Ensuring the safety and security of students and staff is paramount for schools, but this presents major challenges. Schools are active, high-volume environments with a high potential for accidents. Just between 2015 and 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that close to 70,000 school workers suffered injuries resulting from a slip, trip, or fall. This is to say nothing of accidents resulting from various other causes that can happen on campus.

As someone who works with hundreds of schools on their facilities management software, I’m often struck by how much a well-implemented facilities management strategy can reduce the risk of such problems. In adverse events—from the most dramatic, like a hurricane, to the most mundane, like icy front steps—proper facilities management provides the foundation for safe learning spaces where students can thrive and teachers can focus on their mission.

The Importance of Preventative Maintenance

A cornerstone of effective facilities management is preventative maintenance. Schools cannot be considered safe or secure if their grounds and equipment are in bad condition. Successful preventative maintenance strategies focus on maintaining the functionality of critical school infrastructure and safety systems:

• Playground equipment: Playgrounds should be inspected weekly, if not daily, depending on use and age.
• Parking lots and sidewalks: Proper de-icing of these structures alone could prevent thousands of falls a year.
• Emergency systems such as lighting, backup power, and alarms: I’ve seen schools incur heavy fines when these fall into disrepair, and a malfunctioning system can have a huge negative impact during an emergency.
• Door locks: Doors and locks not properly latching or securing the access point can open up a safety risk but also an cause increases in energy spend.
• Fire extinguishers and sprinklers
• Surveillance cameras: Systems for real-time monitoring of school grounds are very valuable for enhancing security—until a worn cable brings the whole thing down.
• Kitchen equipment
• Appliances like furnaces and electrical systems

A comprehensive maintenance plan helps facilities managers identify potential hazards before they become threats. But with so many tasks to complete, many of them recurring often, it’s difficult for school maintenance teams to prioritize their workload and make the best use of their limited time. Software tools like Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) can be helpful in this regard, allowing managers to automate inspection schedules, streamline preventative work orders, and maintain real-time visibility into ongoing projects. This ensures the smooth operation of vital systems and reduces the likelihood of critical failures.

Planning and Response: Being Ready for Anything

When an emergency strikes, with students’ well-being on the line, the last thing school leaders want is for staff to feel unsure of where to go and what to do. Here, too, facilities managers should consider how to use technology to enhance safety planning and streamline responses. Digital tools such as mapping software can highlight optimal evacuation routes and security vulnerabilities, helping administrators devise emergency strategies and giving everyone else 24/7 access to detailed maps of buildings and grounds. Aside from planning, management software also allows for fast notifications about issues—whether that’s a leak or a power outage—to key personnel. Every second counts in an emergency, and schools should utilize tools to make their responses more efficient.

These tools can also help with prioritization by putting the most urgent tasks at the top of the work order queue. That prevents a scenario where someone is oiling door hinges on one side of campus while the heat for an entire building is out on the other.

Analytics and Continuous Improvement

Famously, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. Facilities management shouldn’t stop at addressing concerns as they emerge. Schools should emphasize learning from previous incidents and using data to refine their strategies. Advanced analytics provide insights into equipment performance, replacement decisions, security risks, and emergency response outcomes. This data informs adjustments to maintenance schedules, safety protocols, and budget allocations, guaranteeing that high-priority safety needs are always met.

Moreover, analytics streamline reporting out to administrators, providing transparency and accountability to everyone. Taking a data-first approach is important for school leaders who want to ground their commitment to safety and compliance in a clear vision and build their emergency strategies around compelling evidence.

Building Safer Schools Is Possible

At the core of school safety is a dedication educators share—the dedication to improve uninterrupted student learning. Facilities management is one of the most important areas of focus we can choose to turn this dedication into a reality, both for students and staff. By leveraging tools that streamline preventative maintenance, emergency planning, and data-driven decisions, schools today can seize a golden opportunity to safeguard their spaces and the people who use them.

Christopher Burns is a senior product manager at Incident IQ responsible for their Facilities family of product offerings, including work order management, asset management, preventative maintenance, parts and inventory, facilities event management, and more. Prior to joining Incident IQ, Burns spent nearly 10 years supporting K-12 schools in VMware’s End User Computing division as an Apple MDM product line manager and K-12 subject matter expert for their Global Support & Services team.

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