NCSF Guiding States

The National Council on School Facilities is working to develop concise and uniform guidance for reopening & operating public school systems in this COVID-19 pandemic.

NCSF and Cooperative Strategies Webinar Series

Resources and tools have been developed in working sessions with the input of over 300 local district and state facilities officials as well as architects, planners, researchers, and civic leaders during weekly webinars delivered by the National Council on School Facilities and Cooperative Strategies that started on April 2nd, 2020.

Past recordings of the weekly webinar series are available for review at this link.    

Working Session Materials

PK-12 Reopening Workbook: A detailed list of over 100 tasks organized according to achieving public health in schools objectives, that can be modified for individual state, district or school application.

Budget Estimates Workbook - A detailed list of the reopening tasks with budget estimates and formulas that can be modified for a school, district, region, or state. Improvements and updates will be made regularly.

Reopen Scenario Workbook - This workbook has various scenarios from all offsite education delivery for PK-12 grades to scenarios with 20%, 40%, 60%, 80% and 100% utilization of school facilities. Each scenario set is divided by grade bands for early childhood, elementary, middle, and high school. The user should fill the worksheets with descriptions and impacts of each scenario based on local conditions.

NCSF Recommendations on Covid Relief Funding for School Facilities

The recommendations represent best practices in educational facilities management and have been identified and vetted during weekly webinar presentations and discussions with state and district stakeholders. The recommendations are:

1.       States should allocate at least 1% of their state reservation funding toward state level functions related to school facilities.

2.       Districts should allocate at least 15% of their federal Relief and ARP funding (excluding 20% for learning loss) for healthy school facilities.

3.       U.S. Department of Education and State Departments of Education should encourage district flexibility in the use of federal funds.

4.       States and districts should engage their staff and communities in setting priorities for healthy facilities-related improvements. 

5.       Where local communities identify facilities improvements for healthy environments that exceed the recommended 15%, the U.S. Department of Education and States Departments of Education need to make clear that districts can spend in excess of the recommended 15% allowance for healthy facilities-related improvements. 

6.       Districts and states must be accountable for equity and advancing healthy school facilities by publicly reporting data on the scope, schedule, and amount of federal funding for healthy facilities improvements.

7.       School districts should use federal funds to supplement their FY2018 levels of operations and maintenance of plant.