The Protocol

Practical writing on
school facilities operations.

No vendor sponsorships. No listicles. Just grounded thinking on preventative maintenance, operations design, and the decisions that keep schools running — from people who've spent time on the floor.

Preventative Maintenance
Featured

Why most school PM programs fail before the first quarter ends

Preventative maintenance programs get started every year in school districts across the country. Most don't survive the first semester. The problem isn't that facilities teams don't want to do PM work — it's that the programs are designed for steady-state operations, not for the actual rhythm of a school year.

February 2026 · 8 min read
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From the field.
For the field.

Written for facilities directors, operations leads, and the technicians doing the actual work.

Seasonal Operations
The summer shutdown checklist your school actually needs
Summer is the one window when schools can do meaningful preventative work without disrupting instruction. Most teams don't use it as well as they could. Here's how to structure it.
January 2026 · 7 min read
HVAC
Aligning HVAC maintenance to the school calendar — not the manufacturer's schedule
Manufacturer PM schedules are designed for year-round commercial operation. School buildings run on a completely different cycle. Here's how to adapt your HVAC program accordingly.
January 2026 · 6 min read
Operations
The institutional knowledge problem: what happens when your best tech retires
In most school facilities departments, 80% of the critical operational knowledge lives in 2–3 people's heads. When they leave, it leaves with them. Here's how to change that before it happens.
December 2025 · 9 min read
Work Orders
Why work order intake is the most underrated part of school maintenance
Most facilities problems get reported too late, through the wrong channel, or not at all. The fix isn't better technicians — it's better intake. What a good system actually looks like.
December 2025 · 5 min read
Budget & Finance
The deferred maintenance math no one wants to do
Deferring a $3,000 HVAC service call can easily turn into a $25,000 emergency replacement. The math on deferred maintenance is brutal — and most schools are living it without realizing the full cost.
November 2025 · 6 min read
Asset Management
QR codes in school facilities: what works, what doesn't, and what to do first
QR-based asset tracking sounds great in theory. In practice, it only works if the implementation matches how technicians actually move through a building. Here's what we've learned from real deployments.
November 2025 · 7 min read
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New articles on school facilities operations, preventative maintenance, and the decisions that keep campuses running. No fluff, no vendor content — just honest writing from the field. Published when we have something worth saying.

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