In this episode of Tuesday Tips, we were joined by design expert Niki Blaker to discuss visual communication strategies for school leaders creating materials without formal design training.
Here are this session’s top 3 tips:
Choose colors strategically for brand and accessibility. Navy and burgundy convey trust and tradition for established institutions, while bright blues and greens signal innovation for STEM or progressive schools. Build a palette of 5-6 colors (two primary, two accent, plus dark and light neutrals) and maintain a 4.5:1 contrast ratio for readability. Use tools like coolors.co to generate palettes and check accessibility.
Apply the CRAP principle for effective layouts (it’s a terrible name, but it’s memorable!) Contrast makes important information pop, Repetition keeps materials cohesive, Alignment ensures intentional placement, and Proximity groups related information together. Use the “5-second test”—if someone can’t understand your main message in 5 seconds, simplify. Remember: when everything competes for attention, nothing gets it.
Master typography with two main fonts and clear hierarchy. Choose one font for headings, one for body text, ensuring they’re sufficiently different in weight and visual density. Create hierarchy with size and weight, not just color. Use tools like fontjoy.com or fontpair.co for pairing suggestions. Avoid fonts that undermine credibility like Comic Sans.
Watch the Whole Conversation Here
Lease agreements represent one of the ongoing expenses for schools, often consuming 10-20% of annual revenue. Yet many school leaders approach lease negotiations without commercial real estate experience, focusing primarily on rent amount while overlooking terms that could save thousands of dollars annually and provide crucial operational flexibility.
Having worked with numerous schools on lease negotiations, I’ve seen how strategic lease structuring can make the difference between agreements that support educational missions and those that constrain growth and drain resources. The key is understanding that effective lease negotiation extends far beyond securing the lowest possible rent.
1. The Foundation: Aligning Lease Terms with School Mission and Goals
The most successful school lease negotiations start with a clear understanding of how the space will serve your educational mission. This means looking beyond location preferences to consider how the physical environment will support your specific instructional approach.
Mission-Driven Space Requirements
Different educational approaches require different spatial configurations. An art-focused school needs open studio spaces with proper ventilation and natural light, while a sports-oriented program requires fields, equipment storage, and locker room facilities. A STEM school might prioritize laboratory spaces and maker areas, while a Montessori program needs flexible classroom configurations.
These mission-specific requirements should drive your lease negotiations, not be afterthoughts once you’ve secured a space. I’ve seen schools choose facilities based primarily on rent or location, only to discover later that the space fundamentally doesn’t support their educational approach.
The Full Financial Picture
Many schools make the mistake of negotiating only on base rent while overlooking the total cost of occupancy. Your lease negotiation should address:
Property expense responsibilities and how they’re calculated
Utility arrangements and cost allocation methods
Security requirements and associated costs
Repair and maintenance responsibilities
Insurance requirements and premium responsibilities
Tax implications and assessment responsibilities
Understanding these additional costs upfront prevents budget surprises and allows for more accurate financial planning.
Conservative Enrollment Planning
It’s tempting to negotiate lease terms based on optimistic enrollment projections, but this approach often leads to financial stress. Base your lease obligations on conservative enrollment forecasts that account for potential variations in student numbers.
Build your lease structure to accommodate growth when it happens, but ensure you can meet obligations even if enrollment doesn’t reach projected levels. This approach provides financial stability while positioning you to capitalize on growth opportunities.
2. Building Flexibility for Future Growth
One of the most costly mistakes schools make is negotiating inflexible lease terms that require complete renegotiation when circumstances change. Building flexibility into your initial agreement saves money and provides strategic advantages as your school evolves.
Phased Expansion Planning
The most effective approach to accommodating growth is planning expansion in phases from the beginning. This involves including specific language in your lease that accounts for your desire to grow and expand over time.
Consider negotiating rights of first refusal for additional space within the same building. Many schools can start by occupying a portion of a larger building—perhaps 25% initially—with clear pathways to expand as enrollment grows. This approach provides immediate cost savings while securing future growth options.
Expansion Mechanisms Several lease provisions can facilitate future expansion:
Right of First Refusal: Gives you the first opportunity to lease additional space in the same building when it becomes available
Predetermined Expansion Schedule: Establishes timeline and terms for taking additional space based on enrollment milestones
Modular Addition Rights: Allows for temporary or permanent modular classroom additions on available land
Space Reconfiguration Rights: Permits internal modifications to optimize space utilization
Exit and Assignment Options Flexibility also means having options when circumstances change unexpectedly. Negotiate early termination rights for specific scenarios, such as charter authorization issues or significant program changes. Include assignment and subletting rights that allow you to share space with complementary programs or transfer obligations if necessary.
These flexibility provisions are typically easier and less expensive to negotiate during initial lease discussions rather than trying to modify existing agreements later.
3. Strategic Tenant Improvement Negotiations
Tenant improvements (TIs) represent opportunities to customize space for your educational mission while managing capital expenditures strategically. Effective TI negotiation requires understanding both your educational needs and financial capacity.
Phased Improvement Planning
Rather than trying to complete all improvements at once, consider phasing improvements to match your growth trajectory and cash flow. For example, you might negotiate immediate classroom improvements with future gymnasium or laboratory additions tied to enrollment milestones.
This approach allows you to optimize your budget while ensuring improvements align with actual growth rather than projected growth.
Landlord Financing Options
Many landlords are willing to finance tenant improvements through slightly increased rent payments rather than requiring upfront capital. This arrangement can unlock improvements that might otherwise strain your cash flow, while spreading costs over the lease term at predetermined interest rates.
When negotiating these arrangements, establish clear milestones tied to certificates of occupancy or other objective completion standards. This ensures you don’t pay for improvements until they’re actually usable.
Creative Improvement Solutions
Some of the most effective tenant improvement negotiations involve creative solutions that serve both landlord and tenant interests. This might include:
Improvements that enhance overall building value
Modifications that could benefit future tenants
Energy efficiency upgrades that reduce operating costs
Technology infrastructure that serves building-wide needs
These improvements often receive more favorable landlord contributions because they provide benefits beyond your specific tenancy.
Moving Forward Strategically
Effective lease negotiation for schools requires balancing immediate needs with long-term vision, financial constraints with educational requirements, and operational flexibility with commitment certainty. The schools that achieve the best lease outcomes understand that successful negotiation extends far beyond rent reduction.
The key is approaching lease negotiations as strategic tools that support your educational mission rather than simply expense management exercises. When lease terms align with educational goals, provide operational flexibility, and maintain financial sustainability, they create foundations for long-term school success.
About the Author
Tabatha was born and raised in Brazil, where she graduated in Hospitality Management. At Grow Schools, she helps schools get where they’re going by helping them get into their forever homes.
Facility decisions represent some of the largest investments schools will ever make, yet many educational leaders approach these choices based on emotion, immediate pressure, or gut instinct rather than enrollment data. This approach leads to expensive mistakes—schools that overextend financially, outgrow their solutions too quickly, or commit to spaces that don’t align with their actual growth patterns.
The solution requires discipline: let enrollment data drive facility decisions. By understanding your enrollment patterns, projections, and key metrics, schools can make facility choices that support sustainable growth while protecting their financial stability.
Understanding Your Enrollment Reality
Before making facility decisions—whether lease renewal, expansion, or property purchase—schools need a clear picture of their enrollment reality beyond current student count.
Historical Pattern Analysis
Analyze at least 5-10 years of enrollment data if available. Look for patterns in growth, stability, and attrition. Pay attention to grade-level trends. Do you consistently see drops from 6th to 7th grade? Are kindergarten classes growing while middle school grades remain stable? These patterns reveal crucial information about facility needs.
Some schools discover natural enrollment breaks at certain grade levels, often due to program transitions or when families choose different educational paths. Understanding these patterns helps predict future space needs more accurately than assuming linear growth across all grades.
Community Context
Research demographic changes and housing developments in your area. Is your community growing or declining? Are birth rates increasing or decreasing? New housing developments, major employers relocating to your area, or significant economic changes all impact enrollment projections.
We’ve worked with schools where new processing plants brought job growth to the area, creating enrollment opportunities that weren’t immediately obvious from historical data. Conversely, some schools face challenges when major employers leave their regions, affecting family stability and enrollment retention.
Waitlist Reality Check
Many schools point to waitlists as evidence of facility demand, but waitlist depth alone doesn’t tell the complete story. The critical metric is waitlist conversion rate. We’ve seen schools with impressive waitlists discover that when spots actually open, families often don’t convert to enrollment.
Track not just waitlist size, but actual conversion rates when spots become available. A smaller, highly-converting waitlist often indicates stronger demand than a large list with poor conversion.
Key Enrollment Metrics for Facility Decisions
1. Average Daily Attendance (ADA) Targets
The most important metric for facility planning is achieving about 80% of your target ADA consistently. If you’re targeting 500 ADA, having 400 or more students in seats daily puts you in strong financial position for facility investments.
ADA differs from enrollment because it accounts for actual attendance patterns. Some schools enroll 500 students but average only 450 in daily attendance due to chronic absenteeism or other factors. For facility planning, ADA provides a more realistic picture of your operational capacity needs.
2. Multi-Year Consistency
Single-year enrollment success doesn’t provide sufficient foundation for major facility decisions. Look for 3-5 years of meeting enrollment targets consistently. Occasional blips aren’t disqualifying, but you want evidence of sustained enrollment health before committing to significant facility investments.
3. Grade-Level Distribution
Understanding enrollment distribution across grades helps predict facility needs. Elementary-heavy schools need different space configurations than middle school-focused institutions. Some schools discover their enrollment is heavily weighted toward certain grade bands, affecting everything from bathroom ratios to classroom sizes.
Strategic Timing for Facility Investments
The Two-Year Rule
Start facility planning at least two years before you need the space. This timeline accounts for the reality that everything takes longer than expected—finding suitable space, securing financing, navigating permitting processes, and completing improvements.
This extended timeline also allows for facility improvements while you’re still in your current location, enabling transitions during natural break periods like summer rather than disrupting the school year.
Enrollment Stability Requirements
Facility investments should only be considered when you’re either at capacity with strong waitlists or maintaining consistent enrollment at target levels. Making facility decisions during enrollment decline or instability often leads to overextension and financial stress.
Moving Forward with Confidence
Enrollment-informed facility planning isn’t about eliminating all risk—it’s about making decisions based on data rather than emotion or external pressure. Schools that align facility decisions with enrollment reality position themselves for sustainable growth while protecting their financial stability and educational mission.
The key is patience and discipline. Wait for enrollment stability before major facility commitments. Invest in data collection and analysis. Partner with professionals who understand both enrollment and facility planning. Most importantly, remember that facility decisions should enhance your educational mission, not compromise it. When enrollment data drives facility decisions, schools make investments that support long-term success rather than create financial strain. This approach may require more time and analysis upfront, but it results in facility solutions that truly serve your school community for years to come.
About the Author
Ashley MacQuarrie has years of experience in education and the digital marketing industry, having gained classroom experience before managing content and social media teams, developing websites, and consulting for startups and large brands. Ashley now leads the Grow Schools Marketing Team and the Enrollment Marketing team.
In our recent webinar, Building for Growth: When Your Facility Holds You Back, we brought together facilities experts and a charter school leader who successfully navigated a complex expansion project. Here are the key takeaways that can help your school plan for sustainable growth.
The Hidden Cost of Reactive Maintenance
Michael Soh, Construction and Development Project Manager at Grow Schools, highlighted a sobering statistic: emergency repairs can cost two to five times more than planned maintenance.
“The cost of immediate repairs can be two to five times higher than planned maintenance,” Michael explained. “If you have to get a rush in there, overtime, urgent services, expedited shipping for parts, and things like that.”
His recommendation? Develop a proactive maintenance plan that categorizes issues into three buckets:
Critical: Major items needing immediate fixes (HVAC failures, fire alarm malfunctions)
High Priority: Issues that should be addressed soon (roof leaks, kitchen equipment)
Routine Fixes: Worn items that aren’t critical to daily operations
Aligning Facilities with Enrollment Growth
Tony Solorzano, of Grow Schools emphasized the interconnected nature of facilities, funding, and enrollment—what he calls “the virtuous cycle.”
His key financial guideline: Keep your facility budget between 10-20% of annual school revenue, with 15% being the sweet spot for most schools.
Before embarking on expansion, Tony recommends asking critical questions:
Is your balance sheet healthy?
What’s the cost of recruiting new students?
Do you have a waiting list?
How will additional students affect staffing needs?
“You need enrollment in order to increase your funding in order to get the facility that you’re hoping to bring,” Tony noted. “They’re dependent on each other, and they all kind of rotate with each other in order to build a healthy school.”
Real-World Lessons from Dr. Tandria Callins
Dr. Tandria Callins, Executive Director and Principal at Language and Literacy Academy for Learning in Winter Haven, Florida, shared her firsthand experience navigating a facility expansion while operating her school across two temporary locations.
Her biggest piece of advice? Talk to your neighbors early.
“I wish I would have done that a little bit earlier, really had an opportunity to have a conversation with some of my neighbors,” Dr. Callans reflected. “When it was first day of school and during my ribbon cutting, we did have some challenges and we had some issues, and they weren’t very welcoming.”
Other critical lessons from Dr. Callans:
Maintain cash reserves beyond your initial budget—unexpected needs will arise
Choose architects with education experience—she had to switch architects mid-project when design issues emerged
Have a strong team—you can’t manage a facility project and run your school alone
On working with construction managers versus contractors, she noted: “Everything was more transparent. The change orders, instead of having multiple, because change orders can be expensive…there’s cost savings in going the construction manager route.”
The Bottom Line
Successful facility planning requires three essential elements:
Proactive maintenance to avoid costly emergencies
Strategic alignment between facilities, finances, and enrollment goals
Expert partnerships to guide you through complex construction processes
As Dr. Callins put it: “Having a single point of contact definitely allowed me to continue to run the charter and take lead on the facility expansion…I would not have been able to do any of it if I didn’t have a team.”
