This summer, five superintendents of education gathered in a conference room in Washington, D.C. Somewhat nervous to be meeting so far from home, one member admitted that she had never visited the capital before; another had lived in nearby Arlington, Virginia. She and her colleagues formed no ordinary sampling of educators: Each had survived Hurricane Katrina.

Convened by the American Architectural Foundation (AAF), this elite cadre all hailed from the Mississippi Gulf Coast and were attending a School Design Institute, a special iteration of an AAF program called “Great Schools by Design.” The event formed the second gathering for the group, following a larger meeting on their home turf in Gulfport, Mississippi, in February. Intended to improve the quality of educational facilities, the Great Schools program routinely brings together leaders in education, then pairs them with nationally recognized experts who act as advisers in architecture, regulation, and planning—with the hope of advancing innovative new school designs.