How A Shade Structure Can Help Boost Your School’s Property

The impact of a school environment doesn’t stop at the four walls of a classroom.

They also reach beyond the classrooms, seeping into the hallways, the lab, the gym, and the school’s exterior.

If you’re a school owner, it’s in your best interest to foster a holistic environment that’s conducive to learning.

You’d also want to promote the health and well-being of the student body through any means possible, for their sake and the reputation of your school too.

The good news?

There’s one simple but effective infrastructure-related solution to helping your students live their school life better—and that’s by installing shade structures.

Shade structures offer the entire school community a sense of refuge under exposed contact to the elements when outdoors.

It’s both functional and aesthetic, making it a worthwhile addition and a highly marketable aspect of the traditional school environment. 

Let’s look into the five perks of owning a shade structure as well as evaluate how exactly it boosts your school’s property value.

1. They Provide Comfort During Pickup Points

A shade structure placed outdoors along with some seating indicates its utility as a designated waiting area.

Students are the main beneficiaries of this structure.

This is because they can use the shade structure to hide away from the heat and poor weather conditions while waiting for their parents or guardians to pick them up.

This serves not just the student body, however.

Visitors and parents can also stay and lounge in these shaded areas while waiting for their children to finish school. 

By staying in a shade structure, they can avoid idling their car in the parking lot while waiting for their child, helping them stay comfortable while simultaneously saving on gas and fuel.

This added comfort feature can help boost your school’s property value by making it more enticing for visitors and parents to stay within the school premises.

2. Improves Student and Faculty Health

Shades such as Greenline's school shade structures come in a diverse array of sizes and forms.

They’re not only used just for small-scale areas like bus stops but they can also be used to provide shade for bigger areas like gymnasiums and playgrounds.

The latter two areas are key parts of a school environment, providing a place for children to exercise and become physically fit. 

That said, overexertion is a possible occurrence for active teens—and the risk for health problems like heat strokes and skin conditions can be compounded by overexposure to harsh weather conditions.

And this problem doesn’t just affect teens, either.

Spectators of school-held sports events and vulnerable, aged adults are also at heightened risk from mere exposure to harsh weather and the elements. 

If you want to lower the risk of students and faculty suffering from UV ray damage and health conditions, it’s crucial to install a layer of protection, such as a shade structure, in the places where they’re most active.

This is especially true if you’re situated in a place that can get absurdly hot during summertime or have tropical weather all year round.

By getting a suitable shade structure covering play and spectator areas, athletes can focus on their sport with minimal weather-related risk, and spectators and coaches can watch the games without unknowingly being endangered by health problems.

3. Boosts Aesthetic Charm

As alluded to earlier, shade structures offer both function and form.

And when it comes to form, saying that there’s a wide range of shade structure designs is quite an understatement!

The great thing about shade structures is that they can be tailor-made to fit the standards required by the campus.

Colours, materials, and shapes can generally be customised according to your needs.

Need a shaded walkway?

A shade structure can take on that form in any shape you want.

Need to allocate a space as an outdoor assembly area?

You can get roofed shaded structures with a visually pleasing and sophisticated aura. 

Having a campus that’s beautified by thoughtfully designed shade structures can also be a good move towards functionality, too, believe it or not. 

A pretty campus can entice students and school staff to lounge in the outdoor areas and enjoy relaxing and socialising amongst themselves—which can improve the ambiance and reputation of the school.

Above all, a well-fitting shade structure can also make your school leave a more lasting impression on parents considering the next school for their child. 

First impressions matter, so if you want to stay competitive in a place where school zones are getting expensive, having a nice-looking campus can be a good plus to attract fresh faces to the campus.

4. Increases Outdoor Usability

Schools house hundreds, if not thousands, of people on any given school day.

While many schools have the square area to hold such a large crowd, having actual, usable zones where kids can reasonably congregate may be much smaller than you think.

When pushed to the extreme, this can cause overcrowding in public spaces like cafeterias, libraries, and hallways.

And while the outdoor lot of the school is spacious enough, if it’s not properly designed, no student would choose to lounge there.

One way to mitigate this overcrowding problem is by installing shade structures outdoors.

This can help loosen up the crowds inside the school itself and allow more students to use outdoor space.

For example, a shade structure can be used to cover an outdoor dining area, helping students eat in peace without worrying about wet seats and tables from a storm.

Furthermore, shade structures can also be used to change outdoor grassland into functional spaces. 

For instance, you can design sports fields, playgrounds, and seating areas for students and faculty outdoors with a shade structure and some construction work, allowing for a richer student learning experience.

5. Protection From Bad Weather Conditions

Shade structures are extremely beneficial for schools that have outdoor installations, whether they’re playground equipment or seating.

The reason why shade is so crucial is because of its protective characteristics—without shade, these assets will be more susceptible to wear and tear from the weather, potentially decreasing the lifetime value of the asset over time.

With shade, on the other hand, your staff and the rest of the student body will get to enjoy the visual appeal of longer-lasting and just-like-new outdoor equipment.

This can make the outdoor area of your school more appealing too.

On the financial side of things, getting a shade structure means you’ll spend a lot less on renovation and repair projects over time, helping you allocate the school budget to better, educational projects. 

Shades are not just beneficial for objects, but they also help keep students away from harsh weather. 

Being exposed to intense sunlight and pouring rain can be detrimental to one’s health for a variety of reasons.

Besides, the last thing you’d want to happen is getting news of students or staff dealing with a heat stroke on campus.

To avoid getting into endangering the student body and potentially getting into unwanted lawsuits, consider installing shade structures for protection.

About Guest Expert Apart from our regular team of experts, we frequently publish commentary from guest contributors who are authorities in their field.