Facilities management software for schools turns each repair request, from a cold classroom to a leaking sink, into a work order tied to a building, room, and equipment. It also schedules recurring HVAC and safety checks and keeps the history your board and auditors ask for.
Key takeaways
A helpdesk and PSA (professional services automation) a small IT team can run alone, with maintenance work orders in the same helpdesk. No implementation project. No dedicated admin.
Recommendation
Choose SherpaDesk if one small team handles IT tickets and maintenance work orders. Recurring schedules create and assign maintenance tickets. K-12 pricing is by student enrollment; ask sales for a quote.
Consider another option if you also need facility reservations (FMX, Follett) or interactive floor plans (Follett). Compare
It is the system of record for the physical school: who asked for what, in which room, who fixed it, and what it cost. Each work order should carry the building and room, the request type, a requested date, labor and parts, a sign-off, and the equipment where there is one. EPA's school maintenance guidance names CMMS (computerized maintenance management system) tools as one way to log maintenance and repair frequency.
Districts buy one of four kinds of tool.
| Type | Fits when | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| General CMMS | A maintenance crew wants work orders and preventive schedules only | Check how IT requests would be handled |
| K-12 operations suite | One vendor should cover facilities, events, and IT | Ask which modules the quote includes |
| Helpdesk with work orders | One small team answers IT and maintenance requests | Check floor plans and reservations if you need them |
| Form plus spreadsheet | A few requests a week, one person | Schedules and history are kept by hand |
Facility failures cost instruction time. GAO estimates that 19 percent of districts canceled school in 2024-25 due to a facilities issue. About 2 million students lost an estimated 3.5 million days of learning. Top reasons included plumbing emergencies and extreme classroom temperatures.
GAO also estimates that 47 percent of districts had chronic facility issues that often disrupted learning. Districts with limited capacity for preventive maintenance had more of them.
Money is short too. The 2025 State of Our Schools report, corrected in January 2026, finds districts are underfunded for maintenance and operations by $29.3 billion a year, or $810 per student. For the technology side, see our guide to IT support for schools.
A teacher should name the school, the room, the request type, and a requested date. The software should route by type, so a broken heater skips the IT queue. A restroom leak has no equipment record: it needs an owner in custodial or plumbing and a completion check, such as a dry floor, before it closes.
Preventive maintenance is work you schedule before something breaks. EPA's guidance says putting it off "usually increases overall costs, unplanned repairs". Its sample annual timeline gives a starting rhythm.
| Equipment | Times per year |
|---|---|
| Boilers | 4 |
| Air handling units | 4 |
| Unit ventilators | 4 |
| Packaged A/C units | 4 |
| Filters | 2–4 |
| Chillers: oil levels and operation | 52 |
These are EPA's 2019 sample frequencies, adapted from NYSERDA; check each manufacturer's schedule.
Count your preventive work orders
units × visits per unit per year. Your numbers stay in the browser.
Example: 40 units serviced quarterly make 160 work orders a year. See our guide to helpdesk automation for scheduled tickets.
Each rooftop unit, boiler, and pump needs one record with its location, work orders, parts, and labor. For student devices, see our guide to school asset management software.
A sign-off shows the work was done. EPA's timeline is meant to "demonstrate the proper maintenance you perform in each building in your district".
EPA says a maintenance log "will help justify your expenses for preventive maintenance and your capital expenses". Give the board work orders by building and cost by equipment.
Intake and product count are separate choices. Either way, a joint request, such as a door controller needing power and network, gets one lead owner.
Intake. One form or address with a request type works with any setup. On r/k12sysadmin, one district's homegrown system is "basically one form where the end user enters their name, email, and chooses a department: IT or Maintenance". It serves 4 people in IT and 11 in maintenance who need access.
One product. Choose it when the teams share staff, rooms, or a coordinator. One working queue is enough when one dispatcher sets shared priorities; split queues when different technicians or access rights apply. An admin can still see both: "As the main admin I can see all helpdesk queues, they only see their own". Hand-off: the lead owner transfers the ticket or links a related one.
Two tools. Choose it when each department has its own budget owner and rarely shares work. Hand-off: the lead owner opens a linked ticket in the other tool. Budgets cause friction: on r/k12sysadmin, one technology team reports maintenance "constantly closing tickets we open" about network-closet rooms, over who pays.
Whichever you pick, write down who owns door access, HVAC controls, and cameras. For the IT side, see our helpdesk software for schools comparison.
Six habits that keep the record usable:
A teacher at Lincoln Elementary reports that Room 114 is too hot.
The teacher names the school, Room 114, the HVAC request type, and a requested date of December 4. Expected: all four on the ticket.
The request type sends it to the maintenance group. Expected: assigned, with the requested date visible.
The technician attaches the unit ventilator's record and logs parts and time. Expected: the repair and its cost show on the unit's history.
The teacher signs to confirm the room is cool. If the teacher is away, the principal signs as the named delegate. Expected: one signature recorded before the ticket closes.
Expected: the work order and its cost appear in next month's report for the school.
Common mistake: fixing the unit without linking the record. The third repair of the year then looks like the first.
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| Product | Fits when | Published price | Requester seats | Recurring maintenance | IT tickets in the same product | Free trial |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SherpaDesk Ours | One small team runs IT tickets and work orders | By student enrollment, no published figure | Requests by email become tickets; seat terms in the quote | Scheduled maintenance tickets | Yes | Ask sales |
| Incident IQ | You want one K-12 suite with onboarding included | By student enrollment and products chosen; demo for a quote | No added cost for users | Schedules with checklists | Yes, IT Ticketing module | Not stated |
| FMX | You also book events and track vehicles | Public K-12 by student enrollment, no figure; one-time implementation fee | Unlimited users, public K-12 | Preventive schedules | Yes | 14 days, set up with FMX |
| Follett Facilities Suite | You want floor plans, rentals, and capital data | Not published; demo | Not stated | Preventive schedules | IT-related work orders | Not stated |
| MaintainX | You want a general CMMS with a list price | Essential $20 per user per month billed annually, $25 billed monthly; time and cost tracking on Premium, $65 per user per month billed annually, $75 billed monthly | Requesters free | 2 active on Basic; unlimited from Essential | Not stated | Free Basic plan; trial length not stated |
Prices as of November 2026.
Run these on a trial account with made-up names. Each check has a result you can see.
How this works in SherpaDesk
You get a helpdesk and PSA a small IT team can run alone. Maintenance requests get their own class and custom form, and routing rules send them to a technician or group. User locations synced from Microsoft 365 can carry building and room, such as "Building 123/Room12".
Scheduled Maintenance creates and assigns recurring maintenance tickets, which can include a To Do template. Requesters can ask for a service date, and printed tickets can carry a signature block. Equipment records keep location, work history, and service costs, and link to tickets. Custom reports can be emailed on a schedule.
For K-12 schools and districts, pricing is based on student enrollment, with no published figure. Ask our sales team at sales@sherpadesk.com for a quote.
Who this isn't for
Large districts running a dedicated CMMS with energy management and capital planning should keep it. For facility reservations or floor plans, look at FMX or Follett. Our maintenance work runs on scheduled maintenance tickets, To Do templates, a signature block, and requested service dates. We run only in the cloud.
Yes, if it routes by request type and limits who sees which queue. In one district on r/k12sysadmin, maintenance and student records share the IT helpdesk, each seeing only its own queue. Add recurring tickets and equipment records, or preventive work will live in a spreadsheet.
A CMMS logs maintenance work and repair frequency on equipment. School-focused products add pieces such as facility reservations and vehicle requests (FMX) or community rentals and floor plans (Follett). For work orders alone, a CMMS or a helpdesk with recurring tickets can be enough.
EPA's sample timeline lists boilers, air handling units, unit ventilators, and packaged A/C units four times a year. It lists filters two to four times, and chiller oil levels and operation weekly. Adjust each schedule to the manufacturer's manual and the building's use.
Often not. MaintainX makes requester accounts free. Incident IQ adds no cost for users, and FMX lets public K-12 schools add as many users as they need. Ask every vendor to price requesters, technicians, and view-only staff in writing before you sign.
Incident IQ, FMX for public K-12, and SherpaDesk quote by student enrollment; FMX adds a one-time implementation fee. MaintainX Essential is $20 per user per month billed annually. Ask for the price in years two and three in writing, not only the first.
Patrick co-founded SherpaDesk and has led it as CEO since 2013. He has worked with IT service providers since 1998, first on network projects for schools and government offices, then on the helpdesk software their technicians use every day.