Building opening will be delayed

A nearly century-old building will house the pupils for now.
By NORMAN LEIGH
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- When the city school district began its $200 million school construction and renovation program in summer 2002, it set a goal of having two new buildings ready for this school year.
The district will miss that objective.
The new, $8.5 million Taft Elementary, near the intersection of Gibson Street and Avondale Avenue on the South Side, will open as scheduled the first day of school, Sept. 7, Anthony DeNiro Jr. executive director of school business affairs, said Monday.
The $7.8 million Harding Elementary, being constructed near Cordova and Benita avenues on the North Side, also was to have opened Sept. 7. That event is being shoved back until about mid-October, DeNiro said.
Though the task of building the schools, both 59,000 square feet, started about the same time, Taft's design was such that builders were able to roof it sooner and escape being delayed by harsh winter weather, as happened at Harding, DeNiro explained.
Temporarily at Jefferson
Postponing Harding's opening means that about 500 kindergarten-through-4th-grade pupils will attend Jefferson school for a few weeks this fall.
The two-story, 1911 structure is on Virginia Avenue, west of Belmont Avenue on the North Side. Once part of the city school district, Jefferson was later bought by an Akron-based church, which is leasing Jefferson to the city school district for $2,000 a month.
Beverly Schumann will be Harding's principal when it opens. Schumann's now principal at Jefferson, which has been attended by Harding pupils since their school was razed two years ago.
In September, the nearly 300 Harding youngsters will be joined at Jefferson by about 200 Martin Luther King Elementary pupils, whose North Side school was abandoned as part of the building project.
The district is talking with Youngstown Metropolitan Housing Authority officials about the authority's possibly leasing King as a recreation center, DeNiro said.
Schumann said that once the combined schools start classes in September, she and her staff of 32 teachers will focus on making the King pupils and their parents feel at home.
"It's just like getting a new family member," Schumann said.
Letters to parents
Letters will be going out this week to pupils' homes to explain the temporary situation, which will include busing all the youngsters to Jefferson.
Once Harding opens, only pupils living farther than a mile away will be bused, Schumann explained.
Space at Jefferson will be tight, Schumann said. The average class size at Jefferson will increase from about 20 pupils to nearly 25.
Even as the district prepares to open Harding and Taft, work is progressing on the massive, districtwide project, which involves constructing or remodeling 15 schools.
This week workers are razing Williamson Elementary on Williamson Avenue on the South Side. A new, $7.5 million school will be built to replace it.