WARREN SCHOOLS District awaits state's word on funding for buildings

The state will provide the majority of the funding for the new buildings.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- Next week is decision time for school board members.
The school district has been in line for the last few years to receive funding from the state for new school buildings and expects to learn early next month if this is the year it will be funded.
The district is developing a master plan for school buildings that must be approved by the state.
The Ohio Schools Facilities Commission will provide 80 percent of the funding and the remainder will have to come from local sources, most likely a bond issue.
Board members met Wednesday with representatives of the architectural firms Fanning/Howey Associates Inc. of Dublin, Ohio; Olsavsky Jaminet of Youngstown; and RP Carbone of Cleveland, who are working with the district on the project.
Meeting scheduled
Another board meeting is set for 8 p.m. Tuesday at Buena Vista, where members expect to make decisions about what will be included in the master plan submitted to the state. Groups of school staff members, community and business leaders and others have been meeting to provide input in the process.
OSFC uses a formula recommending buildings be replaced if the cost to renovate exceeds by two-thirds the cost of new construction.
Except for Western Reserve Middle School, all of the district's buildings exceeded the two-thirds formula for renovation.
One of the items that must be decided is the number of kindergarten through eighth-grade buildings. District officials believe that five such buildings, each with 1,000 pupils, is the best number because of transportation issues.
Some board members also have expressed a wish to retain at least a portion of Warren G. Harding High School for historic preservation. But because historic preservation isn't included in the list of items covered by OSFC funds, the district would have to foot that bill.
Options presented
Architects presented four options for keeping at least a piece of the high school.
The first, at a cost of $3,097,000, would involve keeping the center front stone portion of the building, repairing the roof and building three walls around it.
"It would be sort of a gateway to the campus," said Michael Scaparotti, vice president of construction management at RP Carbone. "How it would be used has yet to be determined."
A second option, which would cost $6,356,000, saves the front column portion, the auditorium and boiler room behind it, upgrades the auditorium and adds bathrooms, dressing rooms and other items all brought up to code. The saved portion would be a free-standing building not attached to the new high school.
For a third option, which would cost $1,027,000, crews would remove the front stone facade and replace it on another site on the new building. For $919,000, the fa & ccedil;ade could be duplicated on a new school building.
A fourth option, at a cost of $5,636,000, would be to keep the front center portion and the two wings of the high school and attach a new building to them. That would require a change in the master plan because it would change the high school from a new building to a renovation and addition project.
dick@vindy.com