Site Development Guidelines Offered

Students can't be compartmentalized in four walls if the schools are to have a program that will develop the total human being, a member of the Advisory Committee for School Site Development told the Ann Arbor Board of Education last night. The school site committee presented a report that dealt with the selection, development and utilization of school sites. According to the committee, "school children today are taught to discover things for themselves and those educational resources that encourage curiosity and imagination s h o u 1 d b e appreciated and enhanced." It was pointed out in the report that although in recent years some effort has been made to purchase and develop exceptional school sites, the Ann Arbor Public Schools do not have any educational specifications for land. "To change from minimum site usage to maximum there must be an accompanying change of attitude on the part of the school administration. And they must accept as a new policy that the school site must put land to work for us," reported the five-member committee. "Often in the past school sites have been developed with maintenance as the foremost objective and token play equipment was bought at great expense when creative play equipment could have been used ... too little use has been made of our beautiful shrubs and native trees," the report to the board said. A recommended policy statement was given to the board b y the committee member Dr. Russell Wilson. The statement's provisions f olio w: - The sites on which schools are located are fully as important to the educational process as the building and each site should have specifications developed for it. - Site development, design and selection should b e entrusted to those who are competent in this field - professional landscape architects. The site should have total development. - Architects and builders should be required to control pollution of the air, water, soils and natural resources of the site. - Present campuses should be brought up to specififcations. - A master plan of all existing sites should be prepared over the next three years, to bring the present campuses up to the specifications outlined. Five areas of concern were discussed in the report, environmental quality, environmental education, site development and selection, Ann Arbor resources for environmental education affd creation of better learning on school sites. Douglas Fulton, committee member, warned the board that this proposal was very far-reaching and that it should study the policy and know the full implications for the total educational picture of Ann Arbor. During comments from the audience, the board was urged to look into the destruction of natural features on the existing school sites. Reference was then made to a walnut tree which had been chopped down in the ScarlettWoods area.