Drop in pupils threatens scope of school projects

Youngstown has lost more than 3,000 of its pupils over the past several years.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Declining pupil enrollment could mean changes in the Youngstown City Schools' $202 million building construction and renovation program.
Design work on six buildings in the program is on hold while the state determines if the district's enrollment justifies the project's scope.
Tony DeNiro, assistant superintendent of school business affairs, said the Ohio Schools Facility Commission, which is underwriting about 80 percent of the cost, will be in town Friday to review the district's enrollment figures.
School officials will present a plan showing an overall project that keeps all of the proposed buildings, DeNiro said. Four of the 15 buildings on the project list have been completed and five others are in various stages of work.
On hold
Design work has largely been put on hold on the remaining six while the state examines enrollment numbers, DeNiro said. That list includes Volney Rogers Middle School, Wilson and Rayen high schools and North, Mary Haddow and Paul C. Bunn elementary schools.
The old North and Bunn buildings have been razed and their students are being temporarily housed in other district structures, but design plans for those and the other four buildings are being held up in case Youngstown has to down-size one or more of them, DeNiro said.
DeNiro said the state comes in every three years during a building program to re-examine a district's student population to determine if the size of proposed structures are adequate or too large. Youngstown's numbers have dropped significantly, with the district's enrollment standing at just under 8,900 pupils in October.
Youngstown has lost more than 3,000 of its pupils to charter schools and other public schools over the past several years, district officials have said.
DeNiro said Youngstown wants to move ahead with all 15 buildings on the project list, but understands the state could insist that some buildings be reduced in size if the pupil population they serve has declined.
"We'd rather build small than not at all," he said.
Williamson, Harding, Taft and West elementary schools are the four schools completed in the rebuilding program so far at a combined cost of about $28.4 million.
Rebuilding Volney Rogers, Wilson, Rayen, North, Haddow and Bunn has a combined cost of about $69 million.
Volney Rogers problems
The board of education learned Tuesday that there are site problems at Volney Rogers that will push that building's replacement cost well over its $10.7 million estimate.
The original design showed the new school being built about 480 feet off Schenley Avenue, but that would require the excavation and removal of some 91,000 cubic yards of earth at a cost of $700,000 to $800,000, said Jay Crafton of MS Consultants Inc., project engineers.
He suggested that the new building be moved 230 feet closer to Schenley, a move that would eliminate the need for most of the excavation plus save money on putting in new roads and running utilities to the building.
Steve Ludwinski of Heery/Amec/G. Stephens, project architects, said the change would save about $1 million, but the project will probably still be over the original estimate. He declined to speculate by how much but told board members that other building internal changes are being considered to further reduce the cost.
gwin@vindy.com