The Community School Plans looked to create an environment beneficial to learning with specific guidelines both for school building and grounds. The Fund suggested that specific lot sizes were found in order to accommodate the schoolhouse, teacher accommodations, a boy’s privy, a girl’s privy, area for a playground, and space for agricultural demonstrations. Each element promoted the space and aimed to improve school experience and atmosphere. Today, the key feature of Rosenwald Schools are the large bays of windows.

Lighting in the classrooms was emphasized from the beginning, and there was an entire page of the Bulletin dedicated to lighting; it states: “a child needs more light by which to read or study than an adult. When a child studies from day to day with an insufficient amount of light the tendency is to draw the book close to the eyes. If this condition is allowed to exist long enough, the muscular adjustment of the eye is so changed that the child becomes “nearsighted.”