The Donnell-Kay Colorado K-12 School
Facility Assessment was based on several Colorado school districts
using the BASYS School Facility Assessment System. This system
has been used to evaluate thousands of school facilities nationwide
and is the adopted system to determine school facility needs
and associated costs in several states and districts. The
conditions of schools are measured through several assessments,
including:
- Physical Condition:
A measure of the deferred maintenance in a building.
- Educational Suitability:
Assesses how well the facility supports the educational
program(s) that it houses.
- Technology Readiness: assesses
the existence of the required infrastructure to support
information technology and associated equipment.
- Site Condition:
a measure of the deferred maintenance in the site systems,
such as fences, play areas, parking lots, and site utilities.
- Capacity/Utilization:
examines the existing school capacities and enrollment.
The Total Capital Improvement Needs
amount is the combined costs of the five assessments listed
above.
Download the full survey
report: Capital
Requirements Survey
Download the full site
assessment report: Colorado
School Facility Assessment
Additionally, over the course of
our work on this issue, we have visited and met with people
from school districts across the state; and have collected
independent information from school boards, superintendents,
facility managers, teachers and parents.
Data and stories gathered through
this process about everything from school conditions, health
and safety needs, capacity needs and the district’s
financial constraints have been included as a part of our
profiles. This information is a snapshot in time and conditions
may have changed since the data was originally collected and
the date will be referenced within each profile.
| Individual
School Districts: |
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- Northeastern Plains:
Districts in this region are struggling with challenges
that far outstrip their local funding ability. The depressed
agricultural economy on the plains has left some districts
without the total bonding capacity to build a single new
school or unable to pass a bonding measure.
- Front Range:
Many districts are asking voters to approve tax increases
for bonds to meet some of their most desperate construction
needs. However, few of the districts have the bonding capacity
to raise enough money to address all their needs. So even
if measures are approved, they will only be a band-aid on
a much larger problem.
- Central Mountains: Many
districts located in the mountains of Colorado are adjacent
to districts in affluent ski resort towns for which the
state is better known. These districts are all trying to
manage the substantial challenges of maintaining their school
buildings in harsh environments--both physical and fiscal.
The problems in these economically struggling districts
stand in stark contrast to the opportunities and resources
available to children in neighboring wealthy towns.
- Western Slope:
This has been the center of exponential growth in oil and
gas development as well as burgeoning population growth.
However, capital development has not kept up, and economic
growth is not consistently spread throughout the area. Some
school districts in the area are experiencing the same sort
of population growth issues with which the districts on
the Front Range have been grappling with for some time.
Others, although close neighbors, are small rural districts
in economically depressed communities facing a very different
set of challenges.
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