Low enrollment derails plan to build new middle school

By Harold Gwin

The city’s original Rayen School could be used as a school building again.

YOUNGSTOWN — There just aren’t enough pupils to fill a new Rayen middle school that the city school district wanted to build.

The Ohio School Facilities Commission, which is picking up 80 percent of a nearly $200 million, 14-school rebuilding project in the city, has pulled its support from the proposed Rayen school, which means it won’t be built — not even as an addition to Harding Elementary School, which had been discussed as a possibility.

The move cuts $7.2 million in state support for construction and reduces the rebuilding program to 13 schools with a revised total cost of $187 million, according to a project amendment approved by the school board in a special meeting Wednesday.

But that doesn’t mean there won’t be a Rayen school in the future.

“There will be a Rayen school, just not a brand new building,” said Shelley Murray, school board president.

The superintendent is already working on a plan to create a Rayen middle school at the district’s central office building at 20 W. Wood St., she said.

It would be called the Rayen Youngstown Early College Middle School, said Superintendent Wendy Webb, explaining that the plan is to develop it as a feeder school to the Youngstown Early College High School, a joint program of the city schools and Youngstown State University.

Murray said the OSFC won’t build a new school for an enrollment of fewer than 350 pupils. The projected enrollment for the Rayen middle school proposed on the same site as the former Rayen School, which was a high school, was only 118, she said.

District enrollment dropped to 7,523 this fall from 7,716 reported at the same time a year ago. The district has lost about 1,900 pupils to charter schools, open-enrollment schools and voucher schools over the last four years.

Webb said the new middle school plan would enroll up to 150 children who would get early intervention and support aimed at having them enroll in Youngstown Early College.

Pupils for YEC usually aren’t selected until after the ninth grade. This would move the selection process back to after the sixth grade, Webb said.

Plans call for the middle school to be located in the rear section of the central office building that was once the original Rayen School in the city, Webb said.

The district’s central offices would be relocated with some of the primary offices (superintendent, treasurer, etc.) moving to the nearby Choffin Career and Technical Center and other offices moving out to other district buildings, Webb said.

The district’s data center would likely remain at Wood Street and some of the vacated office space may also be rented to various school partner agencies that provide after-school and counseling services, she said.

The cancellation of the new Rayen project frees up some district funds set aside for that construction that could be used to prepare the Rayen Youngstown Early College Middle School, Murray said, noting that the district had about $3 million in local funds earmarked for the project.