Guy Mehula, PE, Los Angeles Unified School District, Los Angeles

      Discuss the challenges and opportunities in building the nation’s largest school construction and repair program-$15.2 billion. The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Facilities Services Division’s vision is to build and maintain schools that promote the full development of healthy children, are educationally and environmentally sound, reflect the wise and efficient use of limited resources, are flexible and well built, and provide centers of the community.

Learning objectives:

• Discuss how LAUSD's Facilities Services Division works with hundreds of architecture and construction firms to meet and advance school design standards while tailoring each new school toward the needs and preferences of each local community
• Evaluate how the Facilities Services Division approaches partnering and the predesign and design phases of their projects, and how vital community outreach and media engagement is, especially to a program this large
• Review how to design and build schools as community gathering places, and discuss new ways to use creative means to solve the many challenges of designing and building schools in Los Angeles and elsewhere.