Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. 2010.
The OSPI staff, acting as a Work Group for Facilities Maintenance and Operations convened three expert groups to analyze the staffing needs of schools and districts. Expert groups included:
A team of architects who have designed Washington schools and understand their space requirements;
A team of facilities maintenance and grounds professionals with expertise in preventive maintenance of building systems (i.e. heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC); electrical; and plumbing) and school grounds; and
A team of operations professionals with expertise in daily cleaning and routine facilities maintenance requirements.
In practice, facility maintenance crews include skilled craftsmen and women who conduct scheduled inspections and services, and who repair and replace building system components. Operations staff members include custodians, grounds workers, and general maintenance crews who respond to emergent and routine maintenance needs.
For the purposes of reporting the findings of this analysis in the context of Washington state’s prototypical school model, the Work Group summarized these roles into two slightly different categories; facilities maintenance and grounds, and custodians. In the prototypical school model, facilities maintenance and grounds staff provide districtwide support while custodians are building based staff.
The work of the Expert Groups informed the Facilities Maintenance and Operations Work Group, and provided the information needed to assess the adequacy of current funding for facilities maintenance and operations staff. The resulting staffing recommendations are based on carefully crafted assumptions about the space required to deliver state-funded education programs, and the staff needed to adequately maintain those spaces.
