The process, in a nutshell, is as follows:
• The school receives an Organizing & Planning Grant (currently $15,000) from the Boston Schoolyard Funders Collaborative. This award puts the school into a "pipeline" that will lead to the construction of capital improvements. A community organizer is hired and paid using this grant. These funds are also used to cover phone, printing, mailing costs, curricular resources or professional development for educators, refreshments and childcare for meetings, translation services, and special events to bring folks together around schoolyard issues. The organizers' job is to build capacity within the group.

• An organizer's primary function is to conduct outreach and bring together a group that reflects all potential schoolyard users, those who might be impacted by its development, and those organizations or individuals who can provide additional resources to the project. Potential members include: school administrators, teachers, students, parents, custodians, neighbors, other youth programs in the area, business partners, educational partners, crime watch and other community-based groups. The schoolyard group has several initial meetings to identify issues, common goals and concerns. These often include parking, safety & security, bus & car traffic patterns, and some initial ideas on play and learning spaces.

• When a representative schoolyard group has been assembled and the primary development issues have been identified, the City of Boston Dept. of Construction and Property Management assigns a project manager to oversee the design & construction process. Shortly after receiving a project manager the schoolyard group selects a landscape architect from a pool retained by the City. Throughout the process, the Boston Schoolyard Funders Collaborative staff conducts informational workshops and provides technical assistance.

• The schoolyard group now begins a series of meetings with the landscape architect to build their design vision, create a master plan for the schoolyard and, ultimately, to draw up construction documents that will go out for public bid. The landscape architect presents a series of schematics to the group and over time a consensus is developed. Students are brought into the process through surveys, site analysis projects, and workshops with educators and design professionals.

• When the master plan is completed, the landscape architect focuses on drawing up construction documents. Schoolyard groups must often prioritize which elements to build based upon the City capital funds available. With their master plan in hand, it is often possible to raise additional private sector funds. The Boston School Department, as owners of the property, must approve all capital improvements.

• Finished construction documents are then put out to public bid as mandated by statute. The lowest reasonable contractor's bid is accepted and construction begins.
Many schoolyard groups plan a "community build day" to help install play structures, plant areas, paint murals, etc. This is a way to save money and to get people invested in the schoolyard. Students develop a series of playground rules to be posted.

• When construction of the new schoolyard is complete there is a celebratory ribbon-cutting that typically involves student performances, speeches by key members of the school and community, and the cutting of a ribbon by the Mayor and the kids. It is not uncommon to see Schoolyard Group members who may have engaged in heated debates, during the process, smiling and hugging each other.

• Maintenance and sustainability of the site have been carefully considered during the design phase. The schoolyard group now makes the transition to a schoolyard "friends" group and agrees to convene fall and spring events to clean-up the site, plant and groom natural areas, re-paint murals, maps, and games, and to celebrate the programmatic use of their school grounds. School custodians perform "baseline" maintenance and a dedicated union crew performs specialized maintenance such as pruning and repairing play structures. BSFC staff work with Friends' Groups to develop local clean-ups and planting days. Having gone through the organizing, planning, design, and construction phases of the project, the sustainability of the schoolyard will depend upon the sense of stewardship developed along the way and the implementation of ongoing programming that will make the schoolyard a dynamic asset to the school and community.