With unemployment rising and the public more concerned about the economy than at any other time in recent memory, the idea of a municipality deciding to spend millions of dollars to build or refurbish a school seems an uphill challenge to say the least. In the best of times, voter approval for school construction projects is difficult to get; during a recession, that difficult task seems all but impossible. But when a community's schools are too small for the population or their roofs are leaking and causing mold problems, a construction project cannot wait out the economy. As any teacher will tell, the secret to success is proper planning and homework so one has the right information when it is time to take the test. The same holds true for a municipality that is looking to build a new school or to undertake a significant renovation in this troubled economy. The task is not impossible; it just requires the building committee to do a little extra work to ensure that the project is correctly specified and budgeted. But often, municipalities do not do their homework on projects. One only needs to read the newspaper to see stories of towns encountering problems with their current building projects: towns with school construction projects running significantly over budget, "value engineering" to reduce costs on current projects, and postponing building, causing students to learn in crowded or damaged classrooms. In this article, Charles W. Boos, CEO of Kaestle Boos Associates, an architectural firm that specializes in municipal construction projects throughout New England, offers tips to avoid such problems when looking to build or renovate a school.