Rayen Stadium revamp gets $1M

By Denise Dick | January 26, 2011 at 12:07a.m.

Chaney and East would use facility

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The proposed renovation of Rayen Stadium has scored $1 million from the city school board.

Board members voted unanimously Tuesday to commit the money, left in the district’s building construction fund, to the project.

Anthony Catale, chairman of the board’s finance committee, said the district has between $13.5 million and $13.8 million in that fund. It’s what remains of the roughly $187 million effort that built or renovated 13 school buildings, with the Ohio School Facilities Commission covering 80 percent of the costs.

Of that nearly $14 million, the state says it wants $10.8 million back, saying it overpaid, Catale said.

William Johnson, district treasurer, contends the figure due back to the state is closer to $6 million or $7 million. A meeting with OSFC officials is tentatively scheduled Feb. 11, said Harry Evans, chief of operations.

“Worst case scenario, if we owe the state $10.8 million, we still have about a $2.1 million remaining balance,” Catale said.

He said potential donors are lined up, but they wanted to see a commitment of about $1 million from the school board.

The finance committee had approved that commitment earlier this week.

“I would ask the board to consider a resolution for this project that is so desperately needed by this district — by the student athletes of this district,” Catale said.

Lock P. Beachum Sr., board president, asked that the athletic director conduct a feasibility study on the proposed renovation to determine if other schools would use it as well.

June Drennen, board member, pointed out that it could be used by the city’s junior high schools and also for soccer games.

“There are so many uses,” she said.

When the refurbishing of the stadium was initially proposed in late 2009, the cost was estimated at about $2.5 million for a 6,000-seat stadium with an artificial turf field, expanded parking lot, renovation of the stands and a new building to house locker rooms, public bathrooms and a concession stand.

Rayen closed in 2007 and was torn down as part of the school rebuilding program, but the stadium is still used by the district’s two middle-school football teams.

The East and Chaney high school teams play their home games at Youngstown State University, but would move to a renovated Rayen Stadium.

In other business, board member Andrea Mahone said that issues pointed out regarding district policies by a consultant hired as part of the district’s academic recovery plan are being addressed.

The board’s policy committee met with representatives of EdFocus Initiative, the company conducting a systems audit of the district.

Several different programs are being used in various Youngstown city schools as part of the curricular and instructional program.

But EdFocus found that the same programs were not available in every school; only some could be described by people within the schools; the programs aren’t coordinated with one another; and they aren’t consistently referenced in school-pacing guides. A pacing guide is a template followed by teachers’ outlining time to be spent on specified curriculum areas.

“Those changes are in progress,” Mahone said. “We’re changing the way it’s being done.”