Improving School Building Management

The maintenance of our twenty-one school buildings has been neglected for years and, until recently, little attention has been paid to the long-term space needs of our school system.

Summary of Proposed Solution

To make sure that our school buildings meet the needs of students now and for future generations, Newton should:

i) Improve building maintenance and

ii) Develop a cost-effective facilities plan that provides adequate space and flexibility to meet our future needs.

Discussion and Implementation Plan

i) Improve Building Maintenance

Our plan to develop a citywide facilities maintenance plan is discussed in detail in the Finance & Management section of this document. There are two additional points specific to the discussion of school building maintenance. First, the presence of students in the schools presents a unique maintenance challenge. It is essential that our school building maintenance program not disrupt teaching and learning during the school day. That means that while some maintenance activity can take place in common areas of the school during the school day, most school maintenance staff should work a later shift that begins as students depart the building or, in some cases, at night. Well thought-out resource allocation will allow us to stay current with preventive maintenance of our schools and address problems in a timely way without impacting the school day.

The other issue affecting maintenance planning is that each school’s principal is responsible for his or her building’s overall function. We should take advantage of this built-in asset by empowering principals to manage the routine maintenance of their buildings. Offering principals some local management control over maintenance issues would not delegate responsibility to them for major maintenance items (e.g., the replacement of a boiler), but it would give them the authority and resources needed to address in a timely manner less substantial but much more frequent issues (e.g., repair of a leaking faucet). By providing each principal with some discretionary maintenance resources, many small problems will be addressed quickly, preventing them from turning into big problems.

ii) Develop a Cost-Effective, Long-Term Facilities Plan

Managing our twenty-one school buildings requires full lifecycle management. That includes taking care of regular maintenance, making sure that new demands (such as changes in the student population) are met as they arise, and making sure each school is fully utilized as a school system asset. Each building should play a clear role in a comprehensive plan for school system facilities that covers both short-term and long-term needs, including the renovation or replacements of school buildings.

We currently have a School Committee approved Long Range Facilities Plan that calls for the replacement of four elementary school buildings: Angier, Cabot, Zervas and Ward. The plan could cost more than $100 million and rests on a central assumption that elementary school building size should be allowed to rise as high as 500 students. However, there is a serious controversy about the optimal size for elementary schools, with advice coming from some quarters that 360-400 is a sounder number and experiences with other school systems favoring even 300 as the optimal size. Studies have shown smaller schools have higher student attendance rates, higher graduation rates, and higher parent participation rates. Teachers have also stated they feel more empowered in smaller schools.

In addition, the sentiment of the Newton community expressed at a recent forum is that we should preserve Newton’s system of neighborhood-based elementary schools. This sentiment appears to favor smaller rather than larger schools. It is critical to resolve this important question in an open manner with strong community involvement before committing to a specific building program, as the community’s approval will be critical to successful stewardship of our school system assets.

As part of our effort to meet the individual needs of every student, we should be open to innovative approaches to the creation of learning spaces. That means designing spaces that are informed by changes in teaching techniques and technology. It may also mean adapting existing buildings for educational use.

Turning to the state of individual schools, it is clear that we need to make substantial improvements especially in the maintenance area. Support for each school also needs to be matched to its needs. A balance should be struck to ensure that each school has sufficient local control and has a sound planning process in place to provide good intelligence for system wide action.

In pursuit of these goals, we need to make more effective use of school councils (see Management and Planning section below).

On a more day-to-day basis, the response time for ordinary building maintenance items has increased to months, calling into question the effectiveness of the current maintenance system. This system needs review and adjustment to improve its responsiveness, effectiveness, and customer service. More pervasive use of web technology would allow the maintenance system to be more accessible to the community so that parents, students, and teachers can provide useful feedback regarding its effectiveness.

It is also widely acknowledged that school building maintenance has been chronically under-funded, a practice that results in much higher school building costs in the long term. The way to address this problem is to have budget priorities that support the most cost effective maintenance approach.

In summary, the key priorities here are:

• Full lifecycle school building management including long and short range facility plans;
• Identifying the optimal size for our neighborhood schools;
• Strengthening school councils to optimize administration, teacher, parent and community input;
• Systematic creation and use of School Improvement Plans generated by school councils for effective system-wide planning and budget action; and
• Effective employment of web technology to track all aspects of school building management