The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Schools take next steps
District looking to the future following consolidation plan
Fresh off a $20 million district consolidation plan, the Vermilion School District is looking toward the future in ways to prepare students to be the next generation of leaders.
Vermilion Superintendent Phil Pempin said the district is in the exploratory phase of looking at some partnerships that would focus improvements to the campus that would provide additional benefits to the community.
“We’re looking to add some things to the campus that the community could use as an asset and as a gathering place and community resource,” Pempin said.
“We’re open to this and thinking about making those improvements, but we’re not there yet.”
He stressed while the district isn’t ready to divulge details quite yet, announcements could be coming in the near future as discussions with possible partners continue to develop.
One possibility would see the district utilizing the field house located between the Vermilion High School football and baseball fields, and re-imagining different uses that could involve the community.
The single campus consolidation plan which kicked off about six years ago relocated the district’s three schools and the school board office to one central location, providing savings to the district and increased efficiency.
At the same time, the district developed new values and mission statements outlining their goals for personalized education.
“We made the laptops available and that is something we are highly invested in along with what we have as our mission statement and making kids ready is the personalized instruction,” he said. “We use those laptops to provide personalized instruction.
“We find a way to make sure every student gets as much personalized instruction as possible,” he added. “The teacher has become the facilitator/coach and not just the person who stands up and delivers instruction anymore. And that device has helped us to deliver that instruction in that way.”
The district provides laptops for students in grades six through 12 to take home through an agreement with Apple and continue to work to find ways to anticipate and prepare students for the future.
“We’re going to continue working on that personalized instruction and making Vermilion Schools Superintendent Phil Pempin stands in front of a map of the district’s single campus at the Vermilion Local Schools Board of Education on May 10. Following a $20 million consolidation plan the district is focusing on harnessing technology and a personalized approach to education in preparing the next generation of leaders. sure we’re doing that for our students and looking at career-based instruction that will give them opportunities in the new industries of the future. We try to anticipate what those things are,” Pempin said. “We’ve re-designed many of our high school courses to reflect what can possibly be coming at us with robotics and forensics and things like that. We’re looking at as many of the industries as possible in designing our courses.”
The district had seen enrollment decline following the closure of the Ford Motor
Company plant. Upon taking the reins as superintendent in 2008, Pempin said one of the first moves he made was to close South Street Elementary School and relocate students.
Following an unsuccessful levy issue and a bond issue on the ballot, the district changed gears and began looking at a different approach in 2013 that could accomplish their strategic and financial plans without having to go to taxpayers. The $20 million budget allowed for the construction of a new $10 million elementary school.
“So we basically then rethought the plan some more and we came up with the plan, a $20 million budget basically, that we were able to do without asking the taxpayers for money,” Pempin said. “That’s what it would cost to build a new building, to rehab the buildings that were presently there.
We redid the kitchens in the high school and the middle school. We looked at the roofs, the air conditioning units and we basically reconditioned both the high school and middle school with the $20 million savings that we were going to have by moving to the single campus.”
He said the plan allowed the district to save money on transportation costs, energy and allowed for easier access for collaboration between the board of education
and the different schools.
“That’s definitely helped with some savings and allowed us to continue to operate as efficiently as possible
and our plan is to try and keep the operating levy away from us as long as possible and not go to the taxpayers asking them for more money,” Pempin said.
Vermilion Superintendent Phil Pempin said the district is in the exploratory phase of looking at some partnerships that would focus improvements to the campus that would provide additional benefits to the community.