The dire condition of facilities in the District of Columbia (D.C.) Public School District is no secret. The district’s reliance on deferred maintenance and its lack of facilities planning has resulted in crumbling schools and plenty of negative attention in the media.
But it appears the district has taken a step forward. The mayor and schools chancellor developed a master facilities plan (MFP) that calls for $1.3 billion toward the modernization of the district’s 120 schools. In an effort to shed its reputation as a failing school system, the mayor and chancellor are acting fast. They want at least some physical improvements to take place in all schools between 2009-2014.
Here’s an excerpt from the plan, found on the district’s Web site: “By focusing on the learning environment first, the 2008 MFP will finally position the District and its school system finally to reach beyond dealing with deferred maintenance, backlogged repairs, and crumbling buildings. Every classroom, and therefore every student, will be impacted in the first five years of this plan.”
The plan, which the D.C. Council must approve, does have its detractors. It does not list details related to the modernization of the schools, and it does not provide the amount of money allotted to specific facilities, according to an article in the Washington Post. While I agree it would have been better to have these facts and figures included in the plan, at least the district has some direction.
To give you an idea of where the district stood not too long ago, consider the maintenance crisis as described in the plan. Before the Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization instituted its “stabilization” effort in 2007, this was the situation, according to the plan:
“Prior to the Stabilization initiative and related projects, the school system had an estimated backlog of more than 20,000 work orders. One hundred eighteen schools were rated as in ‘poor’ condition, or worse, according to an assessment conducted by the school system at the end of 2005. The Stabilization initiative was unprecedented in scope, timeline, and investment; never before had the District attacked the school facilities problem with such breadth and with so many resources in such a short period of time.”
With the MFP, the mayor and chancellor are quickly trying to build on that progress – not a word too often associated with the district’s past facilities-planning efforts.