SCHOOLS Voters to weigh bond issue for central school

The bond issue would provide the local match to get more than $18 million from the state.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
VERNON -- A 7-mill bond issue on the November ballot would provide the match for construction of a central school building for Joseph Badger students.
The district, comprising Kinsman, Gustavus, Hartford and Vernon townships and the village of Orangeville, includes two elementary, one middle and a high school.
The Ohio School Facilities Commission will provide most of the funding to replace those schools with one school for students in kindergarten through 12th grades. The bond issue, if approved, would raise $10,150,000 over 28 years.
That would provide the local match for more than $18 million from the state.
The school district bought about 100 acres near the Kinsman-Vernon line over the summer for $400,000, which is to be the site for the new building.
Superintendent David Bair said enrollment is fairly consistent from year to year at about 1,200 pupils.
Positive response
Bair and other district officials have been talking about the project at township meetings and other functions and Bair said the response has been positive.
A new school would enable the district to advance technologically. The middle school was built in 1914 and the Gustavus and Hartford elementary schools and the high school were built in 1927, 1924 and 1936, respectively.
The Ohio Schools Facilities Commission recommends classrooms a third bigger than the small rooms that were built at the time.
Many classrooms are equipped with only one electrical outlet, limiting the amount of technology that may be used.
Bair looks forward to a school building with larger classrooms equipped for modern technology to benefit students.
"In a new school building, everything will be state-of-the-art," he said.
District voters also will be asked to approve a five-year, 4.6 mill renewal levy for emergency requirements next month.
Other districts
Voters in several other Trumbull County school districts face renewal levies.
Bristol voters will decide the fate of a three-year, 5.3 mill renewal levy for emergency requirements that will raise about $330,000 annually.
In Brookfield, voters will cast ballots on a five-year, 1-mill renewal for renovating, improving, building and remodeling school sites.
Howland school district voters will decide on a five-year, 3.4-mill emergency renewal levy that would raise about $2 million annually.
A five-year, 2.4 mill renewal is on the ballot in the Lakeview school district. The levy would raise about $613,731 annually for emergency requirements for the district.
A five-year, 2-mill renewal levy before Mathews voters would be used for renovating, improving, remodeling, building, adding to, furnishing and equipping school facilities and improving school sites.
McDonald school district voters will be asked to approve a five-year, 4.3-mill renewal levy so the district can avoid an operating deficit of $200,147.
The Niles school district's five-year, 5.1-mill renewal levy would provide emergency requirements of the School District for $1,300,000.
Two renewal levies are before voters in the Southington school district. A four-year, 5.2-mill levy would provide $250,000 annually for emergency requirements of the district. A five-year, 2-mill renewal would provide money for permanent improvements for the district.