At CMBA, we see the critical importance of involving everyone in your K12 project. From students and faculty to school boards and even community members. This gives everyone a sense of connection to the project. When everyone is working together toward a shared vision, amazing things can happen!
The approach that we take to listening is special. We want to hear what everyone has to say. Giving everyone a platform gives them the same buy-in. This way, we are all on the same page working together on the same vision. At CMBA, everybody understands the uniqueness of the project and has a chance to be heard.
Every district is different. This is why truly listening is so important. Generic solutions won’t work for your district. We’re looking for specific problems and solutions for your school.
We make a real effort to put community meetings together. These meetings will often take the form of small groups and teams. This makes it possible for every voice in the community to be clearly heard. People will often come to these meetings with very valid concerns – whether those be cost related or relating to the future viability of the project. The community wants to make sure their concerns are being heard and CMBA makes sure that they are.
Many schools rely on bonds to finance their projects, so communication is a vital process that cannot be overlooked. From the beginning, we work diligently to understand what the community desires out of the project. The community is paying for this project, and we want to know where they’re coming from. During the process, we seek to get a strong grasp on what success looks like to them.
The community has a stake in what students are learning in school, and we care to know how the project will affect and influence them. Everyone in the community will either be attending the school, sending a child to the school or know someone who goes to the school. In stark contrast to other types of projects we work on, a school is not a place where only a specialized group of people stand to benefit. A school is a community project in the truest sense.
Success starts and ends with your community. If we can use our knowledge and expertise to create a space that brings your community closer together, that’s when we know we’ve achieved real success with your K12 project. This definition of success is why deep community involvement is such a big part of the approach at CMBA Architects.