Mission – History

FEFPA MISSION

The principal objectives and purpose of the association are as follows:

To establish a means of exchanging ideas.
To stabilize written communication between educational facilities planners throughout Florida.
To stimulate professional growth.
To promote research of new construction, new materials, and new equipment.
To promote creativeness in planning and constructing educational facilities.
To encourage the exchange of ideas between educators and facility planners in achieving a quality education construction program.
To encourage membership by public school district, community college, and university planners, architects, engineers, product vendors and manufacturers, and other interested parties, through the effectiveness of an active organization.
To provide assistance to the Department of Education and the Florida Legislature.

FEFPA HISTORY

The Florida Educational Facilities Planners Association (FEFPA) was started in the early 1960’s as a cooperative effort between a small group of school districts’ facilities planners and the Department of Education, Office of Educational Facilities (OEF). The intent, as it is now, was to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and promote cooperation between Florida School Districts and OEF.

The association has evolved from its humble beginnings. Conferences, which were held several times per year, focused on topics of interest to school planners with input and support from OEF. Initially, only school district planners were participants at meetings and conferences.

When the community colleges came into being, those planners began to participate and recently, along with university planners, practicing architects, engineers, product manufacturers, and vendors have been encouraged to participate and become members and associate members. Early meetings were attended by approximately 30 people. In recent years summer conferences have been attended by over 500 people.

In the beginning OEF had a very strong and visible role in the planning and management of FEFPA. Several years ago OEF was renamed Educational Facilities Technical Assistance (EFTA)in the Planning, Budgeting, and Management section of the Florida Department of Education and (EFTA) now takes a less active though no less important role in FEFPA. EFTA now has one appointed member on the FEFPA Board of Directors. Where the Secretary/Treasurer was once an OEF employee, these offices are now elected positions.

EFTA continues to rely heavily on input from FEFPA and often asks the association to participate in workshops, review proposed rules and legislation, and participate in task force initiatives. FEFPA supports EFTA by providing advertising, web page links, and space and time for EFTA to present at meetings and conferences. FEFPA conferences are always interesting when EFTA makes presentations concerning budgeting and finance, with proposed and recent legislation. FEFPA and EFTA have enjoyed over 30 years of close association, and look forward to many more years of information and idea exchange.

FEFPA now has two conferences per year, a winter conference usually in January or February and a summer conference in July. The winter conference is two days and the summer conference is three days, not including the “pre-conference workshops”. The summer conferences now include Gold, Silver, Bronze sponsors with exhibits and product vendor displays.

In 1999, FEFPA expanded its activities with two new programs:

At the 1999 Winter Conference the first Architectural Showcase was held. This showcase highlighted the excellent design capabilities of our Associate Members.
In an effort to encourage qualified persons to choose a career of educational facilities planning and to assist deserving persons in pursuing their education, FEFPA has established a scholarship program to be awarded to the most qualified applicants. The first of these annual awards was announced at the 1999 Summer Conference.