I'm hoping to get feedback from list members on an issue we're debtaing as we endeavor to develop a new museum for which
school children are likely to be a primary audience, if not our largest single audience in terms of numbers.  Our design envisions
an orientation theater that will seat 52 people at one time.  In order to accommodate  school groups larger than this number,
under our current design plan, we'd need to have students wait in areas such as our entrance area/lobby, gift shop, special
exhibits gallery, or cafe (there are no "classroom"-type spaces)..  We'd also planned to use the floor immediately above the main
exhibit floor for administrative offices, and the floor above that essentially would be mothballed for future expansion.  I've
proposed that we consider moving the offices up to the to-be-mothballed floor, and use part of the floor that the offices would
have occupied as a "staging area" (for want of a better term) for school groups.  Under this arrangement, school groups would
begin their visit in this space rather than come into the main museum off the bat.  Once the kids were seated and comfortable, a
docent would take a small group down to the orientation theater and then into the exhibit gallery.  While that group was touring,
the larger group that remained behind would be involved in activities such as story-telling, craft projects, or "discovery"-type
encounters with artifacts.  Small groups would rotate in and out as they completed their tour.  When all the students finished their
tour, they could eat brown-bag lunches in the staging area (there really aren't any facilities nearby for doing this other than a food
court several blocks away, which is a real zoo at lunchtime).  We'd also gain classroom and meeting room spaces that could be
used in the evenings or on weekends for adult education or other functions.

While making such a change to our design plans at this point would have cost implications (e.g., the design of the HVAC systems
would have to be modified), one of my arguments is that it would be far cheaper to do this now (i.e., before any construction has
actually begun) than to wait five years and then decide we need to relocate offices and build out a space for accommodating
school groups.  I also see this more as an "investment cost" than an expenditure, since we could enhance the value of our
educational and visitor services and at the same time create spaces that could be used to generate revenue through other
programs and services.

I'd appreciate any thoughts and/or comments, particularly from museums that have had to redesign spaces because of group
logistics (school students or otherwise).

Thanks much--

Collegially,

John C. Rumm
Catholic Heritage Center

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