Our Mission
The mission of the Montgomery public Schools Operations Department is to provide facilities and support services to the schools and other departments in carrying out their mission objectives. Operations includes: Administrative Technology, Child Nutrition, Engineering and Construction, Facilities Maintenance, Logistics and Services, Safety and Security and Transportation. Operations impacts every facet of the education process from transporting over 15,000 students safely to and from school, providing nutritional breakfasts and lunches, providing safe and secure classrooms that are wired to the electronic world and providing support services to teachers, administrators and custodians.. This is a challenging task considering the age of our schools and administrative facilities and the low priority funding for support activities in the past.
Lack of funding from local sources has not prevented significant progress in areas where other funds could be applied for or used very judiciously. We have maximized the use of State funds to upgrade our bus fleet from an average age of over 15 years to an average age of three and a half years by January 2007. We have used the Federal Government’s Universal Service Fund (e-rate funds) to provide a top quality network tying schools together and providing access for students to the internet. We finance most of the new schools and additions to schools over the past few years by participating in State bond issues by committing future funding from the Public School and College Authority. We have used grants and special Sate and Federal program funds to install closed circuit TV camera surveillance in many of our schools to insure the safety of students and protect the facilities. We have worked hard to save Child Nutrition funds to improve the health conditions and sanitation in our lunchroom kitchens and serving areas and to provide new equipment where necessary. We also are providing air conditioning for our Child Nutrition workers who often have to work in temperatures exceeding 110 degrees Fahrenheit.
There is still much to be done, especially in the area of replacing or renovating older schools. The first phase of a three phase Facilities Improvement Program is just getting underway with commitments of $74 million from the city of Montgomery and the Montgomery County Commission and $18 million from the School Board. This support from the City (not the first) and the County Commission will help address the first $100 million of the most critical facility issues and will take approximately three and a half years to complete.
The second Phase of the Facilities Improvement Program, also about a $100 million, could begin earlier than 2009 as planned if funding becomes available as a result of a State wide referendum on the November 2006 ballot. A yes vote on the “minimum ten mills for education” referendum will fund the second phase of facility improvements.
Operations is currently awaiting word on a US Department of Education grant that will provide funding for training school administrators and teachers to respond to crises and major emergencies that might occur in schools. In May we conducted the first major response exercise to a shooting in a school by disgruntle students with full participation by county, city and state agencies along with SWAT personnel from Montgomery, Montgomery County, Alabama State Troopers, Prattville and Elmore County.