How Projects Are Prioritized
Six inputs produce the ranked project list. This is the answer to the question every board member and every parent asks: why that school and not mine?
Facility condition and the Facility Condition Index
Every building and site system was reviewed for observable deficiencies, expected remaining life, and required renewal. Those findings produce a Facility Condition Index, the cost of a facility's identified needs measured against what it would cost to replace that facility. A higher index means a greater level of need relative to the facility's value.
The index is one tool among several. It does not by itself decide whether a building is repaired, modernized or replaced.
Work order history
Simi Valley Unified maintains its facilities through a districtwide work order system, and District staff use it daily. Every corrective and preventive work order, what failed, where, how often, and what it took to repair, is evidence about how a building is actually performing.
Those records move into the master plan's database on a set schedule, every two to four weeks, on a cadence the District sets. A roof generating repeat leak calls, or a chiller that fails three summers running, appears in the plan as a lifecycle need before it becomes an emergency.
Facility and system age
Most of the District's campuses were built between the late 1950s and the early 1970s. Building systems have predictable service lives, and age tells us what is approaching the end of it. Roofing, HVAC equipment, electrical distribution, plumbing, paving and flooring all come due on a schedule that can be planned for rather than reacted to.
Urgency of the need
Not all needs rank equally. Conditions involving health, safety, security, accessibility, active deterioration, or the failure of a critical system are addressed first, because deferring them costs more and puts people at risk. Predictable lifecycle renewals follow. Longer-term modernization is planned around both.
Community and District input, the survey
Assessment data tells us what a building needs. It does not tell us what it is like to teach, learn or work there every day. The facilities survey collects that: which conditions families, students and staff experience as problems, and what they would fix first.
The survey takes about three minutes, is anonymous, and is available in English and Spanish. Responses are reported by campus and weighted alongside the other five inputs, so that no school's experience is lost in a districtwide average.
Eligibility for state matching funds
Some projects qualify for State School Facility Program funding, Proposition 2 and other state programs; others do not. A project that brings state dollars alongside local dollars stretches the District's own money further, so eligibility is weighed as part of the ranking.
Identifying a potential funding source does not guarantee an award. It means the plan is aligning priority projects with the funding most likely to reach them.