The 2025 Healthy Green Schools & Colleges Virtual Fall Summit opened on Thursday, October 16th with our first session, an interactive discussion surfacing the pressing operational realities for the 2025–2026 school year.
K-12 and higher education facilities personnel, partners, and sponsors compared notes on what attendees collectively characterized as a ‘crazy, unpredictable, and hopeful year,’ and explored how facilities teams can keep buildings healthy and learning-ready amid shifting budgets, policies, and risks.
Participants highlighted challenges and opportunities across several themes:
Unpredictability & Resilience.
School representatives reported challenges to the start of school including first-week power outages, water constraints, and severe weather bursts (e.g., an inch of rain in hours) that stressed both structural systems and the facilities teams managing them. In addition, new realities, such large demonstrations and tear-gas incidents, are stretching emergency response and building protocols. All of these challenges underscore the value of clear standard operating procedures, emergency response, rapid communication, and adaptable teams.
Staffing and Scope of Services.
Many districts are still rebuilding teams after past cuts even as service expectations remain high. Practitioners emphasized publishing a transparent Scope of Services (i.e., cleaning tasks, standards, frequencies and response times, and required resourcing) tied to staffing and budgets. This helps leaders and boards see resourcing trade-offs clearly.
Indoor Air Quality (IAQ)
Participants shared concern that gains in indoor air quality ventilation and monitoring made throughout the COVID-19 pandemic are fading. There was strong interest in consistent standards for CO₂ sensor deployment and air quality monitoring, and in using district- and institution-level standards to guide action while broader state and federal policy evolves.
Equity in Procurement
Participants flagged active legal and policy changes that could affect M/W/DBE programs and equity-focused investments and vendor relationships. Teams are exploring steps to prepare for race-/gender-neutral approaches to procurement and service delivery that still reach marginalized suppliers.
The 2025 Healthy Green Schools & Colleges Virtual Fall Summit resumes next week with Session 2: Best Practices for Effective Staff Engagement, followed by Session 3: Innovative Models for Managing Mixed-Age Building Portfolios and Session 4: Emerging Opportunities for Safely Incorporating AI into Facilities Operations. We hope you’ll join us for the full series.