School Planning Solutions for Your Community

Design Capacity is a formula to determine the number of students that can be accommodated in a school. For example, in states like Maryland, Kindergarten classrooms have a design capacity of 22 pupils and 23 for Grade 1 to 5 students. In North Carolina, the focus is on class size; state policy calls for no more than 17 second or third grade students per teacher. 

The Education Commission of the 50 States provides state-by-state comparisons of teacher-student ratios and other school variables.  For grading a plan purposes, reference will be made to either the enrollment-capacity ratio or the teacher-student ratio as Percent Utilization. 

Exceeding 100% Utilization is Overcrowding

Your School Plan shows present and future Percent Utilization of all public schools.  While exceeding the ratios by a few percentage points does not necessarily mean that education quality will decline, a continued rise in overcrowding can only make it more likely. 

A New Plan for Your Area if your current plan is about to expire or rates poorly based on the Quality of Life Growth Management system, we can assist you in carrying out the outlined steps and/or conduct a community workshop and assist you in formulating a planning strategy for your community.

School Overcrowding Solutions options include existing school buildings expansion, new school construction, magnet programs and incentives to attract students to schools with excess capacity. More extreme solutions include temporary portable classrooms, a moratorium on adding students to already excessively crowded schools and redistricting.

Suggested Criteria student enrollment as a percent of school capacity; or teacher-student ratios that compare with established standards or regional and statewide norms.

Frequently Asked Questions does your plan have

criteria for assessing the impact of past and anticipated growth;

current percent utilization for each public school in the planning area;

anticipated growth percent utilization for each school.

For schools projecting greater than 100 percent utilization, what are your recommendations for resolving overcrowding backed by the research confirming the effectiveness of each action.

A Quality of Life factor of 5 or A is scored if all your public schools are at or below 100 percent utilization presently and with anticipated growth.

Connect with Tema

for School Planning Solutions in Your Community

Local Knowledge – Global Reach

Economic Development Entrepreneurs

Tourism Energy Water Transit

tema@arezza.net |skype arezza1 

Grading Your Growth Management Plan

Guidance for Specific Quality of Life Factors

A Good Plan presents criteria for assessing the effect of past and anticipated growth for each quality of life factor; this information is presented in table and map format. The grading process contains a list of quality of life factors; for each, the question is whether the criteria data is present in the list or table at the recommended level of detail. If lists or tables are not present, then check the table of contents to see if there is a chapter that addresses the quality of life factor or search the plan for keywords.

A New Plan for Your Area if your current plan is about to expire or rates poorly based on the Quality of Life Growth Management system, we can assist you in carrying out the outlined steps and/or conduct a community workshop and assist you in formulating a planning strategy for your community.

  

Frequently Used Questions and Definitions

 Anticipated Growth refers to the growth anticipated in the plan.  Usually the focus is on how population will change by a target year set a decade or more into the future to predict how the number of houses will change along with traffic volume, impervious area and water resource impacts, changes to police staffing and other public safety functions.

Planning Area is the geographical area covered by the plan.  If the planning area is diverse, then data regarding quality of life factors should be provided for each distinct subarea.

Points and Letter Grades five questions are presented for each of the specific quality of life factors.  A firm, unequivocal YES to a question equals one point.  There are situations where a question can be partially answered yes in which case a point value of less than one is an option.  For example, the fourth question for each factor is usually in two-parts: are actions recommended for resolving a negative effect, and does the plan contain text providing the factual basis for why the action is likely to achieve the degree of resolution claimed?

A half-point would be justified for a Yes to either of this two-part question. A Yes to all five questions yields a total score of 5 points and a letter grade of A.  Lesser totals equal letter grades of: 4 = B; 3 = C; 2 = D; 1 = E; 0 = F. If you assess more than one specific quality of life factor then the average score can be equated to a letter grade using this same scale.  For example, an average of 3.4 would be rounded to 3 for a C or you can call it a C+.  A 3.6 average could be rounded up to a 4 or B.  You could also call it a B-.

Connect with Tema

for a Quality of Life Growth Management Process

Local Knowledge – Global Reach

Economic Development Entrepreneurs

Tourism Energy Water Transit

tema@arezza.net |skype arezza1 

Energy and Water Sub-Meters for Your Property

Sub-meters play a major role in successful energy and water reduction efforts and help identify best practices to reduce energy and water consumption in a building.

Utilities implement sub-meter systems that allow a building owner, property management firm, condominium or homeowners association and other multi-tenant property to bill tenants for measured utility usage via individual water, gas and electric meters. Water Sub-meters promote conservation and help offset maintenance and improvement costs for well water systems, lagoons or septic systems. Without a meter to measure individual usage, there is less incentive to identify building inefficiencies, since the other tenants or landlord may pay all or part of those costs.

Sub-metering also refers to the monitoring of electrical consumption of individual equipment within a building, such as HVAC, indoor and outdoor lighting, refrigeration and kitchen appliances, creating opportunities for energy and capital expenditure savings, control over thermal efficiency of the structure, its insulation, windows, and major energy consuming appliances.

Automatic Meter Reading AMR Technology Electronic Meter Reading and Billing

Software provides consumption data. This data provides users with the information to locate leaks and high-consumption areas. Users can apply this data to implement conservation or renovation projects to lower usage & costs, meet government mandates, or participate in green building programs.

System Design typically includes a master meter owned by the utility supplying the water, electricity, or gas, with overall usage billed directly to the property owner. The property owner or manager then places their own private meters on individual tenant spaces to determine individual usage levels and bill each tenant for their share. In some cases, the landlord might add the usage cost to the regular rent or lease bill. In other cases, a third party might read, bill, and possibly even collect for the service. Some of these companies also install and maintain meters and reading systems.

Panelor circuit sub-meters are used to measure resource use of the same system for added security, economic, reliability, and behavioral benefits, providing insights into resource consumption of building systems and equipment working in the same series. Sub-meters can measure use of a single panel, or multiple points within a panel system using single-point, multi-point, and branch circuit sub-meters.

Connect with Tema

for Energy and Water Sub-metering in Your Property

Local Knowledge – Global Reach

Economic Development Entrepreneurs

Tourism Energy Water Transit

tema@arezza.net | skype arezza1