Board increases size for 5 schools

The program is still more than $7 million below original estimates.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Youngstown Board of Education has agreed to pick up an estimated $4.5 million in costs to add some square footage to five new school buildings still on the drawing boards.
The change won't increase the overall rebuilding program cost because some buildings have been eliminated and others downsized from original projections.
Treasurer Carolyn Funk said the revised bottom line shows total program costs for 14 new or renovated buildings at $192.2 million, about $7.3 million below the original program estimate, even with the square-footage additions.
The biggest chunk of the $4.5 million expense will be for the new Woodrow Wilson building, which will become a middle school.
The Ohio School Facilities Commission, which is generally picking up 80 percent of the district's rebuilding program, won't fund construction of a new school for less than 350 pupils, Funk said.
Here's the situation
The OSFC estimates the enrollment at the new Wilson building will be only 232 pupils, and it won't finance that project unless the school district picks up the additional cost to make it a building sized for 350 pupils, Funk said.
That will require nearly 20,000 square feet of additional educational space for 118 pupils at a cost right around $3 million, she said.
Unless the school district is willing to cover that expense, it won't get a new Wilson building, said the Rev. Michael Write, board president.
If Wilson is replaced as a facility to house fewer than 350 pupils, the district would have to pick up the entire cost of that building, he said.
With the district paying for the extra instructional space, Wilson has a total estimated cost of $11.7 million, with the OSFC picking up $8.5 million.
Not sufficient for agreement
Anthony DeNiro, assistant superintendent of school business affairs, said the district feels the space for things such as gymnasiums, cafeterias, special-needs programs and media centers called for in the building plan agreement with the OSFC isn't sufficient in any of the five buildings.
Board member Jamael Tito Brown said the board wants to be sure space is adequate in all of them, especially for special-needs children.
In addition to the added educational space at Wilson, the district plans to add 1,884 square feet of common space to that building.
The plan calls for adding 2,114 square feet of common space to the new Rayen school, which also will be a middle school; 2,483 square feet to Volney-Rogers Junior High; 1,560 square feet to North Elementary; and 1,900 square feet to Bunn Elementary.
gwin@vindy.com