While the Play Street theme may initially strike adults as overly cute, its purpose is to fashion a comfortable and non-institutional environment for children. The architect succeeded in crafting for the center a strong sense of place that seems to have symbolic meaning for the children who use it. Greenman has noted that character and charm are among the qualities we seek when we look for a home: "those elements that make a space interesting and attractive." He goes on to write:

"Potential for collective sense of our place and a number of my places is important in children’s programs. Space with character, with place-markers and friendly or defining objects, will enhance those other elements that make houses homes." Greenman 1988, 69-70)

The NSCAP Head Start center is rich in these elements. It is a place filled with character. Play Street is the collective "our place". Each classroom has its distinctive entry, street number, and color scheme so a child can easily identify it as "my place."

The classrooms themselves are spacious and sunny. Each has its own bathroom with sinks and toilets at child level. Because the bathrooms adjoin the classroom, children can have greater independence in managing their own needs, greatly reducing the burden teachers would otherwise experience several times a day shepherding the children to a distant bathroom. Scaling the sinks and toilets to a child’s height further reduces the need for teachers to help children. The children benefit from the sense of competency they experience when they do things for themselves. Of course a bathroom with child-scale fixtures for each classroom is standard preschool/kindergarten practice—but in this era of rapid expansion and far-from-perfect facilities, many early childhood programs do not have them.

Scaling the space to meet the needs of children is evident in the placement of the windows on Play Street, where the sills are low enough for children to see in and out. Even the large three-dimensional numbers on each classroom entry were hung low to invite children to touch them and trace their shapes.

Just as much care was taken in meeting teacher needs. Each classroom also has counter space where a teacher can keep papers and other materials out of the reach of children. A phone is mounted on the wall next to the teacher’s work station. The center also has a teacher lounge with a kitchenette and a computer among other things.

Renovating a child care facility: The hard-learned lessons

While growing literature exists on a layout and design of classrooms and playgrounds, this case study explores some broad center design issues as well as addresses the process and challenges inherent in developing such a facility.

Lesson 1: Space Matters

For the Head Start grantee, the program director, the architect and the Children's Investment Fund, which lent funds to the center to finance the construction project, creating a well-functioning center out of raw space held five lessons. The first lesson is simply that space matters.

In a field struggling to deliver an expensive service to a market with tight family and public-sector budgets, equipment and facility costs are routinely deferred or minimized in favor of bolstering inadequate staff salaries. The result is a norm within much of the child care world, especially among nonprofit providers that accepts extraordinarily low facility and equipment standards. Space in church basements filled with tired-looking hand-me-down equipment is all too frequently seen and accepted. It is so firmly entrenched a reality that providers rarely notice the depressing conditions, reflect on the programmatic ramifications, or imagine changing it.

In Peabody, space matters in two respects: square footage and the programmatic and psychological value of quality space. With respect to the former, more is better. The center’s classrooms average 50 square feet per student, well above the state of Massachusetts’s 35-square foot requirement. Minimum space requirements for licensure tend to become the standard to which everyone builds. But the Peabody center has a spacious quality that is noticeably less cramped than most other centers. As a result, classrooms seem less chaotic, and it is easier for several teachers to supervise different activities in the same classroom without disrupting other activities.

Space also matters in another respect. While providers correctly believe that good space does not make a good program, architect Sullivan observes that "negative space is somewhat deterministic—it depletes people," contributing to mounting indications that preschool work can be both physically demanding and, like other frontline human service vocations, emotionally exhausting. As a result, child care teachers are prime candidates for burnout (Veninga & Spradley 1981; Maslach 1982; Bloom 1994).

Indeed, the teachers who moved into the renovated space in Peabody reported being much happier since the move. As Kritchevsky and Prescott have observed,

"Clues to the need for spatial improvement can be found primarily in teachers’ and children’s behavior. Tired or irritable teachers; apathetic hyperactive, or uninterested children; high noise level; large amounts of time spent in routine management; and excessive use of teacher-directed activity all have a high likelihood of being spatially induced." (1977, 42)

So while nice a space attracts parents—a lesson many for-profit providers learned years ago—the physical quality of a center may also influence the most important child care relationship: the way teachers interact with children.

Reducing the physical drudgery and emotional stress of caring for children should also make teaching more rewarding. Phillips observed, "Although the preponderance of research evidence has ascribed positive developmental outcomes for children in child care to trained and stable staff, the role of child care as a work environment for adults remains virtually unstudied. This outcome stands in stark contrast to national statistics that reveal a 42& annual turnover rate among child care workers" (Phillips 1987, 122 [emphasis added]). The experience in Peabody reinforces the hypothesis that quality facilities may indeed contribute to quality care by reducing staff turnover rates.

Finally, "children literally grow up in these centers, " notes Mav Pardee, an advisor to the Children's Investment Fund. Frequently young children spend more of their waking hours in child care settings than at their homes. Space ought to offer variety and choices. It also should be clean, well ordered, comfortable, bright, fun, relaxing and stimulating.

continue story