District chooses plan for new gym

The 38,000-square-foot auxiliary gymnasium is to include wrestling facilities.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
BOARDMAN -- Some $51.6 million in planned upgrades to schools won't include a swimming pool or competitive track in a high school auxiliary gymnasium.
"The board decided to go with the more conservative version as far as the auxiliary gym," said Superintendent Frank Lazzeri.
That conservative version, part of a plan to provide improvements to all district school buildings, includes a 38,000-square-foot auxiliary gym at the high school, with facilities for wrestling. The district is to borrow the money through the sale of bonds to be paid back over 28 years; a 3.5-mill bond issue is expected to appear on the November ballot.
The wrestling team didn't have adequate space at the high school this past school year, and the district rented space at the Boardman Plaza to accommodate the teams, the superintendent said.
When ideas for building improvements were initially presented to board members and the public early last month, the package with all of the amenities, including swimming pool and competitive track in the new auxiliary gym, was estimated at $57 million.
At the district's four elementary schools, improvements call for replacing parts of the ceilings, expanding kindergarten rooms, updating classrooms, corridors and the cafeteria and building new facades.
Improvements at Center and Glenwood Middle schools involve replacing lockers, renovating electrical and plumbing work and replacing some gym doors.
Besides the auxiliary gym, the high school would get an upgraded stadium and new windows in various areas. Upgrades at the stadium would allow football games, now played at the stadium at Center Middle School, to be played on the high school grounds, along with soccer games.
Lazzeri said he believes the bond issue would have a "very good chance of passing."
"We're ready to roll up our sleeves and do a lot of work and to try to tell the community why we need this," he said.
Lazzeri said he's gotten positive feedback from parents who are pleased that safety issues are being addressed.
Long time coming
A first meeting of the group organized to promote the bond issue will be this week. Former long-time board member Fred Davis and John Darnell Jr., associate editor of The Boardman News, are co-chairing the committee.
"We haven't done any major improvements to buildings in the district since the late 1960s," Lazzeri said. "This is our first effort to do it."
The ages of the district's seven buildings range from Boardman Center Middle School, built in 1911, to the 37-year-old high school. The late 1960s marked the last time the district had a bond issue on the ballot.
Improvements would enable the district to eliminate the modular classrooms at both Stadium Drive and Robinwood Lane elementary schools. Stadium Drive also has two kindergarten classrooms that, while connected to the rest of the school, can be accessed only by going outside of the main building and back into the rooms from outside. There's no hallway or corridor that connects the classrooms to the rest of the building.
The improvements call for a remedy to that as well, the superintendent said.
Lazzeri said that if the district had waited until it could secure money from the state to improve school facilities, it would have ended up costing taxpayers even more.
About fours years ago, the Ohio Schools Facilities Commission performed an assessment of district buildings and estimated it would take $80 million to fund building improvements, he said.
The state would pay about 10 percent of that, leaving taxpayers to foot the bill for the rest. But it also would take 10 to 12 years before the district would qualify for that OSFC program, and during that time costs would likely increase, he said.