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New Springfield Elementary School will be ready for next school year
By Denise Dick
NEW SPRINGFIELD
The structure is built, the walls are painted and other features are being added and installed.
The new Springfield Elementary School is on schedule to open July 1 and be ready for students for the 2015-16 school year.
In 2013, voters approved a bond issue to pay the local 52 percent share of the $11.8 million project. The Ohio Facilities Construction Commission is picking up the remaining 48 percent.
The new 52,343-square-foot building is on the same property as the high school-intermediate school on state Route 170 in Springfield Township. It replaces the 41,000-square-foot school in New Middletown that will be demolished as part of the project.
“It was built in 1923, an addition was added in 1952, another addition in 1957 and an addition in 1989,” said Tom Yazvac, elementary principal.
The old building has deteriorated to a point that repairing it is no longer cost- effective, he said.
The district doesn’t plan to leave the property completely, though.
“We’re thinking about a community park,” Yazvac said. “We want to still have a presence in the village.”
No plans for a park have been finalized.
About 400 students attend the elementary school.
Olsavsky Jaminet Architects of Youngstown and Fanning Howey of Dublin, Ohio, are project architects. Vendrick Construction of Brookfield is the general contractor, and Hammond Construction of Canton is the owner/agent, similar to a construction manager.
Yazvac said the school features a pod concept for classrooms.
Each grade level features four classrooms that surround a common area where teachers will collaborate.
The staff of roughly 30 teachers is tight-knit and works well together, the principal said.
Classrooms in each of those pods have a wall painted in an accent color chosen by a team of teachers. Each grade level has a different color.
Kindergarten is yellow. First grade is purple. Second grade is dark blue; third is green, and fourth grade is orange.
The music area is red; areas for students with multiple disabilities are light blue, and the gymnasium is orange and black.
The new school’s gymnasium is much larger than the old one and will be equipped with up-to-date equipment and a large storage area.
Taylor McMullin, physical- education teacher who visited his new space earlier this week, liked what he saw.
Besides being larger — 2 feet longer and 10 feet wider — the new gymnasium also will have motorized basketball backboards, allowing for easy hoop-height adjustment for different grade levels. The old gym’s backboards must be adjusted with a manual crank, McMullin said.
The new building also offers separate bus and car drop-off areas. Both types of vehicles use the same drop-off location in the older building, creating congestion.
Yazvac said the new building also provides better wireless access. Each classroom will have its own Wi-Fi access point rather than rooms having to share the access.
With the bigger school, the district will begin all-day, every-day kindergarten. It was a promise the district made to the community if the bond issue won approval.
The district now runs kindergarten all day, every other day.
“We’re hoping to increase our numbers for kindergarten,” Yazvac said, adding that some working parents send their children to another school for all-day kindergarten and then enroll them at Springfield for first grade.