Building Excellence

Over the next two decades MMSD student enrollment will increase as the city of Madison continues to grow and prosper. Along with our students, families, staff and community, we are developing a set of planning tools called Building Excellence, to address this growth and ensure our facilities serve teaching and learning throughout the district.

A different kind of facilities planning process

Building Excellence is a living set of resources that will be used to initiate a new approach to long-range facility planning. Unlike a fixed plan that lays out a district-wide project list and timeline, our approach taps into an ever-growing database of information about each of the five project areas below (Attendance Areas, Community Growth Projections, Building Assessments, Instructional Design Needs, and Community Engagement). Building Excellence provides resources to identify and prioritize needs through a cyclical process that will allow for greater transparency and accountability, and this new approach will ensure that our facilities equitably serve teaching and learning needs district-wide.
Below you will find some of the resources that make up Building Excellence, which will be continuously updated to ensure decision-makers have the most accurate information to make facilities planning decisions. To learn more about our Capital Planning strategies that will be utilized for maintenance and major construction projects, please see slide 9 in the January Board of Education presentation.

Future Ready MMSD

The School Board is considering two referenda questions for the community to vote on in 2020 - one for facilities and one for operating expenses. Visit the Future Ready MMSD page to learn more.

Information about the Holtzman Property purchase

Throughout the 2018-19 school year, the Board of Education expressed the need to provide a more adequate learning space for special education programs that are showing positive potential for students. Based on detailed discussions regarding the programming options we had available, the number of available seats in the program, and reviews of program waitlists, the Board set into reserves approximately $5 million from the closing of three tax increment districts (TID #27, #32, and #43) to purchase a permanent location for the special education programs, credit recovery and alternatives to expulsion that currently are placed in a $243,000 leased space at Olin Avenue. Learn more here.

2015 Referendum Projects

In April 2015, Madison voters authorized funding for a forty-one million dollar ($41,000,000) school facility improvement plan. The projects occurred in sixteen MMSD schools during a thirty-six month period, ending June 30, 2018. A summary of the project and its outcome can be found here.

Attendance Areas

Community Growth Projections

Building Assessments

East High School Facilities Study and Assessment (2019), produced by Plunkett Raysich Architects, LLP
La Follette High School Study and Assessment (2019), produced by Plunkett Raysich Architects, LLP
Memorial High School Study and Assessment (2019), produced by Zimmerman Architectural Studios, Inc.
West High School Study and Assessment (2019), produced by Zimmerman Architectural Studios, Inc.
Periodic Table of Building Condition in MMSD (interactive version)
Educational Facility Condition Assessment , Plunkett Raysich Architects, LLP
Athletic Facility Assessment, Rettler Corporation

Instructional Design Needs

Community Engagement

Guiding Principles for Building Excellence, generated from community input and used moving forward to help guide facilities planning
Draft Criteria for Capital Improvement Plan Projects, informed by best practice nationwide and community input, and used moving forward to help evaluate potential CIP projects
Building Excellence Spring 2017 Engagement Plan, delivered to the Board in April 2017
Building ExcellenceSpring Engagement 2016: Perceptions and Vision, a 2016 report summarizing the major themes in student and staff perceptions of and vision for facilities
Plan for Engaging the Madison Community, delivered to the Madison Board of Education on July 18, 2016
2014 Analysis of Facilities Plan Feedback, a 2014 report about feedback on a draft facilities improvement plan

With this comprehensive information in hand, the Madison Board of Education can make insightful, proactive decisions about our school buildings that reflect our community’s priorities and values.

Research and Results

Read the full Community Engagement and Input Process Report (2021), prepared by the MMSD Research and Program Evaluation Office.

Referendum Thematic Findings Powerpoint Link

To understand the perspectives of families, students, community members, and staff regarding the post referendum facilities design process, MMSD’s Research and Program Evaluation Office conducted a series of 43 input sessions, sharing information with more than 1,000 participants and soliciting questions and comments from a wide array of community groups. In addition, MMSD launched two community-wide surveys through which community members were asked to share their input on the facilities design process. There were a total of 2,014 respondents (non-students, over age 18) and 1,678 student responses.

The major themes that emerged from the input sessions and qualitative survey data include

(1) School Culture and Climate
(2) Racial Equity and Social Justice
(3) Positive Learning Environments

Additionally, several sub-themes within each of these large categories were also identified and described in detail with the inclusion of anonymous, direct quotes from participants.

Timeline of developing these resources with your input

We are following a three-phase plan to engage our students, staff, families and community members in the development of this strategy. We are currently in Phase 3 and we need your feedback to move forward. Please read through the resources above and click below to give your feedback. Thank you!

Where can you learn more?

The July 18, 2016 presentation to the MMSD Board of Education by the research team
The January 23, 2017 presentation to the MMSD Board of Education Operations Work Group
The July 10, 2017 presentation to the MMSD Board of Education Operations Work Group
The December 11, 2017 presentation to the MMSD Board of Education Operations Work Group
The April 16, 2018 presentation to the MMSD Board of Education Operations Work Group

Long Range Facilities Plan

Find below all the links mentioned in the Draft Long Range Facilities Plan, in order of appearance. Please note that some links are repeated throughout the document but only appear on this page once.