Oswego School District 308 now has a plan for addressing the district’s facility needs.

School board members recently approved a long-range plan broken down into three phases: facility condition assessment, educational alignment and long-range facility planning.

District 308 officials said because of the population growth of the Oswego area in the early 2000s, many of the district’s schools were built around the same time and need updates to HVAC units, roofs and flooring.

The school district serves portions of Kendall, Will and Kane counties.

Eighty percent of the district’s buildings were constructed between 1995 and 2010. As architectural, engineering and construction firm Wight & Company noted, the district has been taking care of its buildings and no building is in critical condition.

In putting together the plan, the district held a series of community meetings.

“I’ve been very happy with the engagement activities around this plan and how much input we got from the community about what they wanted to see in our facilities over the years,” board member Amy Murillo said. “And overall, I think we’re doing a really good job with that, of getting feedback in a variety of circumstances.”

Murillo said the district will now have to set priorities as far as what should happen first.

“I think that is the next step in the works, to figure out what comes first and what resources we’re going to use to make it happen,” she said.

Board vice president Heather Martin said she is excited about having a framework “that we can use the guide the future of the district.”

Educational alignment is something that was looked at as part of the master facility plan.

“Educational alignment is a term that simply means we’re going to look at what would it take to better align the interior learning environments and the site learning environments with the goals of the district’s strategic plans,” Stuart Brodsky, principal with Wight & Company, had told those attending a facility planning workshop at Murphy Junior High School in Plainfield.

To improve the educational alignment, the plan makes several suggestions about things that could be done at each building.

That includes modernizing the administrative spaces at Murphy Junior High, improving the science labs at Oswego High School and increasing student parking at Oswego East High School.

More information about the plan is available at the district’s website at sd308.org.