TRUMBULL COUNTY Officials unveil plans for schools

The new schools will be built before the old ones are torn down.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- The first two new kindergarten-through-eighth-grade city school buildings to be built will separate elementary and middle school children throughout the school day.
Architects and district officials unveiled the plans for the schools Tuesday to community members at the McGuffey and Lincoln elementary school sites.
The district is building five K-8 schools and a high school as part of an Ohio School Facilities Commission Project. OSFC is providing about 80 percent of the estimated $170 million project cost with a bond issue passed last November covering the remainder.
The new schools will be constructed before the current buildings are demolished.
"Each of the schools is 95 percent the same," said Kent Underwood of Fanning-Howey, the firm contracted for the building project.
He said the school board and administration stressed to architects that they didn't want "cookie-cutter" designs and that each building should be an expression of the neighborhood.
What's included
Both schools planned for the McGuffey and Lincoln sites include separate entrances for the elementary and middle school pupils and wings assigned to the various grades.
All pupils will share common areas, including the dining area, music and art rooms, media center and gymnasium, but scheduling will enable separation of younger pupils from older.
Each classroom will be about 900 square feet compared with about 750-square-foot classrooms now.
Each building also will include separate entrances for buses and parents to drop off pupils in front of the buildings.
"Kids will get right off the bus, onto the sidewalk and into the building," said Michael N. Stamas, vice president of Environmental Design Group, an Akron company that is doing the landscape architecture for the project.
Restroom concerns
Cindy Paga, whose 10-year-old son, Cody, will be in fourth grade at McGuffey next year, is concerned about the number of restrooms on the second floor of the new McGuffey school.
The design, which architects said is a work in progress, includes five bathroom stalls for girls and four for boys on its second floor.
There are 15 classrooms on the second floor for third- through fifth-graders.
Each classroom is to accommodate about 25 pupils.
"The restroom situation is not sufficient," Paga said. "It's a very good design otherwise."
Ray Jaminet of Olsavsky-Jaminet of Youngstown, another architectural firm designing the project, said they would look into the sufficiency of the number of restrooms.
The McGuffey building design has two courtyards and each classroom in both buildings will have a window in it, Jaminet said.