Connect Canyons
Learning is about making connections, and we invite you to learn and connect with us. Connect Canyons is a show about what we teach in Canyons District, how we teach, and why. We get up close and personal with some of the people who make our schools great: students, teachers, principals, parents, and more. We meet national experts, too. And we spotlight the “connection makers” — personalities, programs and prospects — we find compelling and inspiring.
Connect Canyons
Episode 112: Smart Spending, Strong Schools. How Canyons Maximizes Every Facility Upgrade for Student Success
When Canyons was created in 2009, the school district inherited a portfolio of aging buildings, some of which hadn't seen major upgrades in decades. In 16 years, the District has made huge strides rebuilding or significantly remodeling 27 schools.
These modernized buildings are safer, more efficient, and designed with today's learners in mind. But the work isn't done. With 49 buildings — ranging in age from 72 to two years of age — and 6.2 million square feet to maintain, Canyons is constantly juggling the day-to-day demands of upkeep while also planning for future improvements.
For a behind-the-scenes look at how the District prioritizes facility needs, Connect Canyons sat down with some of the brains behind the bricks: CSD’s Associate Director of Facilities Ryan Jakeman and Jordan High Principal Dr. Bruce Eschler. No matter the size of the project — from replacing galvanized pipes and failing HVAC systems to installing new roofs and carpet — the goal is to create safe learning environments that make our communities proud.
A well-kept school promotes student achievement, raises property values and contributes to local economies, said Jakeman. “Our schools build community pride and send the message to students that, ‘we believe in you’ and ‘what you are doing here is important.’”
Of course, just like with our homes, things are going to break and wear out from time to time, which is why Canyons employs professional custodians, electricians, journeymen, locksmiths, fire suppression experts — a whole quiver of jump-and-run experts to keep schools in tip-top shape.
“We have such amazing Facilities staff who go above and beyond to ensure our schools are safe and our students are learning,” said Dr. Eschler. “A big shout out to them for all they do.”
1:44 – 1:52
We discuss major upgrades currently in the works and explain how we prioritize facility needs. Dr. Eschler talks about why “little things” like furniture and electrical outlets matter and how buildings must evolve as education evolves.
3:52 – 4:24
When Canyons was performed, the District performed an audit of the buildings we inherited, which identified more than $650 million in deferred maintenance. How did the District prioritize rebuild and upgrades, taking into account the age of chillers, boilers, and electrical systems as well as seismic safety and the functionality of classrooms? What’s a Facilities Condition Index?
10:21 – 10:56
How does the District determine when a building would cost more to repair than rebuild from scratch?
11:50 – 12:31
How does the District balance ongoing maintenance needs with larger, longer-term improvement projects and how do we finance improvements? The District has ongoing capital facilities funding that is reserved solely for that purpose. For upgrades larger in scope, such as the rebuild of schools, the Canyons Board of Education has asked voters to approve general obligation bonds. CSD voters have approved two general obligation bonds in 16 years. Lease revenue bonds are another financing mechanism. The District also works to manage its money responsibly, often refinancing bonds to repay them earlier, saving taxpayers millions in interest payments.
13:53 -14:14
Seeing the rising cost of construction, Canyons wisely invested early in rebuilding its largest buildings, including high schools. Among some of the ongoing projects are upgrades at Jordan High, Hillcrest High, Corner Canyon High, and Eastmont Middle School. Another priority for the District is equitably distributing resources to ensure all students have access to high-quality programs.
16:13 – 16:36
School safety is another priority. Canyons began investing in security vestibules well before they became required under Utah law. Security vestibules steer visitors into the Main Office to check in before they ca
Welcome to Connect Canyons, a podcast sponsored by Canyon School District. This is a show about what we teach, how we teach and why we get up close and personal with some of the people who make our schools great Students, teachers, principals, parents and more. We meet national experts too. Learning is about making connections, so connect with us experts too.
Speaker 2:Learning is about making connections, so connect with us. Welcome to Connect Canyons, where we take you behind the scenes of public education and spotlight the people, projects and priorities shaping our schools. In the coming weeks, we're going to be trying something new Now. We often showcase standout programs and people in Canyons, but for this next little while, we thought we'd go behind the scenes to shine a light on the nuts and bolts of what makes a large school system tick. Today's episode isn't a topic that generally makes headlines, but has huge impact on students, teachers and communities, and that's school facilities.
Speaker 2:When Canyons was created in 2009, we inherited a portfolio of aging buildings, some of which hadn't seen major upgrades in decades. In just 16 years, we've made incredible strides, rebuilding or significantly remodeling 27 schools. These modernized buildings are safer, more efficient and designed with today's learners in mind. But the work isn't done. It's never done so. With dozens of buildings and millions of square feet to maintain, we're constantly juggling the day-to-day demands of upkeep Things like roofs, hvac systems and playgrounds while also planning for the future. So today we're talking with Canyons Facilities Associate Director Ryan Jakeman and Jordan High Principal Bruce Eschler. Welcome you two. We just want to chat a little bit about some of the major upgrades currently in the works and kind of about how we prioritize facility needs and how projects are funded. So why don't we just start out a little bit about kind of why you think Canyons has made it such a priority to upgrade our buildings or why that's important?
Speaker 4:I think from the school side, like you mentioned, where students learn where they grow, where they participate in their extracurricular activities, having facilities that allow them to not only be safe but also find ways to succeed through, I mean, like furniture matters.
Speaker 4:I mean here's a simple like thing. For example, like you know, as a principal who inherited a school that's about 30 years old, it had desks that really are not set up for the type of learning we do today. There were desks that are isolated, that make it difficult for students to work together, to collaborate, to do inquiry. So when you think about something as small as just or simple as a desk the desk is one of the most common things in any learning environment the way in which that piece of furniture is able to accommodate learning or not accommodate learning or create a friction for students' learning matters, and the same thing happens within our facilities. I mean, sorry, that's kind of like a maybe a little bit too minutiae, but you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:No, or it's like even the number of outlets right. In a room since we're using more technology.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so we've needed to make changes, create updates that allow our students to learn and participate, especially at the high school level, and extracurriculars in the current athletic, extracurricular, performing arts environment, not the environment of 30, 40 years ago, when these buildings were first envisioned.
Speaker 2:Right, we've probably added several newly sanctioned sports right in recent years and maybe some of older sports, like I think they used to have gymnastics those have kind of fallen by the wayside. So yeah, things are always changing.
Speaker 3:One of the things the district did when they first split off from Jordan was they had somebody do a facilities analysis of every one of the schools. It was based upon not only the components of the schools the HVAC, the doors, the roofs, that type of stuff, the seismic ability but they also did it based upon the learning environment, just like Bruce was just talking about. How functional is this for today's learning environment? You know what's the data like how many windows are in classrooms, those types of things and so that's been a good roadmap for the district to be able to accomplish what they've accomplished over the years.
Speaker 2:Right and I remember that, as I recall initially, the review of existing facilities, or in facilities that we inherited, identified something like $650 million in deferred upgrades right that we kind of had to wrestle with.
Speaker 4:So, yeah. And I think they graded them also, which was interesting because again we have they had grades Because initially, when we started looking at some of the facility upgrades that Jordan High needed, they went back to show some of that initial data they created and they did an updated version of that assessment and it was interesting to see how we can. Not only we're familiar with grades but grade is this functional for safety purposes? Is this functional for learning purposes? Is this great? Is this functional for access also?
Speaker 2:So we're talking about new buildings. I know, too, that a new building or an updated and well-kept building also adds to property values in the area. Right, it makes us all a little bit prouder as members of the community about where we live, work and play and I think, probably gives inspires students right To like, expect more of themselves. And I don't know, do you feel like you see that in school, in your school?
Speaker 4:I think it was really interesting when I, when I first became principal four years ago, I definitely had facility improvements on my mind for Jordan High. Again, the bones of the building are really good. It's location, there's lots of great things about my building, but there were things that definitely, when I talked with community members, when I talked with teachers and students, there was things they were concerned about and it was interesting. As I initially started collecting my data in the community, one of the things that was not on my radar but was a massive priority for the students, teachers and the community were restrooms.
Speaker 4:Restrooms was something that came out time and time again. So it is something that's interesting, things that sometimes we forget, that matter to students in the community and that you know is something that's very commonplace. You know that was huge for them. Sure, you know that was the top of their list of all the things they wanted to get fixed. It was the restrooms. Yeah, no, that was the top of their list of all the things they wanted to get fixed. It was the restrooms. Yeah, because they were not back to your question. They were very dissatisfied with the state of the current restrooms. They felt that was a reflection of other aspects of the building in general.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's funny to get excited about restrooms, but I've seen the ones that you're updating and they look fantastic. So let's back away a little bit and kind of talk about the big picture, right? So, like, how many schools or buildings facilities does our district maintain? What's the total square footage, ryan?
Speaker 3:There are 49 buildings at 6.2 million square feet. Wow, wow, so yeah, and they range from one-story buildings up to four-story buildings, some with sunken areas that you have to make sure has the proper water mitigation so it doesn't flood during spring runoff and such.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, I mean beyond, just like the upkeep of the building. In terms of like construction, we're always keeping our buildings maintained through our custodians, our grounds crews, right, like that's a that's a heavy lift.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, it is.
Speaker 2:And do you know, would you happen to know the age range?
Speaker 3:The oldest building is 1953 and the newest is 2023. Wow, which is Union 1953.
Speaker 2:How do you so? We talked a little bit about how we had done that assessment of the districts right and kind of ranked them. How do you do that? How do you rank the urgency of different facilities, upgrades?
Speaker 3:It's not just by got electrical systems and all of those have an estimated life expectancy, and so we use that as our primary role and take that to create an FCI, a facility condition index. If something has outlived its life expectancy, then we need to start looking at getting it repaired or replaced because it's on its last leg. And then we don't just solely go by life expectancy, though. We meet together as a facilities team and try and identify other problem areas to see, oh, this one's not lasting as long as it's supposed to, or this one's in fantastic shape, it's going to go another five years or more. And so we have that boots on the ground looking at our buildings every day that are taking note of this problem or that. You know, sometimes we've had a chiller that's been problematic and been breaking down well early before its life expectancy is up Right and you've been keeping it limping along.
Speaker 2:You're at a point where you're like, ah, do we have to replace this thing At?
Speaker 3:some point. We just need to bite the bullet and get it replaced, because we want our students comfortable and we want the learning experience to be a good place.
Speaker 2:Well, and then FCI. The way I understand it too, is a certain FCI score means it's actually more costly to upgrade than rebuild the facility altogether. Right, we've had buildings in that situation.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, because when I kind of liken it to, if you were to go build a car by buying pieces from AutoZone or Checker, you would be spending probably $150,000 for a $30,000, $40,000 car, because the individual prices are so much more than just tearing it down and rebuilding it, it down and rebuilding it Right.
Speaker 3:And then also, you don't want to be stuck in the technology of yesteryear. You know when these older buildings that we've gotten rid of a lot of the really old buildings Mount Jordan, midvale, middle those were very old buildings that it wasn't as adaptable to today's technology as today's buildings are. So, yeah, you can remodel it and do that, but you're still not getting the same bang for your buck as if you had torn it down and rebuilt it like we did, because now it's much more flexible, gotcha yeah, and I'm sure that equation, or kind of like what you're considering as part of that equation, is always changing a little bit.
Speaker 2:As we know, construction costs are pretty expensive nowadays. So that calculus is always kind of fluid, yep. So what do we? How do we budget for and balance maintaining or any ongoing maintenance needs, like you know, fixing HVAC units, replacing carpet? You know we have, you know a facilities fund right, but then we've got to like sort of balance that with kind of longer term, larger projects like the stuff that's happening at Bruce's right.
Speaker 3:At.
Speaker 2:Jordan High Yep.
Speaker 3:We go through a capital budget meeting each and every year and we figure out what the budget is and what our greatest needs are, and then we address those needs until the money runs out. And then a job like the one Bruce is in the middle of right now is a larger project than even that money would allow for, and that's where we go out for the various bonds, or for I believe this last one was a.
Speaker 2:Lease revenue bond. Lease revenue bond yeah, or general obligation bond right Yep.
Speaker 4:And I think you see that also happen like on a micro scale at the building level with principals, because you may have certain, there's some small projects that we work on in collaboration with districts and facilities, like simple things, like maybe putting in new lighting in a particular space, something that necessarily does not require a capital project, but it's something that is a needed facility improvement where we work with facilities and getting that bidded out, find out, and because as principals we have we have some facilities money that we get to use to. I mean, I go back to that desk example. I knew where we were on our current kind of this older model of desk that doesn't really facilitate collaboration. They're falling apart and I've had a you know a plan over the last, even before I showed up, you know number of years how are we going to switch out these desks or desks that are more usable and that may again be smaller facilities projects, whether it's lighting, whether it's maybe adding a wall, taking away a wall.
Speaker 4:It's interesting to see the different, the small projects we can still do, even as a school level. But we're following a similar process of I make a priority list with my teachers every year so I get to know where we are on projects. I keep track of that. Things I can't do one year, that gets moved over to the next year yeah, yeah, no, and that that's kind of like at the district level too.
Speaker 2:Right, you've got this list of priorities and it's probably important for principals to keep in mind that some some mishap could sort of like upend that list, right, like maybe, like you said, a boiler going down at a school that we didn't expect. All of a sudden we've got to replace that and that just kind of throws the list off a little bit. The priority list, um. So I know we've talked a little bit about, um, what we've already invested in. Right, let's talk about some of the projects that we have underway. So we've got some rebuild happening on Eastmont Middle. We've got some additions being made to Corner Canyon with the Fieldhouse, correct, corner Canyon High School, and then Hillcrest High, we're adding a lane right for their tracks, bringing it up to UHSAA standard, or I should say the state's competition standard. And then let's talk, right, bruce, tell us what's happening at Jordan besides the bathrooms.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so we've got a number of things going on. One of the first projects that was finished was a parking lot that was added on the west side of our property because we lost parking for the I think, most kind of exciting new addition that's coming to Jordan High, where we're getting some additional performing arts and PE space and athletic spaces. So over right off Sagalilly, what used to be parking is now a big mound of dirt and then within a year's time that will turn into a new black box theater for a performing arts department as well as a indoor practice facility for our PE and our PE and athletic activities. And the nice thing is, I think what I'm most excited about that new space is we're seeing, you know, multi-use going on where we didn't have a black box theater. Most high schools have a black box theater, so that's going to add value to our performing arts department.
Speaker 4:In addition, and then we also are getting some great new space for both PE and our athletics department. There'll be some additional offices over there. In addition to that build, we are adding a softball clubhouse. We want to make sure that all of our sports get the attention and the resources they need. They're also going to be doing an upgrade to our auditorium I'm sorry, an upgrade to our auditorium for lighting and sound. It's pretty unfortunately dated and speakers blow out over time.
Speaker 4:And they're going to be adding some additional AV in our gyms and a couple of our performing arts classrooms. So yeah, and that's those are kind of the big projects that are happening right now. Oh, and I forgot, sorry, the secure vestibule. Oh, yes, yes, so our new front office will change. So to make sure that we're in compliance with safety standards for our front office entrance, our entire front office is getting re-envisioned so we can add that extra layer of security for patrons and students as they're coming into the building.
Speaker 2:Right, and a lot of those upgrades, it sounds to me, are kind of bringing Jordan up in line with what's available at the other schools, right, Correct. We really work to be equitable in our allocation of resources. And then the security vestibules we're putting those in other schools as well, right, ryan?
Speaker 3:Jordan is actually the last one.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:We've done every other school. The one just before his was Corner Canyon, and that was done as part of their project. Theirs didn't take as much infrastructure as bruce's did, so we were able to get that one completed in a much earlier and quicker time frame and I think most of our community is pretty familiar with how those work.
Speaker 2:But in essence a security vestibule steers all visitors through the front door into the office before they can get inside the rest of the school, right where they have to check in as a visitor or what have you? Or show ID if they're checking out a student, right.
Speaker 4:Then office staff then have to buzz them in so they can get into the actual school proper, as it were.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, so, and that's now a requirement of state law. But we already had kind of that as a model right, that that we were slowing it or not slowly, actually fairly rapidly adopting, yeah or not slowly actually fairly rapidly adopting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we only had two schools when House Bill 84 had passed that did not have that.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. So space planning is also an important part of facilities management, right? How do we?
Speaker 4:evaluate and optimize how space is used across the district. So on a building level, and this is kind of especially as the educational environment changes. So let me a really good example is a computer lab. So that's so, so.
Speaker 4:So, for for a long time lots of schools had, you know, dedicated hardwire computer labs. They were the the. When I was a child, which is a long time ago, they didn't exist. But then but they were, you know, at one point they were state of the art. They were things that every school needed.
Speaker 4:But as we have, as our technology has improved, as we've been able to get access to Wi-Fi, as we've been able to access other devices, whether they're iPads or Chromebooks, the kind of stable computer lab where the children have to leave their learning environment to go to a separate place to learn, changed. So, for example, a lot of buildings like mine, that kind of, are older. I've got some classes that are no longer. At once they were wired for a computer lab, but they're no longer a computer lab anymore because I don't need them. So we then look at, say okay, if this is not being utilized into its fullest potential, or even necessary potential at the time where, what else could we do with that. So, for example, I've got a class that we have a budding aviation program at my school.
Speaker 1:So we started with drones.
Speaker 4:We moved to some additional CTE aviation classes and we put in some grants and was able to buy some flight simulators. You know what I mean. So some of that one of those you know what once was a computer lab is now going to have. Fortunately, it's still got all the plugs, all the things we need. It's all hardwired but I don't need it as a computer lab, but it works great now for my flight simulation lab. So sometimes we make these changes where we, the classes of you know 10 years ago don't exist or not necessary, so how?
Speaker 4:do we need to make tweaks or even just put something, move something else in? Sure, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah and then you know, of course, programming. So programming, right, and then staffing levels as well, right, like based on your enrollment, I know, like on a district level, right, that's one of the challenges that we're looking at right is that we've got, due to the decline enrollment, which is largely driven by the baby bust, right, people aren't having as many children as they used to. We're no longer in fact replacing ourselves anymore with our children, even in Utah right, which has always been right up there, and so that, like, as enrollments sort of like decline or fluctuate even from grade level to grade level, right, you are always sort of assessing, you know where are you putting this class?
Speaker 4:Where are you putting this teacher? And there's maybe another good example that like physically kind of illustrates that better now, when I think about it, is the additions of teen centers to some schools.
Speaker 4:So, many of our schools have, you know, anywhere from like eight to 12% of our students who are in homelessness or transitioning to homelessness. A variety of you know who definitely need additional supports, and so the legislature had set aside some money for schools to put in what they call teen centers. But these are spaces that typically have dedicated showers and bathrooms and some laundering and areas where students who may not have access to those resources at home because they don't have a home, can access that at school. So when we, as you pointed out, as enrollments have changed, as spaces have changed, because Jordan High School was built for schooling 30 years ago, we're able to evaluate and say, okay, we've got some classrooms that are potentially underutilized or not utilized to their full potential and that maybe we don't need them as a classroom anymore.
Speaker 4:So initially we looked and we saw this funding was available. Well, where could we put it in one of these teen centers? So we had to look at our possible options of like we move this class someplace else. We realized we've got. We had to look at our possible options of like we move this class someplace else. We realized we had a space where there was a classroom. There was kind of like a small closet. And then there was this old addition that was connected to your black I forget what they're called.
Speaker 3:Darkroom.
Speaker 2:Darkroom you know what I mean which we don't need with photo anymore. Right, it's all digital now, right?
Speaker 4:So these are all kind of connected to each other. Yeah, photo anymore. Right, it's all digital now, right? So these are all kind of connected to each other. These spaces would make a great teen center. If you know, we just make some modifications, move this wall, you know what I mean. We have an exterior entry. So that was a process where we were able to see okay, here are our current needs. We didn't necessarily need that space from a teaching standpoint, Didn't need a darkroom anymore.
Speaker 2:So that modification made a lot of sense and has benefited in our current needs of our students, and it's been a great new space. Yeah, well and that. So that's an example. And then also, I mean I think we're always trying to sort of like make the most out of our buildings, right, like fill them to capacity but also use them to capacity, correct. So another example of a program I think you recently were able to help expand was the employee daycare program, right, which has been really popular with employees. But yeah, so that's another example.
Speaker 2:I think we're adding an addition to Brighton for this next fall to grow that because it's been so popular. So yeah, we're definitely not. Education is not one-size-fits-all by any stretch of the imagination. Well, let's talk about what are some of the biggest facilities challenges on the horizon for our district, I mean Ryan.
Speaker 4:I mean.
Speaker 4:So I know one thing that I can speak to is galvanized pipes and other types of plumbing issues. Those are things we don't really think about. But, like with older buildings, you know like there's fixtures and things that they have due dates, as it were, or like a roof. You know what I mean. I mean even before I came to Jordan. There are things that we always have to repair and fix so we have a functional facility. You know and I know that, at least for my own building that those are on their radar and I know that there's there's there's similar issues in other buildings around the district.
Speaker 3:He mentions the galvanized pipe, and sometimes those are literally embedded in the wall a masonry wall and so it's not very feasible to pull it out and run a new copper pipe in there. So in Bruce's scenario we're actually having to fur out the walls, leave the galvanized pipe in the masonry wall and just run the new copper in the new wall in front of it. Wow, so that adds quite a bit of cost to the project, but it's still cheaper than tearing down a masonry wall and rebuilding a masonry wall.
Speaker 2:Right, right, yes, oh, that's fascinating, Like you don't, yeah, you don't think about those things, right?
Speaker 3:Right, right, that's probably one of the big things that we do fight with. Is that a lot of the stuff? Bruce mentions the roofs yeah, nobody ever knows that the roof is in bad condition or great condition, except for when there's a leak and we get on those really, really quickly. But how long do you keep limping that roof along before you just need to bite the bullet and and spend a good chunk of money and nobody sees anything has really changed at the school yeah, and that's a pretty.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's a pretty common project, right, that we're doing from year to year as. I recall I've seen like lots of recarpeting.
Speaker 3:Well, yes, Lots of roofs. For example, a roof today we expect to have, it's got a 30 year warranty on it.
Speaker 2:I think that's longer than my roof.
Speaker 3:Okay, so it, but times that by 45 schools. That's not even counting all of the buildings. Even if we did one every year, you're having to get an extra 15 years out of that roof to get Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they come on pretty frequently. Yeah, Another one. I see a lot is parking lots Like. For a while there we were making a big push to improve parking lots, the flow for safety, right. Yes, but I don't know if that's still on the radar for us, like what are some of the other capital it's always on the radar.
Speaker 3:We always have the different components. Based upon that, we prioritize, based upon safety, security and overall climate of the school. You know, is it a safe and inviting school to come into? Does it look worn down? Is heating and air conditioning sufficient? Right, the lighting? Bruce made a good point about that. The lighting makes a huge difference, probably a money saver too, once you get more efficient systems in there and bulbs and whatnot.
Speaker 2:So I know, from a safety standpoint, we really invested in seismic, we've invested in the security of vestibules, we've done a lot with regard to school safety from the standpoint of fencing and the TCU, like our PA systems right, which sort of like connect with our abilities to like lock down a school, like shut the doors and that kind of thing, cameras have been a significant Cameras.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, huge surveillance cameras right.
Speaker 2:All of our schools are up to the same right Like level of surveillance.
Speaker 3:We have a district standard, standard system. They're all in the same system. Each footprint is a little bit different, so each school has varying numbers of cameras, but we have them spaced and the same views pretty much at all the schools.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's kind of more of an updated system than we had before Nice kind of clear pictures.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a digital system.
Speaker 2:Anything that I'm missing. Is there something you wish more people knew about? The behind-the-scenes work that goes on to keeping our schools safe?
Speaker 4:I would like to give a shout-out to all of our facilities staff, both at the school level and also at the district level. I don't think people realize how, especially at a large high school, how many hours, how many people put their blood, sweat and tears in assuring that trash cans are emptied. Things are working, that when all of a sudden, because again pipe bursts or something like that and I've seen those both at you know, at my current position and other positions you know things, things just like at anyone's home, things are going to break.
Speaker 4:You know what I mean. And we have such amazing staff who, you know, bend over backwards to ensure that we can keep the school operating, keep the school safe, keep the school like, so kids and teachers are able to do what they need to do teach and learn and I think a lot of times our facility staff people just don't either notice they're there or they don't, or they just don't recognize all of the work they're doing.
Speaker 4:I mean, like it just is, it's a big shout out to them and all they do, because none of us would have the functioning and the awesome school programs that we have without their dedication.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and high schools, honestly, they're like open 24-7. It feels like you've always got something going on there, 100%, and you need those, that staffing there to help with those events, like baseball right, like the concert choir, like the play, the school musical, you name it. Also, I think it's important to note that our facilities belong to the public right and we make them available to the public After hours. People are able to use our running tracks, they're able to run around on our fields. We rent the facilities out for different activities. So, yeah, these are truly assets for the community, not just for the education of children, which is vitally important, but they're assets for everyone to use. Anything else that you would like us to know, ryan, about how many people work in facilities altogether, your entire staff? How many people work in facilities altogether, your entire staff? Because you've got like at least one custodian for every school, probably for high schools, what? Three or four, five?
Speaker 4:Well, I mean you have. So I've got an AFM and I've got their leads. I mean I've got probably Sweepers and then their sweepers.
Speaker 3:That's where I was like I mean maintenance is about 70-ish people just in maintenance, full-time staff. I mean maintenance is about 70-ish people just in maintenance.
Speaker 4:Full-time staff. I probably have got like six, seven. That's Jordan High alone, yeah.
Speaker 3:So, wow and that's just full-time staff. Yeah, and then you add. So yeah, I don't have that number right off the top.
Speaker 2:And we have electricians, right, we have yeah.
Speaker 3:We have journeymen electricians, we have master electricians, master plumbers.
Speaker 4:We're very blessed in that regard as far as the maintenance Painting crew, key crew, yep, locksmith, locksmith yep.
Speaker 3:Bruce mentioned the cameras and the card access Our security team, fire suppression systems. All of those types of things require a great deal of maintenance.
Speaker 2:And I think having that in-house probably saves money right, Rather than going outside with an outside vendor.
Speaker 3:And, I will say, better service. That is by far the biggest advantage of doing those things in-house is our people care about the buildings, they care about them, they get to know the teachers, get to know the administration that they're dealing with and they want to satisfy them. A contractor we use plenty of contractors and they are great, but they don't have those relationships and that desire to go above and beyond.
Speaker 2:Well, they're available right now, right they're our jump and run guys and girls, and they establish relationships with students too right. Yep, yeah, I think that's fantastic. Well, I think we've covered everything, but maybe not everything. There's always something more. But I thank you both for joining me taking your time in a busy May at the end of the school year. So thank you both.
Speaker 3:Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2:You've been listening to Connect Canyons. I'm your host, Kirsten Stewart. If you liked this episode, give us a thumbs up and be sure to subscribe and tell your friends.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to this episode of Connect Canyons. Connect with us on Twitter, facebook or Instagram at Canyons District or on our website, canyonsdistrictorg.
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