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Weathersfield board places bond issue, levy on ballot
By Mary Smith
MINERAL RIDGE
Voters in the Weathersfield school district will see a bond issue and permanent improvement levy on the Nov. 8 ballot.
The 6.6-mill, 30-year bond issue will generate more than $9 million for the district’s portion to obtain a grant through the Ohio Schools Facilities Commission for a more than $24 million renovation of school buildings.
The 1.0-mill continuing levy will be for permanent improvements and would raise $85,521 to maintain the buildings.
Voters must approve the bond issue and levy before the state will grant its $15.6 million share. The Weathersfield school board voted earlier this week to put the tax issues on the fall ballot.
The district previously was approved for a $19 million OSFC project, with $10.6 million from the state and the local share at $8.4 million. The state funding lapsed, however, after the district failed to approve a bond issue for the local share within a year of the grant being approved.
In 2009, two attempts failed to pass a 6.4-mill bond issue and a 1.6-mill permanent improvement levy.
But now, the state share has increased from 60 percent to 65 percent, schools Superintendent Damon Dohar said.
Dohar said he is optimistic this bond issue and levy will be approved because he believes the local economy has improved since the district last sought new tax money.
New plans are to turn Seaborn Elementary School, now a kindergarten- to fourth-grade building, into a K-6 building. The high school will add grades seven and eight and become a seventh-through-12th-grade building.
The 1959 section of Seaborn will be torn down. The 1999 and 2001 portions will remain.
The district will build an entirely separate section for the junior high at the back of the high school building.
Eight new classrooms will be constructed for the junior high section, and windows and doors in the remainder of the building will be replaced.
The middle school, which Dohar noted costs the district a lot to maintain because it is 90 years old, will be torn down, except for the gymnasium, which will be used as the junior high gym, with some renovation.
The administrative offices and bus garage will be at the back of that building.
In other action, the board named Joe Krumpak of McDonald as new high school principal under a two-year contract, effective Aug. 1. He will earn $71,128 for this school year, and $73,365 for the 2012-13 school year.
He replaces Lew Lowery, whose resignation is Aug. 1.
Dohar and the board thanked Lowery for his 23 years of service to the district as a science teacher, athletic director and former football coach.
Krumpak has been with the district since 2008. He had served as principal of Grand Valley High School in Ashtabula.
Krumpak earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education from Youngstown State University.
He also was a teacher and the assistant administrator and athletic administrator at John F. Kennedy High School, Warren, from 2003 to 2006.
The board also hired Mike Cluse as athletic director under a supplemental contract for $6,532 annually.