Teacher and resident urges greater teacher input on school designs

Donna Lico, a resident and 36‑year veteran middle‑school teacher, used the public‑comment period on March 12 to urge the North Kingstown School Department building subcommittee to seek more input from teachers and other end users as designs advance.

Lico said she has followed the subcommittee work and noticed design choices that could affect student supervision, safety and teacher working conditions. "I'm asking you to please make sure you're talking to the people at length that are gonna be using these spaces," she said. She cited several examples from existing and proposed plans: bathroom doors placed so teachers cannot see the area from classroom doors, teacher workrooms distant from classrooms and limited, easily accessible storage for science teachers. She also raised concerns about classroom windows that open onto busy hallways, saying that in lockdown drills "lockdown drills are much more stressful in my classroom because of all those windows."

Committee members responded that staff and architects have held meetings with faculty from several schools and that stage 3 schematic design includes more opportunities for end‑user feedback. One committee member suggested placing an agenda item in a future meeting to reiterate that designs shown at bond‑vote time are schematic and subject to change in later stages; another noted that stage 2 and stage 3 revisions provide windows to incorporate user feedback.

Lico said teachers reported they had not seen updated drawings recently and asked the committee to ensure broader engagement. Committee staff said they would bring Lico’s comments back to the architects and reiterated that additional faculty meetings are planned as schematic designs progress. No formal action was taken during the public‑comment item.