With the District’s elementary and middle schools facing ever-increasing repair and maintenance costs and extremely overcrowded conditions, the Board of Education has directed the Superintendent to begin planning to replace the buildings.

As far back as the late 1990s, the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission (OFCC) recommended replacing the District’s elementary and middle school buildings. With the cost to renovate each school estimated to exceed 2/3 of the cost of new buildings, OFCC requires that schools be replaced rather than renovated when using state matching funds. Currently, the District qualifies for 53 percent of the cost of new facilities to be covered by the State of Ohio. 

The District is currently holding a series of community meetings to gather input from parents, community members, and staff. Throughout the next few months, a Facilities Planning Team consisting of parent, community, business, and staff volunteers will use the input received from the community meetings to develop a facility construction recommendation to present to the Board.

As part of its work, the Facilities Planning Team will consider issues such as grade level configurations, future areas of expected growth, the size of the schools/campuses, efficiency of operations (including student transportation), and the estimated cost of construction and land purchases. 

To learn more about the Facilities Master Planning Project, please visit https://growcruisers.com.