From expansive gathering spaces to small-scale huddle rooms, school districts are redesigning for all kinds of future-driven learning

This story is one in a series created in collaboration with Future-Driven Schools to celebrate the work of groundbreaking school districts in the Pittsburgh region. Kidsburgh will share these stories throughout the 2025-26 school year. 

You’ve seen the headlines: “School buildings are crumbling,” Education Week announced. “We Need to Fix School Buildings Now,” warned the National Education Association.

But what does “fixing” school buildings actually mean? Do students benefit if we repair and repaint the spaces that were designed decades ago — and in some cases, a century ago?

At three Pittsburgh-region school districts, the answer to that question is a   definite “no.”

The world has changed dramatically since so many of our nation’s schools were built. Today’s educators and learners face new challenges and have a slew of new tools and opportunities at their disposal. Innovative districts are addressing the question of school redesign by asking a powerful question: What will our 21st-century students do in these spaces, and how might the surrounding community benefit if these spaces could be reimagined?

The physical spaces within schools are a central part of academic and social success — and they are something that educators in Hampton Township, Peters Township and Seneca Valley school districts have prioritized.

FLEXIBLE SPACES AND FLEXIBLE SCHEDULES

“We recognize that our students are social beings and need to be together, and part of learning is interacting with one another,” says Marguerite Imbarlina, Hampton High School’s principal. “So we wanted to think about how our teachers could get kids to move and think together in groups to make sure that learning comes alive. Our teachers were doing a really great job with that, but they didn’t really have the spaces to do that in.”

As Hampton’s leadership explored design ideas, they asked: What kinds of learning spaces would not only be instructionally valuable, but also support a new vision for our high school schedule?

After considering a move from a traditional eight-period day to a more college-like block schedule, they settled on a hybrid: Three traditional days each week combined with two days of block schedules, giving students more time for things like collaborative work, long-term projects, and internships. Then, with input from staff, students, and the community, they designed spaces that serve these goals.

Today, Hampton High School has a new wing featuring a modern media center and state-of-the-art library designed to foster conversation, interaction, and learning.

Students have already begun gathering and learning in this college-like, tech-enabled space that includes huddle rooms behind glass walls, plenty of sunlight, and close proximity to the school’s bustling coffee shop, the Busy Bean.

Soon, on Wednesdays and Thursdays the entire building will have lunch at the same time and longer blocks of classes, so that students can work together in these spaces in a variety of ways.

TRUE PARTNERSHIP WITH THE COMMUNITY

A few years ago, Peters Township was also grappling with the question of revamping their high school. They proposed building a new high school, but the challenge was communicating that need to the community. If we’re one of the state’s highest-performing districts, some asked, why spend the money?

The district’s educators, though, knew they were making things work despite real issues: The cafeteria was so small that lunch had to begin early in the school day. The gym was too small, as was the auditorium.

“We had so many teachers sharing classrooms,” says Jennifer Murphy, the district’s deputy superintendent. “And there weren’t spaces to have any kind of large-group instruction or to do anything to really meet the needs of the learners of today.”

Flash forward: A new high school has risen in Peters Township, and it was done in close partnership and consultation with the community.

The administration talked to current and former students, as well as parents and community members. They stressed the importance of the school’s physical environment and why it matters — all with the intention of bringing people “enough information so they could share in our vision. And in the end, stakeholders overwhelmingly said, ‘There’s no way you can’t build a new high school,’” Murphy says.

“This was a community decision — a chance for the community to say, ‘What’s working and what’s not working?’” says Jeannine French, the district superintendent. “Once they committed to what’s not working, and laid out a plan – here’s the plan is to fix it in the current building, and here’s the plan to fix it with a new building — it was a much easier decision.”

The process was as important as the outcome, French and Murphy say.

“The architects set out to develop just a very early conceptual design, and they put it on big poster boards,” French says. “We took poster boards and put them on easels, and we had every floor laid out — every space. Then we had the community, students, and parents walk through. They would take sticky notes and put them right on the drawings. Notes like, ‘What if you move this there?’ We would keep those drawings with their feedback, make the changes, and come back with new drawings, keeping those original drawings with the notes. We did that probably more than 20 times with every different group.”

Safety was a priority, as was creating zones where the public would be welcome, French says. “That was really important to the teachers, but it’s also important to the community, because they wanted to be able to use the building.”

The key learning from this project, Peters Township administrators say, is this: Yes, you have to actually build the school. But planning it thoughtfully and authentically, working with the community to fashion and refine a vision, should drive the bulk of the effort.

“Once you have support and you have a really clear vision and have everybody moving in the same direction,” French says, “the doing part goes really well.”

COLLABORATION IS KEY

A sense of true collaboration — between teachers and learners, between schools and communities, and between districts and designers — lies at the heart of transformational school design.

Hampton, Peters Township, and Seneca Valley have all joined the Future-Driven Schools, a regional alliance of school districts working to prepare every learner for tomorrow. Together, these districts help teachers, administrators, and board members do what they do best: innovate and collaborate in ways that benefit their students and communities.

These districts’ leaders understand the power of creating together and reimagining what’s possible.

The award-winning success of Seneca Valley’s Ehrman Crest Elementary/Middle School is a great example of using creative collaboration to build remarkable learning spaces. Recently, it has led to a new project: redesigning the district’s intermediate high school.

As it did with Ehrman Crest, Seneca Valley is again partnering with CannonDesign and the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh to create this new space. But don’t expect duplication. School design, at its best, is all about understanding what each distinct group in a building needs.

“We’re bringing in new tools and new techniques that we think are going to be more applicable to these older students,” says Sarah Holton, a member of the CannonDesign team. “It’s not a wash and repeat.”

The new building will rise from the current intermediate high school – and do so in a way that doesn’t displace students. That’s pivotal, given that the construction itself will represent a big chunk of the high school experience for some kids.

The design team is creating spaces that encourage students to participate and collaborate. There will be room for large gatherings, but also smaller spaces for individual reflection and study.

Just as the folks at Hampton asked how they might elevate their students’ schedules, and Peters Township asked how a new building could meet the needs of students and the community, the Seneca Valley team asked their own powerful questions:

“How can we incorporate and infuse a different way of thinking inside the building?” says CannonDesign architect Jeremy Dwyer. “How can we position the building so the students can seek their truth within the space?”

For students in all three of these districts, the journey toward finding that truth and building a thriving future is now happening in the most inspiring of spaces, thanks to the collaborative effort of a constellation of caring adults in their communities.