The Logistics of Moving a Whole Campus in 8 Weeks
By Courtney Woolley, President & CEO, Bart’s Office
Every June, my phone starts ringing the same way. A facilities director calls, sounds calm, and says something like, “We just need to move a few classrooms before August.” Six weeks later, we’re standing in a gym full of pallets, three contractors are trying to get into the same hallway, and everybody’s calm is gone.
I’ve spent almost 20 years running a family business that specializes in exactly this — and summer is our busiest, highest-stakes season. There is no room reopening night, no “we’ll catch up next week.” You either make the bell on day one, or you don’t. So I wanted to use this space to share what actually makes an 8-week campus move work, because I promise you, it’s not luck. It’s sequencing.
What Needs to Be Locked In by June
If you’re reading this in July, some of this ship has sailed — but it’s worth flagging for next year, because the projects that go smoothly are the ones where these were nailed down before the last bell rang in May:
1. A single project calendar that everyone works from. Not your calendar and the contractor’s calendar and the movers’ calendar. One calendar, one source of truth, shared with every vendor on the job.
2. Confirmed delivery dates for new furniture and equipment. Nothing derails a summer move faster than product arriving two weeks late. Get firm ship dates in writing, not “should be fine.”
3. A decommission plan for anything being replaced. Know before June whether old furniture is being donated, liquidated, or stored. Deciding this in July, mid-move, costs you days.
4. Building access and security protocols. Who has keys, who badges in contractors, what hours crews can work. Boring, but it’s the thing that quietly eats a full day when it’s not sorted early.
Staging and Sequencing Multiple Buildings
The mistake I see most often is treating a campus move like one big move instead of several small ones happening in a specific order. With multiple buildings, sequencing is everything:
1. Move the building with the fewest dependencies first. Start wherever contractors, IT, and painters are not also working. That building becomes your proof of concept — you learn what’s slow before it costs you on a harder building.
2. Stage, don’t just deliver. We often bring new furniture into climate-controlled storage a few weeks ahead of the actual install date. That way delivery delays don’t become move delays — the product is already on-site and ready when the room is ready.
3. Work room-by-room, not building-by-building, when trades overlap. If flooring, painting, and furniture installation are all happening in the same building, sequence by room so your crews aren’t waiting on each other.
4. Build in a buffer day per building. Always. Something will run long — a paint smell that needs another day to clear, a delivery that ships a day late. One buffer day absorbs it without pushing your whole calendar.
Coordinating With Contractors Who Are Also on Campus
Summer is when everyone descends on a school at once — painters, flooring crews, electricians, IT, and movers, all wanting the same hallway on the same day. A few things that keep that from becoming chaos:
Put one person in charge of the master schedule — not each vendor managing their own piece in isolation. On our projects, we ask to see the full trade schedule, not just our own window, so we can flag conflicts before they happen instead of after.
Sequence “wet work” before furniture, always. Paint, flooring, and any construction dust need to be fully done before furniture and equipment go in. Installing furniture early because a room is technically empty costs you double — you’ll be paying to move it again, or worse, replacing it after it’s damaged.
Weekly (or twice-weekly, in the last two weeks) coordination calls with every vendor on-site. Fifteen minutes, same time every week, everyone reports status. It surfaces slippage while there’s still time to adjust.
Who to Call When You Need It
Facility managers don’t need to be moving experts — that’s what a good partner is for. But it
helps to know what to ask for:
A commercial mover who does decommission-to-install, not just point A to point B. You want one team managing furniture removal, storage, and installation, not three separate hand-offs.
Climate-controlled warehouse storage, so early deliveries have somewhere to stage instead of sitting in a hallway or getting rescheduled.
A liquidation or donation partner for outgoing furniture — good movers can usually connect you here, and it keeps thousands of pounds out of a landfill instead of a dumpster.
A team that’s moved a school before. Office relocations and school relocations are not the same job. Classroom counts, gym floors, cafeteria equipment, security protocols — a mover who’s done it before will ask you the right questions in June instead of learning them the hard way in July.
Bart’s has been doing this work in Louisiana schools for years, and we’re always glad to be a resource — even if it’s just talking through a timeline before you’ve picked a vendor. If your district or campus is planning next summer’s move, June is closer than it feels. Let’s start the conversation now.
Courtney Woolley is President & CEO of Bart’s Office, a second-generation, woman-owned commercial moving and installation company serving schools and businesses across Louisiana since 1978.
