District-Wide Facilities Master Plan
Restoring community trust through transparency of district-wide investment priorities
CHALLENGE
Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) has lost 15,000 students in the past 15 years. A series of school closures meant to address this decline had a disproportionate impact on Oakland’s students and communities of color. Despite significant facility investments made in 2014, many campuses, particularly those in low-income communities, still needed sizable upgrades and investments. In 2019, the district enlisted MKThink to help restore community trust in OUSD’s facility master planning process and secure voter support for a general obligation bond to fund the improvements.
APPROACH
In order to reestablish faith in the school district and best serve the community, MKThink created a framework that combined current and reliable facility data and meaningful community stakeholder engagement to inform and prioritize project investments. The team captured, validated, and assessed data derived from the district’s “Citywide Planning” process and translated it into this framework for establishing and prioritizing $3.3B in capital project needs.
RESULT
MKThink’s Facility Master Plan process created a transparent framework for prioritizing capital improvements that restored community trust in the facility decision-making process. This trust translated into 78% approval of the Measure Y bond initiative, which is funding $735 MM in facility upgrades across five categories of need.
CLIENT
Oakland Unified School District
SERVICES
Facilities Master Plan
LOCATION
Oakland, CA
SIZE/SCALE
6M GSF
MARKET
K-12 Education
ACCOUNT HISTORY
Portfolio Assessment 2008
Asset Management Plan 2009
Facilities Master Plan 2012
Education Specifications 2013
Facilities Master Plan 2019 - 2020
Central Office Optimization 2020-2021