It Takes a Village: How OFCC Empowers Districts to Create High Quality Learning Environments
Written by National Center on School Infrastructure (NCSI),
Representing diverse public sector voices from across the country, NCSI’s Advisory Committee members bring a wealth of expertise and experience from the field that has helped shape NCSI’s priorities. Over the course of this year, we are featuring Advisory Committee members speaking about insights gained through their work to drive school infrastructure improvements. Here we interviewed Melanie Drerup, who retired in July, 2025 after 31 years as the Chief Planning Officer for the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission to hear her reflections on the role that OFCC plays in supporting local school districts.
The Ohio Facilities Construction Commission (OFCC) supports high-quality planning, design and construction of public facilities by working with school districts and their communities, state agencies, planners, architects and builders. OFCC informs policy, disseminates information, and supports schools and districts in understanding the budgetary, architectural, and community parameters within which any construction project unfolds. Melanie Drerup retired from OFCC earlier this year, after serving as OFCC’s Chief Planning Officer for 31 years.
Drerup knows that any state-level body is only as good as the support it provides to local leaders in making on-the-ground decisions that ultimately benefit students. “There’s an expectation that we will deliver,” she explains. When she attends a building dedication and sees “teachers and students feeling like they are valued by the community,” she knows OFCC has done its job. “We want to inspire and encourage community engagement and educational visioning so that we get the best possible facilities for our kids.”
NCSI spoke with Melanie about her work with OFCC.
Q: What is the purpose of OFCC, and how can it serve as a model for infrastructure stewardship in other states?
Drerup: During my years at OFCC I had five goals:
- Cultivate partnerships for success.
- Be a good steward of resources we were entrusted to manage.
- Plan, design, and build equitable high-quality facilities that promote excellence.
- Administer projects that are well planned, on time, and on budget.
- Embrace innovation and encourage continuous growth.
The OFCC empowers school leaders with the tools needed to help achieve their educational vision. Any school construction project will need tools to help school leadership with the myriad functions that school construction, renovation, and stewardship entail. This includes technical support around facility condition assessments (FCA) and creating enrollment projections. It also includes guidance for communicating with the community, to do the work of educational visioning. We also created an Educational Planning Guide, which gives districts a step-by-step guide of the planning process including data collection, community engagement, educational visioning and the funding process; as well as the Ohio School Design Manual (OSDM), which defines quality material and system standards, square foot student guidelines and cost per square foot. These guidelines ensure each district is receiving equitable support whether we’re serving the poorest of our districts, or the wealthiest.
The OFCC is passionate about serving students. OFCC was created with some flexibility, such that when we feel strongly about something we can generally make it happen. At OFCC, we’re not educators. We’re simply trying to remove barriers to constructing the best educational learning environments so that the teachers can focus on teaching.
Q: How does OFCC support districts in Ohio to make the best possible facilities decisions for their students?
Drerup: Districts that enter OFCC programs are assigned a planner by OFCC. That planner helps guide the district through the FCA and facility master plan (FMP) processes. OFCC also provides facility and demographic data to help districts, to help their communities make informed decisions. Districts are encouraged to go through a community engagement process to help inform building size and grade configuration. This information is then used to develop the master plan, which in turn defines the scope and budget for each of the district’s buildings. OFCC also invites districts to Educational Visioning Workshops, to explore their educational frameworks and education specifications. OFCC positions these types of resources in ways that keep a central focus on students. These children are our future leaders, and we want to start them in life with the highest quality facilities we possibly can.
Q: What kind of supports does OFCC provide to districts?
Drerup: We maintain the policies around siting and construction. We have checklists that districts can use to make sure they are in compliance with state regulations on issues such as site safety allowances, square footage requirements, and financing. We also have more specific guidance materials for particular types of projects, for example, planning for career technical facilities.
We want to help our districts when they’re making these decisions, so we maintain informational resources and tools on the OFCC website that explain the parameters of what the state can support. It’s very helpful for districts to know what our state-level parameters are—here’s what the state can provide, here’s what the district would like to have, and how we can support districts’ facilities planning to pay for amenities beyond the state minimum.
We also maintain a K-12 project portfolio of schools built under our programs. The portfolio includes narrative, technical, and visual information about OFCC-supported projects across that state, so that districts can explore these facilities without having to spend their limited time and money on site visits.
Q: Why is partnership so central to the work of OFCC?
Drerup: We have an ethos at OFCC that “it takes a village.” We want our communities, our superintendents, our treasurers, and our school boards to understand that as well. At OFCC, we know we can make decisions top-down or we can make them in a way that lifts people up. We believe that every voice has value, and that everyone—from senior citizens to new parents—deserves a chance to weigh in on the question, “What do you need out of school facilities?” The facilities projects that OFCC helps districts build are once-in-a-lifetime investments. Those facilities need to serve the entire community, not just the school.
Q: What inspires you about your work, and what advice do you have for others working with school facilities and infrastructure?
Drerup: OFCC is very fortunate in that we are always trying to move the needle for student learning. We want our facilities to be able to adapt, to be agile. If districts decide they need to change how they deliver education, we want their facilities to support that. Equity, flexibility, and transparency are all critical. If other states can approach their work with those lenses, the technical assistance tools and processes will follow.
I was so fortunate to have spent 31 years at OFCC, and to impact so many students during my time there. I had the privilege of seeing our guidance in districts’ facilities master plans and in their construction plans. And then I’d see the school being built—there are tangible results!
I want to tell the story of OFCC in hopes that others can learn from it. I like telling our story because it is truly a wonderful story! That’s why I worked with OFCC for over 31 years—it’s all about how to build the best schools for our kids.