Healthy and Safe Schools Lisa Holliday PhD, University of Oklahoma Hepi Wachter, University of Oklahoma Marguerite Keesee PhD, University of Oklahoma Abstract: The objective of the study is to determine how 1) sustainability 2) air quality 3) healthy learning interiors and 4) structural safety affect one another and ultimately impacts student performance and health outcomes. For example, when increasing the structural hardness of a building by adding tornado resistance what is given up in sustainability, air quality and healthy learning environments? Each of these design items has been studied and characterized individually but decisions makers often have to choose between them not understanding the consequences of their decisions. The purpose of this study is to provide decision makers with an evidence based tool for balancing these four criteria in an effort to achieve the best outcomes for students. Research Plan Introduction School boards typically engage in bidding processes that begins with selecting architects through design presentations to a decision making body designated to represent all stakeholders (school board members, district officials, facilities supervisors, etc.). If a decision matrix is created, it typically employs rank ordering of factors, such as construction cost, aesthetics, safety, and sustainability/operation cost. These “either/or” practices drive design and construction. They rarely employ research-based practices; they disengage stakeholders, and result in less than desirable outcomes. In addition, traumatic events may increase pressure placed on decision makers by community and parent stakeholders to ameliorate resulting fears and unrest through design and operational modifications, to the exclusion of other factors, such as school safety. In part, the problem may not only be a lack of information, but segregation of information into “silos,” each of which has a specific focus and vocabulary that renders it inaccessible to persons outside of academia or specific professions. Some examples of these terms are: “hardening” a structure, optimizing HVAC and Integrated Pest Management to improve air quality, or meeting building lifecycle benchmarks to become LEED Certified. Our multi-disciplinary team of Architects, Engineers, Environmental Scientists, Interior Designers, Sociologists and Epidemiologists propose a three-year effort to explore the inter- relationships between school building design features such as structural hardening, air quality, sustainability, and healthy learning spaces with a goal of establishing measures of correlation for use in the design of new tools for community-level decision-making. This study is timely because the deterioration of school buildings is a chief concern in the national agenda through President Obama’s Educational Excellence Initiative. The proposed “Fix America’s Schools Today Act” has been advanced by the National Education Association, and scores of professional organizations and philanthropic/community efforts. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates the cost of bringing US Schools to modern standards to be $270 billion or more (ASCE, 2013). In 2012, $12.9 billion was invested in school construction. The median cost per square foot of construction (middle school) rose 73% in the decade from