Operations

Nearly 6 Million Square Feet. And a Whole Lot More.

The Operations Department oversees the management and function of the infrastructure for Iowa’s largest provider of public education. That includes overseeing 70 school district facilities encompassing almost 6 million square feet of space.

The Operations Department is divided into the following areas to makes sure that everything functions within and around these facilities:

• Construction Management: coordinates the renovation and new construction at schools throughout the community
• Custodial: provides clean and safe schools for students and teachers
• Facilities: makes sure our schools are operated both efficiently and safely
• Food & Nutrition: prepares, delivers and serves more than 25,000 meals each school day
• Preventive Maintenance: provides scheduled maintenance to optimize building equipment to assure a healthy educational environment.
• Print Shop: creates everything from handbooks to posters for DMPS schools and programs
• Purchasing & Central Stores: oversees acquisition of everything from paper to school busses
• Technology: manages hardware and software, including more than 17,000 computers, laptops and iPads in our schools and offices
• Transportation: operates more than 130 busses that log over 1.5 million miles each year

In addition, the Operations Department has led efforts which have made Des Moines Public Schools a national leader in energy conservation, receiving the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Top Overall Energy Performance award in July 2011 for leadership in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Forty-four schools have been designated as Energy Star® schools, rating in the top 25 percent on an energy performance scale.

For more information on the work of the Operations Department, please visit the links in the menu to the right.