Austintown considers closing Davis Elementary
The district expects
enrollment to be stable in
the next 10 years.
By ED RUNYAN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
AUSTINTOWN — Big changes are in the works for Austintown’s five elementary schools, with the possible closing of Davis Elementary being the first item on the agenda.
Superintendent Doug Heuer wrote a letter to school board members this week asking them to consider closing Davis Elementary on Maple Avenue in the northeast part of the township at the end of this school year.
At the same time, Heuer said it is likely the district will qualify for a dollar-for-dollar match from the Ohio School Facilities Commission in 2009 that could lead to the replacement of the district’s four other kindergarten-through-grade-three elementary buildings with two new ones.
The main reason for closing Davis is that the elementary schools are less than 60 percent full, with Davis having the smallest enrollment and needing the most expensive repairs within the next couple of years, Heuer said.
Heuer cited the state audit released last spring, which showed the five elementaries to be at less than 60 percent capacity.
The audit said the elementaries would be at capacities of between 52 percent and 59 percent during the 2007-2008 school year after fourth-graders were moved out of the elementaries and into Frank Ohl Middle School.
The audit said the capacity figures were reached by assuming 25 pupils per regular classroom, excluding rooms used for such subjects as art and music. Heuer said class sizes are generally closer to 20 or 21 pupils per classroom.
Heuer said the numbers suggest that the buildings are not being used efficiently. Each building has built-in costs, such as utilities, maintenance and lunch preparation — which become inflated when buildings are not being used efficiently.
The Ohio School Facilities Commission also recommends that buildings contain at least 350 pupils and prefers buildings of between 600 and 700 to create the greatest efficiencies, Heuer said.
The buildings now have between 203 (Davis) and 346 (Watson) pupils. Dropping from five elementaries to four would reduce the average number of pupils per building from 283 to 353.
Down the road, the district’s 1,414 elementary pupils would fit efficiently into two new K-3 elementary buildings, Heuer said. He said it is too early to tell how much it would cost to make that change.
The five elementary buildings are all the oldest buildings in the district. They were all built in the late 1940s or early 1950s, Heuer said.
Heuer said closing one of the buildings and redistributing the pupils to the four others “only makes sense” and would save the district $600,000 to $700,000 per year in operating costs.
Davis Elementary is the best choice for closure because it will need a new roof at a cost of $350,000 to $400,000 within two years, Heuer said. Davis has the smallest enrollment of the five buildings, meaning that its closing would cause the least amount of displacement, Heuer said.
The closure of Davis would result in a reduction of three to five teachers and 10 to 11 nonteaching employees, including a secretary, three kitchen staff and six to seven paraprofessionals such as class assistants.
Heuer said it is likely all of the teaching positions could be reduced through attrition, and it is possible the nonteaching positions could also be absorbed through attrition. Any reductions in force required would occur by seniority throughout the school system, Heuer noted.
Pupil-teacher ratio would probably rise after redistributing elementary pupils to the four remaining buildings, but the district would attempt to keep the average at 24 pupils per classroom, Heuer said.
To close the building for the start of the 2008-09 school year, the board would need to act on the proposal by the March 10 board meeting, Heuer said. The meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. in Austintown Middle School.
That would allow the district to meet a contract requirement that the district notify the teachers union by April 1 and the nonteaching Ohio Association of School Employees union by April 30 of possible reductions in force.
Heuer said he would advocate keeping Davis Elementary and leasing it rather than selling, if possible. One reason is the building is on land that is zoned residential, which would reduce its marketability to business, he said.
Though the district has dropped in overall enrollment from a high of about 8,000 in the early 1980s to about 5,000 today, the district’s enrollment is expected to remain stable over the next 10 years, Heuer said. The Ohio School Facilities Commission predicts a drop of about 147 pupils in the next 10 years.
Over the next couple of months, the school board will hire an architect to work on a district comprehensive facilities plan that will serve as a blueprint for future building needs. The school board, staff and community will begin the planning process within the next couple of months, Heuer said.
runyan@vindy.com