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Enhancing K-12 School Facility Operations

Ensuring the success of our students goes beyond academics; it also involves creating an efficient and effective learning environment. By implementing sound facility operations strategies, we can provide our students and staff with a safe and healthy school. In this blog post, we will go over three key strategies to enhance K-12 school facility operations.

1. Preserve Institutional Knowledge

One of the biggest challenges in facility management is the loss of institutional knowledge due to retirement and turnover. This valuable knowledge and information accumulated over the years can be difficult to capture and pass on. It often ends up as stacked files in offices, on a computer drive no one can find, or in the mind of a single individual – all of which are hard to search through.

Christopher Robinson, Superintendent at CLK School District acknowledges the challenge of handling staff turnover and retirement, stating “Handling staff turnover is a regular part of our job, and the continued success of our programs depends on good succession planning.” Robinson also highlights the impact of retirements on the transfer of institutional knowledge, stating, “Following the retirement of multiple long-time supervisors and district administrators, it became apparent that no succession plan could adequately transfer all the institutional knowledge these individuals possessed.”

Preserving institutional knowledge should be a top priority when it comes to enhancing facility operations. The information held by facilities teams is essential for proper building function. When retirees take their knowledge with them, it creates a “knowledge vacuum,” leading to staff scrambling to find information from retired colleagues, resulting in inefficiency and delays.

Robinson further explains the negative consequences of not preserving institutional knowledge, stating, “Undocumented systems they had managed for years were second nature to them but were not fully passed on to their successors. This resulted in a drop in administrative performance, equipment failures, and financial losses.”

Succession Planning through Technology:

Robinson concludes by highlighting the benefits of QModo AI, stating, “Now, if one of our boilers experiences problems after hours, our evening custodians have access to all the critical information needed to troubleshoot and potentially fix the issue without requiring a supervisor or expert technician.”

Capturing and sharing institutional knowledge is significant to succession planning for facility operations. While these challenges are complex there is a light at the end of the tunnel with emerging technologies.

2. Manage and Maintain Assets

Your assets play a significant role in keeping your schools up and running smoothly, and keeping them at the forefront of your operations can extend their lifespan and create more room in your budget to better support your school district.

Recognizing the importance of asset management, our customer success team at QModo AI is dedicated to helping schools efficiently manage their assets. Christopher shows appreciation for our team by stating “The QModo Al team has been amazing to work with. I have never witnessed another team work so efficiently at tagging and cataloging district assets. Within weeks, our mechanical, electrical, HVAC, plumbing systems, and vehicle fleet were loaded into QModo Al with pictures, videos, instructions, and manuals.”

Our goal is to create a better tomorrow for schools and their operations, and we understand the pain points faced by facility managers, maintenance teams, and school administrators. Efficient asset management is just one way we support schools in achieving their goals.

3. Be Prepared for Emergencies:

Emergency preparedness should be a top priority in school facility operations, addressing security threats and maintenance emergencies. To enhance emergency preparedness we can segment emergencies into two pillars: the first is the security and the safety of students and staff, and the second is the effective management of facility emergencies during an operational crisis.

Security and Safety:

In today’s world, prioritizing and enhancing security and safety is crucial for schools. By regularly reviewing emergency plans, conducting drills, and providing comprehensive staff training, schools can ensure the safety and well-being of their entire community. One key aspect of preparedness is having access to critical information. This includes maps, contact information, and critical response quadrants that can help in effectively preparing administrators, teachers, and staff for security threats. By equipping everyone with the necessary resources and knowledge, schools can be better prepared to address and mitigate potential security incidents.

Operational Crisis:

Maintenance emergencies during an operational crisis may be something we are all too familiar with. Picture this: a malfunctioning HVAC system on a hot summer day, turning classrooms into stifling ovens and affecting the learning process. Or perhaps it’s a pipe bursting, flooding the school, and disrupting daily activities while causing significant financial loss. These crises can strike without warning, leaving facility staff scrambling to restore order amidst the chaos.

Recognizing the importance of these two pillars is a significant focus for the CLK School District. They found great value in working with QModo AI. Christopher highlights how QModo AI addresses their district’s needs. Robinson describes it as “ QModo AI has addressed many other needs of our district. Two recent examples include ensuring key personnel have quick access to all school safety and emergency resources, and streamlining work orders to make the maintenance and custodial request process more efficient.”

“As part of our emergency operations, we had a company create critical response maps of the district; however, there was no product available to access and interact with these maps. QModo Al quickly solved this problem, making the maps easily accessible and interactive, marking important utilities throughout the campus, and adding pictures and video instructions on how to turn off each utility during an emergency. To my knowledge, we are the only district to have such robust, interactive, critical response maps.”

QModo AI will not leave your teams empty-handed when it comes to emergencies, we understand the needs and pains of emergency preparedness and want to create a safer and more prepared environment for your students, staff, and teams.

Partner with QModoAI for Enhanced School Facility Operations:

To achieve these strategies and more, partner with QModo AI, a leading provider of solutions for boosting facility operations in K-12 schools. With QModo AI, you can seamlessly implement the strategies discussed in this blog and customize them to meet your school’s specific needs.

CLK School District Values QModo AI:

“QModo AI is a game-changer for our school district. It has enhanced the functionality of our maintenance and custodial staff, increased efficiency in responding to emergency situations, and shows promise in supporting educators with educational technology and more. I highly recommend QModo AI to other preK-12 school districts looking to preserve institutional knowledge, reduce maintenance costs, and improve efficiency across all district operations.”
Christopher Davidson, CKL Schools, Superintendent

Don’t miss the opportunity to create an exceptional learning environment by optimizing your facility operations. Partner with QModo AI and take a significant step towards providing an efficient, safe, and engaging educational experience for your students and staff. To learn more about how QModo AI can support your facility operations click here.