FACILITIES MASTER PLAN AWARD WINNING
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
Sacramento City Unified School District
One of the first equity-based facilities master plans in California — a groundbreaking model that redefined how a district sees, understands, and invests in its schools by centering historical inequity, community voice, and data together for the first time.
CASH / AHA CALIFORNIA
Leroy F. Green Design + Planning Award of Excellence
CALIFORNIA SCHOOL BOARD ASSOCIATION
Golden Bell Award — Equity & Access
BACKGROUND
A New Standard for Facilities Planning
When Sacramento City Unified School District partnered with RSSC, they were looking for more than a typical facilities assessment. They wanted to understand — honestly and transparently — which schools had been chronically underinvested, which communities had been overlooked, and what an equitable path forward would require.
The result was one of California's first equity-based facilities master plans: a pioneering body of work that earned national recognition and established a new methodology that RSSC continues to advance across the state.
"Equity is not a checkbox — it is a lens that must be applied to every data point, every community conversation, and every dollar of capital investment."
THE CHALLENGE
Seeing the Full Picture
Facilities planning in large urban districts often relies on a single lens — typically facility condition data alone. This approach misses the deeper story: how decades of disinvestment, redlining, and policy decisions have concentrated poor facility conditions in the same communities that have historically had the least access to resources.
RSSC's charge was to design a process that could reveal these patterns, name them clearly, and build community and institutional will to address them in a sustained, principled way.
METHODOLOGY
Groundbreaking Data Integration
RSSC developed a landmark approach to data layering that combined multiple sources into a unified equity picture for every school in the district:
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Facility Condition Assessments (FCA) — detailed physical condition data for each campus
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California Dashboard indicators — student academic outcomes, chronic absenteeism, graduation rates
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Neighborhood equity indices — CDC Social Vulnerability Index, local economic indicators, and demographic data
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Historical analysis — redlining maps, policy histories, and patterns of community investment and disinvestment
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Community listening — qualitative data from students, families, staff, and community members
INNOVATION
A Living Story Map
Rather than producing a static PDF report destined for a shelf, RSSC created a web-based story map — an interactive, publicly accessible digital platform that brought the equity analysis to life for community members, board trustees, and district leaders alike.
The story map allowed users to explore neighborhood-level data, understand the historical context of facility conditions, and connect quantitative data to the lived experiences of students and families. This tool became a national model and has since been adapted for subsequent RSSC projects including Fresno Unified and Austin ISD.
KEY DELIVERABLES
What We Built Together
Equity-Based Facilities Master Plan
Web-Based Interactive Story Map
Historical Equity Narrative
Prioritization Framework
District-Wide Equity Index
FCA + Dashboard Data Integration
Community Engagement Record
Capital Investment Recommendations
RECOGNITION
National Awards
The SCUSD equity-based facilities master plan earned two prestigious recognitions:
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CASH / AIA California Leroy F. Green Design + Planning Award of Excellence — the highest honor in California for school planning and design, recognizing innovation and community impact
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California School Boards Association Golden Bell Award in Equity & Access — recognizing programs that advance equity, access, and opportunity for all students
These awards affirmed not just the quality of the plan, but its lasting impact on how California districts approach the intersection of facilities, equity, and community.
PROJECT DETAILS
DISTRICT
Sacramento City Unified School District
LOCATION
Sacramento, California
PROJECT TYPE
Equity-Based Facilities Master Plan
PROJECT START
2021
STATUS
✓ Completed
AWARDS
CASH /AHA CALIFORNIA
Leroy F. Green Design + Planning Award of Excellence
CALIFORNIA SCHOOL BOARD ASSOCIATION
Golden Bell Award — Equity & Access
SERVICE PROVIDED
Equity-Centered Planning · Data Analysis · Community Engagement · Story Map Development · Equity Index Creation · Prioritization Framework