Progress is underway on a comprehensive overhaul of Austin ISD’s facilities master plan, or FMP, the document that outlines the current status of district facilities and how they will be used over the next 25 years. Of the schools assessed in Southwest Austin, 11 were identified as needing significant repairs or replacements within the next 12 years.

“This [FMP] is a 30,000-foot view,” said Paul Turner, executive director of AISD’s Department of Facilities. “In previous bond programs, the [FMP] was a Band-Aid approach that looked at certain deficiencies. This is about a transformational change in the school district to bring schools into the 21st century.”

What is the FABPAC?

The group tasked with forming recommendations for the FMP to be submitted to the AISD board of trustees is an 18-member citizen committee known as the FABPAC, or the Facilities and Bond Planning Advisory Committee. The FABPAC recently received preliminary options for how to prioritize facilities from one of the district’s facility development consultants, Brailsford & Dunlavey Inc.

“This is a stakeholder-driven process,” said Frank Fuller, communications administrative services supervisor for the facilities department.

Public feedback has been a key element of the FMP process in determining how facilities can be modernized to serve the community, Turner said. Two more community engagement series events are planned for January and February to  prepare for March 27 when the board is scheduled to vote on the FABPAC’s recommendations.

Utilizing schools as a community hub is one of three components crucial to the modernization of AISD facilities—plans to incorporate state-of-the-art technology and flexible learning spaces in all schools are also included in the FMP, Turner said.

The Worst First

Based on objective data gathered through evaluations of each facility, a series of planning strategies was developed to guide the project recommendations, sequencing and priorities. In a nutshell, the FABPAC will base its prioritization of schools on a system coined “The Worst First.”

“This is a way of ensuring that if you are the worst school with the most need, we will take care of you first,” said Greg R. Smith, Brailsford & Dunlavey Inc. project manager.

Each school was assigned two grades based on the findings of assessments that measured the facility’s condition, or FCA, and how well the building fosters teaching and learning, or ESA. A school that scored in the “average” range on the FCA will require minor repairs as well as infrequent larger system repairs within 12 to 25 years of the FMP’s implementation. Significant repairs or replacements will be required within 12 years of the plan’s implementation for schools scoring in the “poor” range, and schools scoring in the “very poor” range will require an overhaul or replacement within the first six years.

High-need schools

Eleven schools in Southwest Austin scored in the “poor” range. Those schools include Casey, Cowan, Cunningham, Menchaca, Oak Hill, Odom, Pleasant Hill, St. Elmo, Sunset Valley and Williams elementary schools, and Bedichek Middle School.

Two options have been proposed by Brailsford & Dunlavey, Inc. for the modernization of Menchaca Elementary School. It could undergo comprehensive repairs at its current building, or be rebuilt on a new site to avoid being located at the potentially high-traffic intersection of Manchaca Road and FM 1626­—an area that the Texas Department of Transportation plans to expand.

Turner said even for schools that require extensive repairs, construction is still several years down the road, and AISD will always opt for repairs over demolition.

“Taking a facility to the ground will be the exception, not the rule,” he said. “If we can use the existing structure and redo the inside of it to reflect what we are looking for with modernization … that is the preference.”

The FMP also takes into account the utilization of schools. If a building has a history of low enrollment or a consistent declining population within its current boundaries, the FABPAC may consider consolidating that school with another school nearby, Smith said. This fits in with the FMP’s goal of “right-sizing” facilities.

“One of the key components of the planning strategies is that if there are consolidations, students would always be going into a modernized school,” he said. “They would never be moving back into an equal or worse condition.”

Smith also said that preliminary options are not set in stone and will be contingent upon review by the FABPAC, community input and, eventually, a vote from the board of trustees.

“This process is deliberate,” he said. “We are trying to take an objective look first, and then the next step is to get those qualitative pieces—the things we aren’t thinking of or what makes Austin unique, and infusing those with the data-based options.”

The FMP process was already underway when structural deficiencies were discovered in the crawl spaces of Brown Elementary School, located in North Austin, during an inspection of the building in mid-October, prompting the district to initiate an indefinite closure of the building and emergency relocation of Brown’s 360 students. Turner said the closure of Brown has influenced facility inspection guidelines.

“We haven’t found any others [schools] that have issues at the magnitude of what we had at Brown,” Turner said. “We are setting up [inspection protocols] in the maintenance department to check crawl spaces regularly, so that if conditions are deteriorating, we can take care of it before it gets too bad.”

Over the next few months, the FABPAC will review preliminary options and begin to draft a recommendation to present to the AISD board of trustees. If the FMP update is approved, Brailsford & Dunlavey Inc., along with the FABPAC, will develop bond recommendations for a potential bond election next November.