A facility condition assessment (FCA) is a systematic inventory of a building’s major systems — roofing, HVAC, electrical, plumbing, building envelope, interior finishes, and site improvements — paired with an evaluation of each system’s condition, remaining useful life, and estimated cost to repair or replace. Across a portfolio of school buildings, FCAs produce the baseline data that districts and states use to identify deficiencies, project capital needs, and plan investments.

Facility condition data and repair costs are used to calculate a Facility Condition Index (FCI). The FCI is an industry-standard metric used to objectively benchmark building condition. It is calculated as:

FCI = (Total Cost of Existing Renewal/Repair Costs) ÷ (Total Estimated Replacement Value)

FCI scores are typically expressed as percentages and categorized:

• Good: 0%–25%
• Fair: 26%–50%
• Poor: 51%–100%

FCI scores enables districts to categorize facility issues as minor, moderate, or major, providing a data-driven basis for capital improvement decisions.

The data generated through an FCA process are typically used to develop a prioritized deficiency list, a capital improvement plan, a master plan, and/or funding requests for project execution. District-wide FCI scores are used to rank and prioritize facility upgrades, providing a key benchmark for comparing conditions across buildings and sites. But FCA data is not the sole input for these activities. Other sources, including routine maintenance inspections, energy audits, ADA accessibility audits, educational adequacy assessments, and environmental health assessments, also provide important information that should inform capital and master planning.

FCAs serve several connected purposes for K-12 school agencies:

• Capital planning. FCA data is the foundation of multi-year capital improvement plans. Without it, prioritizing repairs and replacements across a portfolio is largely guesswork.
• Deferred maintenance quantification. Aggregated FCA findings produce the dollar figures that districts and states use to communicate the scale of facility need to boards, legislatures, and the public.
• Bond justification. Districts pursuing capital bond referenda rely on FCA data to demonstrate need and build community support. Several districts featured below built bond campaigns on assessment data.
• Disproportionate burden analysis. Comparing conditions across schools and districts surfaces where students are bearing disproportionate impacts from building deficiencies. Disproportionate burden analysis has shaped policy responses in Maryland, Ohio, and elsewhere.
• State-level case-making. For state education agencies, statewide FCA programs produce the cross-district data needed to advocate for funding, set baseline standards, and target support. As Dean Dykstra, school construction and facilities specialist for the Utah State Board of Education, argues in Building the Case for Better Facilities, statewide assessment is what turns local conditions into a state policy conversation.

FCAs are valuable for portfolio-wide system inventory, condition baselining, cost estimation, and identifying where major system failures cluster. But they can also be misunderstood — and that misunderstanding can lead districts to defer urgent repairs, mask the day-to-day conditions students and staff actually experience, and treat a building as adequate because its systems nominally operate.

In Building the Bridge from Assessment to Adequacy, Jerry Roseman, Acting Director of Environmental Science and Occupational Safety & Health for the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, draws the distinction that practitioners need to hold onto: FCI measures capital condition — dollars needed for repair versus replacement, and system age. Adequacy measures delivered condition — whether the building actually provides safe, dry, warm, ventilated, and dignified spaces day to day. A building can receive a low FCI score (suggesting it is in reasonably good condition) and still have classrooms where temperature control has failed, ventilation is insufficient, bathrooms are unusable, or mold is visible. Alternatively, a building with a high FCI (indicating it is in poor condition) can still be delivering functionally adequate conditions because someone is actively managing the gap between system ratings and actual performance.

To bridge that gap, Roseman suggests that an FCA should be paired with three other inputs: a structured maintenance & operations (M&O) assessment that includes work order history and system performance; structured input from the staff and students who experience building conditions daily; and an environmental condition assessment addressing indoor air quality, hazards, and health impacts. Roseman shares specific steps districts can take to use FCA data effectively.

NCSI has published a set of resources to help school districts plan for, scope, and manage facility condition assessments. These tools are designed to support school district leaders, facilities staff, and decision-makers in working with credentialed professionals to conduct FCAs. While these tools are not a substitute for professional assessment, they can help guide a district’s efforts to assemble high-quality FCA data:

• FCA Scope Definition Worksheet and Guide — A 14-section scoping tool that districts complete before drafting an RFP for consultant-led FCAs, along with a companion guide explaining each section’s decisions and trade-offs. Built by James Hand, former Facilities Director at Fargo Public Schools, and developed for NCSI with contributions from Brandon Payne, Jeff Vincent, Rob Olsen, and David Sturtz.
• FCA Manual — Step-by-step procedure, system-by-system guidance, and cost-estimating approach. The FCA Manual is the foundation for understanding what an FCA covers, how data is collected, and how results are interpreted.
• FCA Workbook — Companion Excel workbook for compiling, organizing, and analyzing building data, with cost models districts adapt to local market conditions.

For an introduction to all three tools, see Jeff Vincent’s blog post NCSI Tools for Conducting Facility Condition Assessments.

Districts and states approach FCAs at different scales and for different purposes. A few examples surface the range:

Fargo Public Schools (ND). Former Facilities Director James Hand led the FCA work that became the foundation for NCSI’s FCA Scope Definition Worksheet. His approach across an 11,000-student district informed both the methodology and the practical guidance now used by other districts. Listen to the Stretched podcast episode with James Hand.

Boston Public Schools (MA). BPS uses FCA data as one input into the district’s Long-Term Facilities Plan, alongside its High-Quality Student Experience framework and Building Experience Scores. The combined approach connects physical condition to educational program decisions and has shaped major investments like the Quincy and Carter projects.

Maryland. Maryland is one of a small group of states — along with New Mexico, Wyoming, and Rhode Island — that have completed a statewide assessment of school facilities. Maryland’s Interagency Commission on School Construction’s Statewide Facilities Assessment covers approximately 1,400 schools on a refresh cycle that updates 25% of the portfolio each year, producing the cross-district data the state uses for funding decisions.

Ohio. The Ohio Facilities Construction Commission (OFCC) supports districts in building their own FCA capacity. Melanie Drerup’s blog post It Takes a Village describes how OFCC’s model gives districts the tools and training to maintain assessment data over time.

Why state-level work matters

Improving Facility Condition Assessment (FCA) Outcomes: A Guide to the FCA Scope Definition Worksheet makes the case for consistent FCA scoping at the state level: when LEAs across a state use compatible methodologies, data definitions, and reporting formats, the resulting data is comparable, defensible, and useful for state-level capital decisions. Without that consistency, statewide pictures are difficult to assemble even when individual districts have strong assessment data. State agencies considering policy or program development around FCAs may find the Guide a useful reference for the data-compatibility argument.

The Stretched podcast features leaders discussing facility conditions, capital planning, and the realities of running school facilities at scale.

• Jerry Roseman, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (two-part episode) — On the uses and limitations of FCAs, the case for pairing assessment with M&O data and stakeholder input, and how districts can build the bridge from assessment to adequacy.
• James Hand, Fargo Public Schools (ND) — On the district-led approach behind NCSI’s Scope Definition Worksheet.
• Dr. Julius Monk, Guilford County Schools (NC) — On using facility condition data to inform a $2 billion bond campaign.
• Dr. William Merritt, Jackson Public Schools (MS) — On managing facility decisions in a district with declining enrollment.