Easy truth - every educator and administrator in every school district shares a common goal: helping students achieve academic success. Hard truth - unlimited funding, perfect curriculum, and top-of-the-line devices, won’t drive academic success if students don’t feel safe, clean, and comfortable in the spaces where they learn.
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But in this time of declining enrollment and budgets, what can be done…a lot if you prioritize the right efforts.

Why Maslow Still Matters
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The landmark motivational theory introduced by Abraham Maslow in 1943, outlines five sequential tiers of human needs: physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and finally self-actualization—the pursuit of one’s full potential. Maslow’s theory suggests that individuals cannot focus on higher-level goals like learning or creativity until their more fundamental needs are consistently met. In 2025, this means that for students to truly focus, engage, and achieve, after food, shelter, and clothing they must have:

• Clean classrooms that are not too hot or too cold
• Operational restrooms that are well lit, stocked, and safe 
• Welcoming common spaces and entryways
• Maintained floors, walls, and halls
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In a post-Covid world, these aren’t luxuries—they’re prerequisites. And if we ignore them, we put student learning, teacher performance, and community trust at risk.

But Don’t Take Our Word For It
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The impact a physical environment has on student success has been a topic of major academic and governmental enquiry. And the data is clear, when facilities are clean and safe students:

• Perform up to 10% better on standardized tests (Earthman, 2002)
• Miss fewer days of school due to illness or discomfort (EPA, 2023)
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And it’s not just students who are affected. Teachers cite poor facility conditions as a key driver of burnout and attrition. In fact, one national survey found that over 25% of educators who left their position did so due to environmental conditions (NCES, 2020).

When Budgets Shrink, the Pressure on Facilities Grows
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School leaders are being asked to do more with less. Rising costs, stagnant funding, and difficult tradeoffs are now the norm. After-school programs are being cut. Food service budgets are shrinking. Staffing shortages are stretching teams to the limit.
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In this environment, it might be tempting to view custodial work or facilities upkeep as secondary. If academic success is the goal, according to Maslow (and our experience), that would be a mistake.
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A leaking ceiling, a broken HVAC system, a dirty restroom—these aren’t just maintenance issues. They’re barriers to learning, achievement, and success.

So, What to Do: Focus on Visibility and Validation
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Intelligently invest in your facilities and custodial teams—giving them tools that streamline effort, reduce costs, improve transparency, and ruthlessly prioritize the environmental factors that impact learning. You’re already implementing solutions for academic visibility and validation (google classroom, blackboard, canvas, etc.), you should be doing the same for your facilities. Platforms and tools like CrowdComfort can accelerate your academic goals by providing unmatched visibility into your custodial efficiency, teacher/student experience, and asset/physical security.
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Knowing the state of your physical spaces is the first step to making them into havens for learning. Having the real-time, transparent data to reliably monitor, assign, improve, and hold accountable is the key that unlocks that knowledge.
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Even in tight times, we can’t afford to lose sight of what matters most. Because before a child can read, write, or calculate—they need to feel safe, supported, and seen.