Are your facilities ready for the future?

by Mike Brooks

How many of you know for certain if your school facilities are ready for the future? When you think about this question a few other questions may come to mind: which facilities need to be ready for the future? How far into the future do we need to prepare for? These questions should be answered before determining if your facilities are ready for the future.

So, which facilities need to be ready for the future? This is actually easy to answer. It is all facilities that either provide or support the educational process. These include instructional buildings, libraries, cafeterias, auditoriums and gymnasiums. Just as important are the support facilities such as maintenance and operations, transportation, food service and technology. Often support facilities are left out of the picture when it comes to planning for the future. In reality, if your student population changes, so should your support services.

Future is a broad term. One definition of future is “time yet to come.” So, future is anything beyond today – it can be tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. It can be two, five, ten and 20 years down the road. Is it unrealistic to think twenty years in advance? Not really when you consider the expected life expectancy of some building components can range from twenty to twenty-five years.

Alright, you know that you need to consider all of your facilities not only for short term future but long term future as well before you can determine if your facilities are ready for the future. You have to look at a few other things to get a grasp of where your district has come from, is today, and is going to tomorrow. There are four tools that will help you achieve this. The first tool is a demographics study. This provides student and community population history and future projections. The second tool is an instructional space assessment. This provides information regarding current and future instructional space needs. The third tool is a facilities assessment which tells you what condition your existing facilities are in. The last tool is the long-range facility plan. This provides the road map for the future of your district.

Demographics Study

A demographics study is a true indication of the future of your school district in regards to population. It is necessary in order to identify changes in student and community population. Some districts have decreasing populations that may require school consolidations. Some districts may be experiencing growth or a geographical shift and require additions, renovations, new schools or redrawing attendance boundaries. A demographics study provides many things. It will provide historical and future projected student population data by grade, campus, tuition, transfers, etc. It provides “build-out scenarios” for the community to show what the population would be if all land was developed to its full extent and capability. It also gives you information regarding surrounding districts demographics to compare to. And lastly, it generates a student yield by development area. Student yield is the average number of students per housing unit in a specific area. A demographics study brings together a great deal of information. The October PEIMS snapshot data is used as well as the past five years data. It also looks at the most recent US Census Bureau decennial census, annual economic surveys and annual population estimates. A historical look at residential and commercial construction permits also impact a demographics study. New development and redevelopment are both major factors. It also looks at the current capability of the city and county infrastructure and future plans. A demographics study provides the projected population for which your facilities are based upon.

Instructional Space Assessment

An instructional space assessment is essential in determining if your facilities are ready for the future. Your instructional space needs are driven by the demographics information as well as the instructional programs that will be offered to those students. An instructional space assessment provides a current space utilization levels and determines needs for future instructionally related spaces. Utilization levels are based on master schedules and take into consideration the district’s policy and philosophy regarding conference periods, traveling teachers, etc. It is also necessary to look at current and future TEA required instructional programs as well as non-mandated programs. An instructional space assessment indicates how much space is required in order to adequately provide all instructional programs.

Facilities Assessment

At this point you know how many students you will have. You know your instructional space needs for those students. But, do you know the current condition of you district’s facilities? A facilities assessment will do just that. Most districts already perform some type of facilities inspection. The maintenance director may conduct annual inspections looking at several different areas. The custodial director may look at the cleaning procedures periodically. The electrician, plumber, and HVAC technician may perform inspections on their own respective area. The principal may notice things walking through the halls. But often these different inspections are not brought together and consolidated to truly provide an assessment of the entire school district’s facilities. A thorough assessment should look at several factors: campus size (building and land), structural and mechanical features, plant maintainability (maintaining the facilities at a reasonable cost), building safety and security, educational adequacy, and environment for education. Bringing all of this information together in one report indicates what condition your facilities are in today.

Long-range Facility Plan

You now know your current and projected future student population. You know how much space is needed to support current and future instructional programs. You know how much space you currently have and the current condition of that space. The last step is to develop a long-range facility plan based on all of this information. Having all of this data readily available makes it easy for a district to prioritize what its future facility needs are whether they are consolidating, building or renovating. It makes it easy to set your function 51 budget as well as you budget for capital improvement projects for years to come.

By using a demographics study, an instructional space assessment, a facilities assessment and a long-range facility plan, not only are you simplifying the process of determining if your facilities are ready for the future, you are providing justification, planning, and prioritizing for that future. By following these processes you can truly say that your facilities are ready for the future.

If you would like further information on any of these services, OnSite can help. Call 800-580-8272, extension 3205.