Leftovers, faction edition

I'll have a lengthy (1350 words) article in tomorrow's Globe West about how school districts decide to have x number of science classrooms vs. y number of seats in the auditorium. It was an interesting little case study to see how the five high school building projects in the Globe West area differed on that decision process.

At any rate, here's the first quote that I couldn't work into the article but that I thought was interesting:

"PE is always going to need bigger spaces by virtue of what we do, we move around, we’re not sitting around in chairs like in an auditorium." - Martha Jamieson, athletic director in Wayland.

Obviously, she has a point. Her argument was that sticking to the very strict square footage guidelines put out by the Mass. School Building Authority won't necessarily behoove the students in terms of their education.

For the most part, the people I talked to said the process was phenomenally transparent and inclusive, at least in Wayland. This compared to some other districts, where departments could submit a list of what they wanted to see in the new building and the architect and superintendent would decide. In Wayland, the committee to make those decisions was more than 60-strong.

But pick your cliche - is it too many cooks in the kitchen when the AD has to try and convince a group of 60 rather than a group of 2 that she needs more space? Or is it as simple as you can't have your cake (a new school) and eat it too (get everything you wanted)?