago new school facilities were built with little thought about flexible programming or even the adequacy of the facilities themselves? There are a number of reasons for this change:

• Today’s housing market is increasingly competitive, and it takes more than just quality housing to make a community attractive to buyers, especially those with school-aged children.
• Parents are more informed and are, in greater numbers, selecting the best learning environments for their children and in many cases, choosing to leave their home districts and neighborhood schools to do so.
• Careful planning is needed to successfully meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student body with a variety of interests, both academically and professionally.

A growing body of research has identified many successful educational strategies that require thoughtful planning to be effectively implemented and achieve desired outcomes across an array of vested stakeholder groups. However, city and school district resources are becoming increasingly scarce while expectations for services are increasing.

At BuildStrong Education, we know that a properly executed education master plan yields big rewards for kids, families and communities.
By putting high-quality education at the center of an engaged and inspired community, we see higher student achievement, more opportunities for students to participate in new educational programs that meet the rigor of an increasingly competitive global marketplace and improved alignment between early childhood, K-12, and postsecondary education. In addition to all the educational benefits, we also see higher housing and land values, greater tax revenues, and greater opportunities for a community to attract and retain industry.

We understand that if children are going to be successful in a knowledge-based economy, they need an outstanding education from early childhood through postsecondary education. That’s why we have a game plan for our master plans.
For the EduCommunities we have been proud to support, we began with a formal education master plan including establishing “cornerstones”, the foundational principles that will help define the new community’s educational planning vision. At the center is always our unwavering commitment to the development of a world-class, globally responsive and fully-integrated education plan that is vibrant and sustainable.

As the community’s cornerstone principles emerge, we share them with a cross-section of interested stakeholder groups to build a strong shared understanding and commitment of the educational cornerstones.

Why is this different than the schools and community devlopment of the past?
Traditionally, there are formulas by which developers either donate land or pay cash in lieu payments based on how many homes they are building. Then, school districts go to voters to pass a bond to borrow money to build buildings. But when BuildStrong Education partners with a school district and stakeholders on an Education Master Plan, we invest financial and operational resources to support the planning process, the report and the implementation.