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.

“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.”

The group tasked with forming recommendations for the FMP 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 the FMP 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 scheduled for January and February to prepare for March 27 when the board is scheduled to vote on the FABPAC’s recommendations.

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

Of the schools assessed in Northwest Austin, none received a grade of “poor” or “very poor”; however, seven were rated at “average.” Those schools include Hill, McBee, Summitt and Wooldridge elementary schools; Burnet and Murchison middle schools; and Lanier High School.

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 goals of increasing efficiencies and the value of taxpayer dollars by “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; they would be going to a school that has been substantially improved.”

Smith also pointed out 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.”

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