Lyon County plans ahead on school capital needs

Phoenix-based architecture firm Orcutt Winslow wants to help Lyon County School District think beyond school and facility capacity in the next decade. Conditions of adequacy and suitability in the learning environment also should be key metrics in serving students and families, firm officials advise.

Lyon County administrators held Facilities Master Plan meetings in Dayton, Fernley, Silver Springs and Yerington last week to receive input from students, staff and the community on benchmarks and experiences members would like to offer in classrooms. Orcutt Winslow architects drove discussions about understanding the correlation between classroom buildings, the utilization of academic rooms or spaces and specific renovations to existing district facilities that might be needed for current or future programs.

“The thought process is to give you a broad-based approach over the next 10 to 15 years,” according to Saravanan Bala, a partner with the firm and certified Career and Technical Education teacher who has led a number of projects in other districts in the United States.

Orcutt Winslow’s team, including Holly Williams, a recently retired school administrator, and Scott Sowinski, senior associate, also asked what conditions are necessary in the learning environment to be sufficient for the benchmarks or targets they hope to achieve.

Lyon Superintendent Tim Logan said the process is to help engage every student in every classroom every day as part of the Nevada Department of Education’s Portrait of a Learner, a vision of the skills and indicators that integrate academic knowledge. It’s also to encourage work-based learning, career and technical education and student involvement through the schools’ volunteer or social events through business partnerships, he said.

The process also encouraged community members to think about workforce development opportunities for students and helping staff members who are aware that students can learn on the go anywhere with technology available to them.

Wendy Addington, a parent who said she has had several children who have gone through the district and still has one senior finishing their final year, attended the Dayton meeting because it was important to make sure Lyon’s schools continue to do well in the future. She previously served as a substitute teacher before the pandemic.

“I want there to be good schools, and I think that makes a huge difference in what our community is like,” she said.