The Facilities Master Plan is a long-term strategy to align Oakland’s learning environments with its vision. The Facilities Master Plan recommends improvements to facilities to make them more flexible, resilient, healthy, safe, and joyful to support whole student growth and success. These spaces maximize collaboration, empower innovation, and inspire creativity, preparing our students to be college-, career-, and community-ready.

The Oakland Community has supported investments in school facilities by approving past bond measures. A Facilities Master Plan provides a roadmap to ensure that future investment in school facilities are aligned with the needs and vision of the Oakland community. It also represents an opportunity to guide capital funds in a way that best aligns the facilities portfolio with the broader vision of the district. Studies show that students learn better and are more successful in high quality learning environments. The facilities master plan goes beyond facility conditions and recommends improvements to meet the aspirations of 21st century learning environments, including providing access to natural light and air, increasing the quality of spaces across different programs, and helping schools foster a sense of community.

A facilities master plan is required to receive state funding for facility improvements. It is also stated in the board policy of OUSD (BP 0400) that the superintendent shall supervise the development comprehensive plans, including those that describe implementation of the district’s vision and goals. This involves assessment of needs, priorities, activities, resources, and desired outcomes.
Facilities master planning is specified as an element of the comprehensive planning process.

The Facilities Master Plan aligns with Oakland’s Re-envision, Redesign and Restructure initiative by informing a holistic approach to envisioning the future of OUSD’s future footprint, services, and staff and providing facilities data and identifying key investments to support a sustainable community schools model.

The development of the Facilities Master Plan is divided into three phases. The first phase is to define the vision and outline of the plan while gathering data. The second phase is to analyze and report out on building conditions and explore how they can be improved to support the vision. The third phase is to develop and review alternative strategies to achieve district and community goals.

The facility master plan is community driven and data informed. It will provide a decision-making framework that is both adaptive and resilient to future opportunities and challenges. By monitoring and adapting to key metrics, the Facilities Master Plan will consistently align toward success. Data inputs include facility physical conditions assessments, evaluation of learning environment quality, current and projected enrollment and space utilization, and constituent feedback throughout the planning process.

As part of our equitable outreach strategy, we are actively engaging parents, students, teachers, staff, and the community throughout the process of developing the facilities master plan. A steering committee composed of representatives from diverse constituent groups will closely guide the project. Online surveys and town halls will provide an open and accessible venue to learn more and help shape the plan.