Six elementary schools, an intermediate school, a middle school, a high school and one big question: What to do with them?

As school buildings continue to age and our district continues to change, the Plain Local administration is beginning to take a look at the layout of our district and how it may change in the next few years.

On Sept. 3 Superintendent Brent May held a conference in the GlenOak High School cafeteria to discuss the matter at hand. At the “Future Conference,” May introduced both The Master Facility Plan and The Strategic Plan that have been underway at Plain Local’s Central Office. The district has broken up its new initiative into two separate categories for a holistic approach to Plain Local education reforms.

Before beginning this process, administrators set their sights on community engagement, putting together 15 focus groups and receiving over 340 responses from Plain Local staff as well as over 500 community responses. These answers helped May and his colleagues determine exactly what Plain Local is concerned about when it comes to education. One issue rose to the top of their list: facilities.

The Master Facility plan aims to directly target the growing concern of aging school buildings. Specifically identified were Middlebranch Elementary and Glenwood Intermediate. This comes as no surprise to many, considering Middlebranch was built in 1931 and Glenwood in 1958.

To develop this project and evaluate current conditions, the district has involved both the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission, or OFCC, and SoL Harris/Day, a local architecture firm specializing in educational, corporate and recreational buildings. SoL Harris/Day has composed a team of architects Domenic Ferrante, Melinda Scalfaro, Burt Marzley, Kerianne Wolf and David Sturtz to take on Plain Local’s project. This group, as well as the OFCC, toured each of our district’s educational facilities to identify issues and possible actions.

When considering action, there are multiple routes to take; the district is considering any of the following: repurposing buildings, renovating them, entirely rebuilding, consolidating, adding on, program reconfigurations and grade reconfigurations. To narrow down the path they will choose to take, May has decided to put together a steering committee. This committee will be responsible for attending five meetings where they will develop the options that are feasible for the district and eventually present those to the greater community. Anyone is welcome to join this committee.

Two of these meetings (Sept. 3 and Nov. 19) were/will be open to the entire community, in which they will give feedback and extend the dialogue on the options that the steering committee determines.

As May and other administrators begin this journey, there have been many issues to consider. These include, but are not limited to, condition assessments for each building — HVAC systems, electricity, plumbing, educational advocacy — the ability of each facility to effectively serve its educational purpose, student enrollment vs. building capacity, community priorities, cost, equitable access to resources from building to building and how well facilities can adapt to 21st century digital learning, as well as technologies that may be introduced to the classroom in the future.

During the Future Conference, community members were asked to break out into small table groups and determine exactly what was most important for them to see through this process. The majority of these concerns can be placed into three different categories: adaptability, community and suitability.

Many people voiced concerns about adaptability, hoping that this long-winded process will not have to be repeated for many years. They hope to see classrooms that are able to be slightly changed to fit the needs of Plain Local students for years to come.

Another issue that was repeatedly mentioned was a need for community spaces, connection and resources in Plain. Parent Mandy Wagner highlighted Plain Local’s lack of a true community center. She calls for places and circumstances under which our students can connect and collaborate, such as playgrounds and recess time beyond the fourth grade. There were also opinions that asked for large, flexible spaces and increased student resources like social services and food pantries in schools.

Finally, the Plain Local community called for suitability. This comes in many forms, but the main ones highlighted on Wednesday night concern whether or not certain buildings (specifically Glenwood and Oakwood) lend themselves to teaching the age range they house, shorter distances for students between lunch and recess or classes and their lockers, appropriately designed rooms and drop off/pick up lines, spaces for therapies for students with disabilities and outdoor learning spaces.

With these considerations, the district and the committee will begin to determine what exactly to do with each building. To do this, they are partially relying on a ⅔ rule: if the cost to replace the building exceeds ⅔ of the cost to renovate, replacing the building is more efficient.

For example, to make the necessary repairs and renovations to 32,261 square foot Avondale Elementary it would cost around $10,468,144. To rebuild the school would cost the district around $13,885,134. The cost to renovate the building is 75% of the cost to replace it, meaning that for Avondale, it would likely be more beneficial to replace the building.

This rule is not all that our administrators and planning committee will look at to determine what to do with the building; this percentage does not stand alone to say that Avondale will be rebuilt.

As previously mentioned, alongside their Facility Master Plan, Plain Local has also developed the Strategic Plan. This plan aims to target the remaining major concerns expressed during prior community engagement with eight goals: The Student Experience, Student Expectations, Facilities, Athletics, Empowering and Supporting Staff, Communications (External), Communications (Internal) and Financial Stewardship.

These goals are meant to encapsulate what is important about the student, staff and parent experience in our district.

For more information on each of these goals, the Facility Master Plan (including the presentation from the Future Conference), or how you can engage with this initiative, visit the Plain Local Schools’ website.