No rest for the weary, as they always say. The most recent school year provided new challenges but also new opportunities, such as the additional stimulus funds available to K12 school districts. And while students are celebrating the end of another school year, the work never ends for you and your facilities team.

Summer break is the ideal time to work on those projects and tasks that you were unable to complete during the year. As a facilities leader, the summer months are a chance to measure how the past school year went, and how you can improve it next year. But where do you start?

Putting a Summer School Maintenance Plan Together

Kids always complain in the fall about how fast the summer went by. While your summer may not be as carefree as the kids, you do still need to come into work unfortunately, without a plan in place summer time can move just as quickly for you.

Though every school has different needs, summer offers the opportunity to complete tasks and projects that are just easier done with empty buildings. While your team may have a routine for preparing your school buildings for back to school time, the summer can be tougher to plan for when you have competing priorities.

To help get you started and keep your facilities team focused, we put together this list of common summer maintenance activities for your schools.

Summer Maintenance Checklist For Schools

• Inventory of assets – It can be hectic trying to keep track of the different assets and equipment you are managing while dealing with student and staff needs. One of the first things you should do when summer break starts is inventory your building’s assets. Managing these assets is a vital part of your daily job, so hitting the reset button to fully understand everything you need to account and budget for is a great first project of the summer.
• Optimize preventive maintenance (PM) schedules – Preventive maintenance is such an important part of keeping maintenance costs down and learning environments healthy, but optimizing schedules for your assets requires careful analysis. Did it seem like you were changing filters way too often? Have assets that seemed to keep breaking down? Use this time to review your PM schedules  to identify what schedules might need small changes. Don’t have a PM program in place? Summer is a great time to start building one in your facility management software!
• Measure KPIs from the past school year –  We get it. It can be a lot to find time to track your team’s performance and maintenance processes during the school year. Empty school buildings offer the chance to dig into your facility management software to measure the KPIs that matter to you. Summer break is an excellent time to reevaluate what you track and decide if there are other metrics you should be looking at.

• Deep cleaning – We all know it so let’s just say it, kids are messy. Stick hundreds of them into the same building for nine months out of the year and you get buildings that need an annual deep clean. One great way to complete your cleaning is hiring students to work the summer. Don’t forget to deep clean your HVAC system! While it can be tough to do this with school in session, doing a thorough cleaning of air ducts and filters play a key role in healthy learning environments.
• Reorder inventory/supplies – Whether you barely made it to the end of the year or ended up with a surplus, go check your parts, tools, and supplies to reorder what you need. You should also make sure your closets and/or storage area is organized and accessible too.
• Floor and pavement protection – The floors in your buildings take a beating throughout the school year. Inspect your facilities and grounds to see what floors and pavement need extra protection.
• Testing (air & water) – With the building empty, summer is a great time to do tests of your air and water quality. These tests can help identify potential problems with the roof, your HVAC system, and plumbing.
• Team training – Making sure your team not only has the skills they need, but also are trained on the type of culture you want to build on your K12 facility management team is a huge part of your job. Use this time to conduct specific training sessions with your teams to make sure they are prepared for the next school year.
• Upgrade your facility management software – Summer offers school the chance to reset and reevaluate not just maintenance and operations processes but your software as well. Summer is the ideal time to make a switch to a new facility management software, offering you the chance to implement and get trained before you have to respond to 20 teacher requests everyday.

Don’t let this summer pass you by

Put together a plan that jumpstarts your school’s maintenance and operations. Need a facility management software to help you do it? Find out more about how AkitaBox Facility Management Software for large schools can help you streamline maintenance and improve asset management at Akitabox.com.