CARNEGIE MODEL MIDDLE SCHOOLS

While there is no one Carnegie model for middle school design, there are several concepts in the report that suggest how school districts who accept and care about the characteristics of 10-14 year-old learners should plan for renovation or construction.

Among those concepts are: hub, clusters, flexibility, accessible, user friendly.

From these concepts has evolved a sense of how the ideal middle school of the 21st century should be planned and constructed:

1. Make the media/library/technology area the hub of the school.

2. Create clusters of classrooms that are not departmentalized, but that allow smaller learning communities to work as a unit.

3. Design flexibility into the use of space so that, for example, larger rooms can be sectioned into smaller work rooms, or so a large group room connects with a cluster of smaller classrooms.

4. Promote physical activity by providing easy access to physical education areas and to playground and field space.

5. Design a  facility which invites parents and the community to use it because it accessible not just by  its location, but because it is designed for community use as well as for security.