Elyria Schools plan back on track

Editor’s note: Another Viewpoint is a column the Morning Journal makes available so all sides of an issue may be aired. Thomas Jama is superintendent of the Elyria School District.

Maybe you’ve heard the saying, “Anywhere the struggle is great, the level of ingenuity and inventiveness is high.”

In more than 30 years of education, I’ve had many occasions to see the truth in these words.

Most recently and uppermost in my mind and in the minds of others, is the new-school construction project and the unquestionable budget challenges that the Elyria School District is facing.

The district’s design team and its partner, the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission, are tackling it head on, and making strides.

Before I discuss our headway, however, I need to remind readers of where we’ve come.

Recently in a conference room at the Elyria Schools administration center, the district learned of factors beyond its control that were driving up construction costs by millions. In fact, if immediate changes weren’t implemented, the district was on track to overspend the budget by $7 million to $10 million by the end of the project, and this didn’t even account for millions of dollars’ worth of painstaking cuts the district had already made to the plan to keep escalating costs in check.

This new information had the team calling a time out, and it spurred difficult conversations on ways the district could reduce costs without sacrificing educational quality.

The Ohio Facilities Construction Commission, the district’s majority partner in the project (67 percent owner), offered an option to reduce the plan from five sites to three, thus saving millions and keeping the integrity of the academic spaces and the overall 21st century model of education.

The master plan of facilities has all along called for two new K-4 elementary schools and three new K(PK)-8 campuses located on property the district already owns throughout the city.

That was the plan voters approved in November 2016, and for which the budget was established based on estimates available to the district in 2015. Fast forward to today. Realities include rising construction costs, a saturated market for new-school construction (nearly $2 billion in new school construction set to hit the market), and a new state mandate requiring storm shelters, along with an increased demand for construction after several devastating hurricanes. These factors are all weighing heavily on the budget. New steel tariffs surely will only complicate the situation.

The OFCC, in trying to find a solution that would maintain the educational quality of the plan and keep the project budget balanced, recommended consolidating the schools into three large campus sites, thus eliminating the two small K-4 elementary schools. Oddly, small schools are more expensive to build than large campuses due simply to the economy of scale and shared spaces and systems that drive the cost down.

The state’s recommendation has seen success in other districts, and so it was made known to Elyria board members at a special meeting held last month on March 17, and again at a regular board meeting held March 21.

Residents of Elyria’s south side and throughout the community voiced concern at the March 21 meeting, saying the two small neighborhood elementary schools were indeed needed, especially at the proposed Southside site on Middle Avenue where the current Hamilton school sits and one new K-4 elementary is slated to be built.

The board and school district administrators and the district’s design team took those words to heart.

Since then, the team has been back at the drawing board, discussing how to stick with a five-school plan yet recognizing to do so, certain critical elements must be sacrificed. The original project with five schools can only exist with significant budget adjustments. And, it’s important to recognize in this volatile construction market, there are no guarantees going forward when it comes to costs of materials and labor.

The design team is reviewing all options, including eliminating some construction and education components altogether, yet working to maintain important teaching and learning, and safety elements.

It’s no easy task, but based on the discussions underway and new design concepts that would downsize the buildings significantly — along with the state’s preliminary cost estimates for these — it appears the team is on the right track for a five-school plan. I can assure you, no stone will be left unturned.

I will continue to provide you with updates in this process, and I appreciate your continued participation in and commitment to Elyria Schools.

Thomas Jama