The Statewide Facilities Assessment
The purpose of the Statewide Facilities Assessment (SFA) is to assess the condition and educational sufficiency of the school facilities that currently exist in Maryland, and does not make decisions about potential repairs, replacements, or new construction.
Data collection for the IAC’s first baseline SFA began in December 2020 and was completed in July of 2021. Over seven months, the IAC assessed the physical condition and educational sufficiency of almost 1,400 public school facilities in the State of Maryland.
Data collected in this first round of assessments will be updated annually, with 25% of schools in Maryland re-assessed through site visits each year by the IAC.
Overall, the goal of the SFA is to give the State the ability to identify the school facilities in Maryland with the highest needs, and therefore be better equipped to focus its available capital dollars on those facilities.
How are the SFA's scores calculated?
Assessments were conducted by a team of facility assessment experts, and the baseline first year assessment generated what is called a Facility Condition Index (FCI) score for each school that reflects that facility’s physical condition as quantified as the depleted percentage of the useful lifespan. A lower FCI score is better. The statewide average FCI currently is 47%, which equates to having a useful lifespan that is about halfway depleted. The FCI score allows building components, building systems, and entire facilities across the state to be compared apples-to-apples.
Additionally, to determine the highest need schools, it is essential to incorporate the educational sufficiency of each facility within their overall scores. To do this, the FCI is combined with data collected on educational sufficiency. With relevancy weighting incorporated (final weighting for this is to be determined, and models within the SFA Info Packet below show several options for weighting), each facility will receive an overall Maryland Condition Index (MDCI) score so that every school can be compared against all others. The higher the MDCI score, the further the school is from educational sufficiency.
Facility Condition Index State Map
This web map application displays Facility Condition Index (FCI) aggregated by hexagonal grids of 1, 4, and 50 square miles, and at the individual school facility level and LEA-wide level. For hexagonal grid aggregations, please note, jurisdiction edges are approximated by the grids. As a result, facilities whose true location is outside of their gridded jurisdiction boundary have been reassigned to the nearest grid within the proper jurisdiction.
Definitions of the FCI percentages can be found within the SFA Info Packet. FCI = percent depleted. Lower numbers are better.
