Facility Policies

In the interest of safety, all digging requires a “locate” prior to breaking ground, as well as facilities clearance of the site.  If you need to dig, please contact facilities, and we will help facilitate the process.  This can be done in a timely manner, and it will prevent digging into underground power and irrigation systems.

During school hours, dogs are only allowed on campus if they are an approved service dog or for an approved educational purpose.  For the safety of your dog, the students, and staff, please do not bring your dog on campus. 

After hours, dogs on school grounds must be on a leash.  We have a variety of people who utilize the campuses after hours.

There is a specific process for accepting donated items.  We inherit the long-term maintenance and liability of these items.  Please coordinate with facilities before accepting any donations.

Outdated equipment must be disposed of, repurposed, or sold properly.  It is never to be taken home.  If you have equipment that is no longer needed, please contact the facilities office, and we will assist you with the procedure.

On an annual basis, we work with county and city fire officials to inspect all sites for fire code compliance.  Safety for our school occupants is of utmost importance.

The facilities department manages 80-plus vehicles as part of the school district’s fleet.   These vehicles are used for maintenance, custodial, warehouse, food services, and student/activity transportation.  We proactively manage all vehicle maintenance through a recurring services program.

We have several student activity vans and a district car that are available for transportation.

If you have questions regarding the district’s fleet management program or need to coordinate for a vehicle, please contact the facilities office at (541) 842-3646.

Proactive furniture inventory management is critical at each site.  Please assess your site’s furniture annually and provide your top few needs to the facilities department.  Due to the heavy demand for furniture ordered in the summer, lead times can be affected significantly at times.  If you require furniture for the start of the new school year, please make sure that your order is submitted to facilities prior to departing for the summer so that we can order prior to July 1st. 

We do not have the storage capacity to keep old or damaged furniture on hand.   

The MSD loves gardens and fully understands the educational value that they can bring to a child’s life; however, gardens are a school's responsibility.  Grounds/custodial crews do not maintain gardens or pond areas.  Before making the decision to embark on building a school garden, it is important to have a long-term plan for maintaining the garden.  Before building a garden, please set up a meeting with the facilities department.  We will provide input on the site and provide an agreement to the terms of the project.  Gardens must be maintained throughout all 12 months of the year.  This includes throughout the summer months and fall clean-up.

MSD Garden Contract

We inspect the schools regularly in the following areas:

• Safety
• Security
• Cleanliness
• Fire Code Requirements
• Operational Readiness
• Integrated Pest Management

We encourage sites to participate in this process.

We are thorough and detailed for one reason: that we maintain a high degree of operational readiness for the education process.

Key control directly affects school security.  The Facilities department is responsible for the implementation of our district’s key control program.  Sites are responsible for key control at their locations.

 Components of The Program:

• Keys are only issued for a genuine need.

• Keys will only be assigned during the time period needed.

• We do not issue keys for personal use of facilities.

• You are responsible for the keys assigned to you.  They must be accounted for at all times.

• Keys may only be in your possession if they have been assigned to you on a hand receipt.

• Keys may not be loaned to anyone other than the assigned user.

• Keys may not be duplicated.

• Immediately notify your building administrator and/or the facilities office in the event that keys are lost or stolen.

• Keys must be returned when requested to do so and before departing the district permanently.

• Do not store keys in/on unsecured locations such as vehicles, sheds, bicycles, motorcycles, etc.

• Keys are not for communal use.

• Key inventories are due monthly, no later than the last working day of the month.

 If you have questions regarding the district’s key control program, please contact the facilities office at (541) 842-3646.

Helpful Links: School Board Policy G.BCD

The MSD has a full-time professional painter who paints 12 months a year. 

Submitting a work order can get a paint task accomplished during the school year (Sept-June).    During the summer months, we rotate paint crews through every school to repair damaged areas and bring them back to life for the upcoming school year.  If the paint is in good condition, we do not normally repaint.  We do not normally repaint to change colors.  We have a standard set of colors for each site that we adhere to.  This helps streamline our workloads and efficiency for the summer paint crews.  

If you would like to be a part of the summer paint crews, please check the Human Resources page around May.  Whether you are a college student home for the summer or just looking for some part-time work, we welcome your support.  It makes a tremendous difference in the readiness of the schools.

Additional playground equipment is funded by the school sites via fundraising.  There is a very specific process that must occur for this to happen seamlessly.  We welcome the support and look forward to working with anyone taking on this task; however, it is very important that coordination and communication occur early and often. 

Once the equipment has been purchased and delivered, it will be installed by volunteers or a licensed contractor.  The facilities team has several experienced playground inspectors who oversee and participate in the process.

Playground Planning Guidance

Managing the science chemicals at the schools is a joint effort between science department staff and facilities personnel.  It is imperative to the safety of students and staff that we manage our chemical inventory responsibly.  On-site science department staff are responsible for the day-to-day upkeep, proper hygiene. Inventory is managed through Chemventory software.  For questions regarding the Chemventory manager, please contact HR. Quantities maintained on-hand should be based on consumption rates, lead time, and the effect if it is not on-hand.  Please be thorough and detailed in maintaining chemical inventories. 

Chemical disposal can be a very hazardous and expensive undertaking.  Once a year, the facilities department does a chemical round-up to purge sites of unnecessary chemicals.  If you need to dispose of chemicals, please reach out to the facilities department.

Security is a top priority for the MSD.  From site design to procedures/protocols, to an established partnership with the Medford Police Department to have School Resource Officers (SROs) on site, we implement a layered security approach. 

Situational awareness is a key aspect of our school’s security. 

If you have concerns or see something that does not seem right, please report it to site leadership and/or the police.

We understand the importance of schools as community spaces and desire to keep them open and accessible whenever possible; however, safety, security, and the cleanliness of the campuses is always a priority.  At times, we have had to close the campuses to address issues of this nature.

Standard practice is for campuses to be closed from sunset to sunrise.

If you see individuals displaying unsafe behavior, threatening or destroying school campuses, please report it.  We want the schools to be a safe and respectful place for the community.   

We appreciate your support in keeping the schools clean and safe.

Before requesting an additional shed, it is important that schools look at existing storage spaces and confirm that they are being used in an orderly and efficient manner.  It is best to purge items from the inventory that have not been utilized in years past before requesting additional storage space. Unless there is an extenuating circumstance, the MSD does not normally supply additional sheds.  These are normally paid for through fundraising of some nature.  We will certainly partner with you and help oversee the process.  Please coordinate with facilities for a request of this nature.

The summer months are a busy time for the facilities team.  We work fast and furious to deep clean schools and complete projects so that schools are in top-notch condition for the start of a new school year.  We inspect all classrooms, spaces and grounds across the district.  We could not accomplish this undertaking without the help of our dedicated summer crews.  If you are interested in serving on the mechanical, grounds, painting, or window cleaning crews, please look for a job posting around the middle of May.