Q & A with William DeJong, April, 1999

By Eric Butterfield
Editor, School Construction News

Dr. William DeJong, Ph.D., REFP, president of DeJong & Associates of Dublin, Ohio, has over 20 years of experience in education and facility planning. He served as president of the Council of Educational Facility Planners International (CEFPI) in 1993-94, and was awarded CEFPI’s “Planner of the Year” award in 1991.

In addition, Dr. DeJong is involved in Heart to Honduras, which is helping build schools for that country’s poor, rural communities through voluntary work.

In this interview, Dr. DeJong addresses new teaching models, the advent of computers and the media hype surrounding school safety.

What are the space requirements for departmentalized vs. interdisciplinary education?

At the high school level we’re in a mode of transition, whether we’re going to stay with the old 1950s model, the departmental model, or if we’re moving more into some type of teaming or interdisciplinary model, which seems to be more of an information-based model. The model that we had was more of an industrial model-it’s all set on certain fixed schedules and certain defined kinds of spaces.

Here’s the bottom line: I don’t know which way it’s going to go in the long run, but you can’t take a departmental model school and convert very easily into an interdisciplinary model school, because basically a departmental model school has all the disciplines segregated. So it has your business curriculum in one area, your English curriculum in another area, and your science curriculum in yet another area.

“We need to look at a concept in which every student has a computer.”

However, what we have found is that you can use an interdisciplinary approach and still operate it as a department. A lot of the interdisciplinary approach is breaking these schools into smaller schools, and they go by a lot of different terms: clusters, houses, academies. You could take a cluster and turn it into a math department, or turn a house into an English department, but what we found is that there are obviously some problems areas, like with the sciences: do you decentralize sciences or keep it all in one area?

We started that whole discussion in about 1991. A large number of high schools are being developed now on more of an interdisciplinary model, or at least with the flexibility to go in that direction.

I’ve never seen, in the 27 years that I’ve been in public education, the amount of school construction that’s going on in this country.

As a result, I personally think that there is a lot of short-cutting going on and a lot of people are not really taking the time to think through what the school of the future should be. What they’re doing, basically, is building a lot of the schools of the past but it looks a little bit better and has the technology thrown in. I think it’s a real problem because everybody needs everything yesterday and a lot of times I don’t think there’s sufficient time being taken to do the programming and visioning that’s necessary when looking at how education should operate.

Do you see these problems affecting elementary schools differently vs. high schools?

I think there are a lot of problems at all levels because there’s so much change going on. I really think the problem is a matter, partly, of time.

In Charleston, South Carolina, they passed a $175 million bond referendum. And they are scrambling right now trying to figure out what to use those funds for and how to get renovations done as quickly as possible. There’s no question that there are major questions there with stopping the leaks, fixing the windows and healing the HVAC system. But if you’re going to do a major renovation of a school, you really have to get into a dialog about how education is going to be delivered and what kinds of programs and services are going to be needed.

All of these buildings-‘50s, ‘40s, ‘30s, ‘20s-are pre-OPEC, they’re before energy conservation, they’re pre-ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), they’re pre-technology (before the advent of computers), and they’re pre-current programs and services. Even at an elementary level, most of those elementaries when they opened never had a special ed. area; they never had computer classrooms; they never had gifted and talented; they never had separate art rooms or music rooms; they never had the science emphasis at the elementary level like they do now.

“I’ve never seen, in the 27 years that I’ve been in public education, the amount of school construction that’s going on in this country.”In one of your articles, you mentioned that the high school level was the most resistant to the interdisciplinary approach.”

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