Poland School District seeks approval of $28.3 million bond issue

October 18, 2015 at 12:07a.m.

POLAND

The school district is asking voters Nov. 3 for funds to build a new school.

If voters approve the ballot measure, the school district will issue bonds – to be repaid over a maximum of 34 years – in the amount of $28,265,910, levy a 4-mill property tax to pay debt charges and levy an additional 0.5-mill property tax for permanent improvements.

School district officials say now is the time for a new school because of the convergence of two factors: major infrastructure failures at school buildings and the opening of a time frame during which the state will cover part of the cost.

Some residents, however, have raised concerns about the proposal to build a new school, the current plan for a campus-style elementary facility where Dobbins Elementary now stands.

Some questions being asked are: Why is the district being hit by major infrastructure failures? How will the legacy of historic school buildings be preserved? What impact does a new building have on learning outcomes? Will an upgraded facility help stem the tide of students leaving Poland schools?

THE OFFER

Last year, the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission notified the Poland Local School District that, as Superintendent David Janofa says, “Our number was up.”

The commission offered to pay 19 percent of the cost to assist the district with its facilities, a partnership that the school board in August decided to join. Based on the plans that now have been laid out, the state will pay roughly $6.6 million of the $35 million cost to build a new kindergarten through eighth-grade building.

INFRASTRUCTURE

School district officials have cited major infrastructure failures at school buildings as a reason that a new facility is needed. All roofs in the district need to be replaced, according to an OFCC site evaluation; and, among other reported issues, the middle school requires a costly heating-system replacement.

So how did the schools’ condition get to this point?

School district officials point to five years ago, when the district was on the brink of what Treasurer Donald Stanovcak characterized as a “fiscal emergency” due to repeated failures to pass an operating levy.

“We were ending the year in the black, but our expenditures were far exceeding our revenues. We were living off of our carryover funds,” he said. “We just did not have the money.”

The years before that, the district averaged between $350,000 and $400,000 per year on capital outlays on the buildings, Stanovcak said.

In 2011, that figure was roughly $174,000; in 2012, it was $254,000, and in 2013 it was $54,000.

The district then passed an operating levy, and in 2014 capital outlays jumped to more than $600,000.

Between July 1, 2014, and Sept. 19, the district spent more than $500,000 on capital outlays at each of the six buildings for issues with heating, electric, plumbing, roofs, asbestos and more.

“When you sit here and talk about hindsight, it’s pretty easy. ‘Why didn’t you do that?’” Janofa said. “We’ve maintained them. In the past 14 months, we’ve spent over a half-million dollars. We’ve done the things, but the things we’ve done are the pieces that just kind of keep the train rolling, versus getting a new engine.”

PRESERVING HISTORY

For many Poland residents, it’s difficult to picture College Street without its signature feature: the expansive two-story brick building that stretches for a block down the road that is lined with homes as idyllic as they are historic.

U.S. President William McKinley graduated from the school in 1859 when it was Poland Academy, and in the ensuing decades the building – today, Poland Middle School – has become an emblem of Poland’s heritage.

Should a new facility come to fruition, the school district would have three options for the old buildings, two of which are historic: maintain, sell or demolish them.

Over the last several months, one of those options has emerged as most viable to school officials.

The consensus seems to be that it would be unacceptable to leave the buildings vacant.

Another option would be to rent them out. The former South Range High School, for example, became a mini-business incubator after the school district built a new campus.

Poland school district officials, however, don’t see that as a viable option.

“We’re looking at 90,000 square feet that we would have to fill, and to operate that is still on our nickel – meaning we still have to repair the roof, we still have to fix the heating. We still have to fix all those things just to rent it out,” Janofa said of the middle school.

Selling the buildings also isn’t likely.

“We can’t sell an empty building. If we sell an empty building, we’re going to sell it to, let’s say, a developer,” he said. “But you run the risk of that person buying the building and selling it to a charter school. ... We obviously can’t have that.”

The likely outcome, then, is demolition. Part of the 4-mill levy is for abatement and demolition.

Some community members support that option, with the condition that the historic legacy of the schools be honored in some way. One idea has been to tear down McKinley Elementary and the middle school, leave the connector between the two schools in place as a sort of community center and keep some historic elements – such as a piece of the middle school’s original foundation – at the site.

Some historic elements – such as entryways – also could be moved and incorporated into a new school.

While some community members have said that they want a decision regarding the old school buildings before they vote, some district officials have indicated that they do not want to commit to demolition yet.

“I think they’re [board members] leaning toward abating and razing, but they don’t want to be pigeon-holed into that if, three years from now, someone comes up with a check and says, ‘Hey, this is an option,’” Janofa said.

OUTCOMES

Enrollment at Poland schools dropped by more than 300 students over the past 10 years; in the next 10 years, the school district is projected to lose approximately the same number.

It’s for that reason that school district officials have embarked upon a “right-sizing” effort; to that end, elementary students moved out of the North building and now are consolidated by grade level at Dobbins and Union, and McKinley Elementary and middle-school students eventually will move into a single building.

It’s a separate issue, Janofa said, but is still at play in the plan to build a new school.

For one thing, some school districts face challenges in getting new operating money if taxpayers have recently paid for new facilities; Janofa said that “right-sizing” the district and thereby cutting operating costs means the district won’t have to ask for new money.

School district officials also hope that an upgraded facility will lessen the number of students leaving the district; this school year, the district lost 55 students to competing districts such as Struthers, Lowellville and South Range, which have newer facilities and open enrollment.

“When you talk about people driving through a community searching for a home ... you drive by some of these new schools that they have, and it’s pretty impressive,” Janofa said.

Poland school district officials repeatedly have indicated that open enrollment is not on the table now.

“In the last few weeks, I’ve heard it from three different parents – ‘I’m not sending my child’ to whatever building,” he said. “We need to keep our students, and we also need to attract other students by moving other families here.”

In educational outcomes, officials say a new facility would have an impact.

“Some people look at aesthetics and say it doesn’t make a difference. From afar, it doesn’t,” Janofa said. “But when you’re in that environment, during the middle of the winter, where our heat only comes out one speed and you’ve got to open the windows, it’s bigger than aesthetics. It’s environment. Where do we want our students to be?”

“You mean a building makes an education? No. It doesn’t. Teachers make an education. Leaders make an education. Children, parents, parent support – how much are the parents engaged in the education?” he said.

“All those other pieces that are involved in it; a new building adds to it.”