A comprehensive and revealing report on the state of repair for the 37 schools operated by the South East Cornerstone Public School Division was delivered to board members during their monthly business meeting earlier this month.
Andy Dobson, who assumed the dual role of facilities and transportation manager two years ago, delivered the report along with Jim Swyryda, the division’s facilities operations supervisor.
“It has been a steep learning curve for me on the transportation side,” Dobson said just prior to the meeting. He had been focused on facilities management only before the transitions.
“Jim (Swyryda) has helped me a great deal, especially on the facilities side.”
On the transportation side, there are in-service seminars that include bus driver recognition events, which will probably be held every two years rather than annually due to rising costs and feedback from participants. Personal development days for drivers and evaluation sessions, or, “the practical stuff with them will continue (as before),” Dobson added.
Thirty-six of the 37 schools returned survey forms that provided feedback on facility management, maintenance, repairs and replacements, he said.
Dobson also spoke about the upcoming construction schedule for a new elementary school in Weyburn that has been over a year-and-a-half in the planning stages. He said actual construction is expected to begin in March with an opening date of September 2021.
The department has seen several successes, the two men said. Microwave ovens have been removed from individual classrooms now and slated for use only in designated dining and food preparation areas including staff rooms, to comply with fire marshal codes as well as providing more efficiencies for regular staff and caretakers.
There is an on-line complaints tool which has been implemented. The system used now to register work orders in an efficient manner has cut down on a lot of unnecessary drive times for maintenance professionals as well as site time. Dobson said there will be occasions when an emergency situation will surface that needs to be addressed immediately, but even they will be accompanied by work order sheets in order to track the work being done and the professionals assigned to the job.
“We have the challenges of aging infrastructure and we had $7 million in maintenance backlogs for roof repairs, heating and ventilation systems,” Dobson said.
“Now we do new panels, plumbing and electrical replacements,” said Swyryda.
With the new work order system in place, repairs and replacement projects have moved forward, eliminating wait times.
“We don’t have the ‘oh, while you’re here, can you look at this too,’ type of situation in schools now. If there isn’t an official work order sheet, the original jobs get done without delay, unless, of course, we have emergencies,” Dobson added.
Dobson said the planning stages for the new Weyburn school has been filled with a lot of red tape that involves submitting plans, evaluations, short list of contractors, selection of a contractor, meetings with the successful bidder and then debriefings with the unsuccessful bidders.
“It’s a transparent process but there sure are a lot of meetings,” he said.
“On service requests we can now track how long each one takes,” said Swyryda. “We average about 20 service calls per day. There were 2,086 service calls to look after in the 2017-18 school year alone.”
The average number of service calls per year is 2,411, so that number is decreasing with the implementation of more efficient systems for tracking personnel deployment and the jobs they undertake.
Cost comparisons for each school are noted, with the Estevan Comprehensive School (ECS) being the highest cost facility at just over $481,000 per year, followed by the new Weyburn Comp. at $358,000 and Spruce Ridge with a cost of just under $119,000.
The Cornerstone asset planning system has caught the attention of other school divisions including one in Calgary that asked the men to deliver a presentation at one of their workshops. It is based on facility credits, said Swyryda, that involves efficiencies, dates done and dates set for items to be looked after in the future.”
Cornerstone employs one caretaking supervisor, two assistant supervisors and 63 full-time caretakers. On the operations side, they have one supervisor, two foremen, three journeyperson electricians, one journeyperson plumber, four journeyperson carpenters and five maintenance technicians.
On the transportation side there are three supervisors, four mechanics with journeyperson credentials plus one mechanical technician and 113 1/2 full-time equivalent bus drivers. There are an additional 43 contracted bus routes and a total of 153 school buses to maintain along with 49 other fleet vehicles.
On the caretaking file, there are 52 buildings to take care of in total, including the 37 schools. There are seven other facilities that include transportation shops, seven teacherages and the division office.
Dobson said there are new initiatives in the transportation sector that he wanted to bring to the board’s attention, besides the new complaint forms. He said there were driver performance reviews and additional training, especially on bus evacuation procedures, an introductory lesson for new bus students, a quick reference guide for school administrators and defensive driving reviews for drivers.
As far as facilities are concerned, thanks to the new efficiencies the roof repair/replacement rate that was as high as 35.5 per cent in 2011 is now at 14.4 per cent which is well below the “end of roof life index” of 20 per cent.
