Florida K–12 District Partners with Facility Management Systems Provider

Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., recently announced a partnership with facilities management platform Facilitron to incorporate its solutions across the district, according to a news release. Facilitron offers its services to 10,000 K–12 and higher-ed schools across 31 states to provide efficient and cost-effective ways of sharing their buildings and grounds. BCPS is the country’s sixth-largest school district, with 356 campuses and more than 250,000 students, the news release reports.

Facilitron functions like an Airbnb for public spaces. Public schools, universities, and private facility owners can rent out facilities like meeting rooms, theaters, athletic fields, and gyms as event spaces for individuals and community groups. The move has been one way that many public-school districts of all sizes are taking advantage of to relieve budget constraints.

“Historically, pen and paper management of these rental programs has been tedious and inconsistent, with the increased costs associated with facility upkeep, security and staffing taking away from the funding that the schools desperately need for their own programs,” said Jeff Benjamin, Facilitron CEO. “We’re utilizing our technology to transform the way public and private space operators manage and monetize their buildings, and we’re helping foster meaningful change, driving revenue which can go directly back to the classrooms.”

BCPS incorporates hundreds of gyms, cafeterias, fields, and parking lots; as well as 70 auditoriums and 16,000 classrooms, the news release reports. In addition to scheduling and administrative functions, Facilitron can also help event coordinators connect to building systems like HVAC and lighting control in their desired spaces.

“Using valuable data to make its decisions, BCPS is transforming the way it runs its facility rental programs and quickly becoming a model for our country’s safest schools,” said Benjamin. “We’re proud to be working with forward-thinking districts like BCPS across the country, and we’re excited to continue to grow and develop our platform capabilities to help schools and communities successfully share resources.”

About the Author

Matt Jones is senior editor of Spaces4Learning. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • Vanderbilt to Partner with ABM for Campus Preservation and Modernization

    Vanderbilt University recently announced that it has selected ABM Performance Solutions for a preservation and modernization project at its New York City campus, according to a news release. ABM will deliver its end-to-end ABM Performance Solutions (APS) model to manage critical operations during renovation and maintenance.

  • Chartwells Launches Campus Dining Evaluation Framework

    Contract food-service management provider Chartwells Higher Education recently announced the launch of BLUEPRINT, according to a news release. The evaluation framework was designed to provide a data-driven and customizable roadmap towards optimizing campus dining services and, by extension, the student experience.

  • New Arizona Fine Arts School Reaches Construction Milestone

    Construction of the new Hilltop School for the Arts and Theater in Litchfield Park, Ariz., recently hit a significant milestone, according to a news release. The Agua Fria High School District held a beam-signing ceremony to celebrate the building’s topping out, or the placement of its last structural beam.

  • Moline-Coal Valley School District to Consolidate Two Schools into New Facility

    The Moline-Coal Valley School District in Moline, Ill., recently broke ground on a new elementary school that will consolidate the students and staff from two existing schools, according to local news. Robert Ontiveros Elementary School will serve as the new home for Lincoln-Irving Elementary School and Willard Elementary School.