Crawford Board prepares for high school addition

By Matt Echelberry

Inquirer Reporter

An update on the poten­tial high school addi­tion project for Colonel Craw­ford schools was pre­sented at the con­clu­sion of the Craw­ford Board of Edu­ca­tion meet­ing on Feb. 25. The project would add a high school wing to the cur­rent K — 8 building.

The Board first approved an agree­ment with Fan­ning & Howey Asso­ciates, Inc. to pro­vide pre-bond archi­tect ser­vices for the Ohio School Facil­i­ties Com­mis­sion build­ing project, in an amount not to exceed $25,000.

When Super­in­ten­dent Todd Mar­tin showed three pre­lim­i­nary draw­ings for the addi­tion, it was met with dis­ap­point­ment amongst Board mem­bers and the prin­ci­pals. Each con­cept draw­ing had 15,400 square feet for the high school addi­tion, less than half the size of the cur­rent high school build­ing. This size is based on the district’s pro­jected enroll­ment for 2017: 821. Colonel Craw­ford cur­rently has 875 stu­dents enrolled, not includ­ing those attend­ing Pio­neer Career and Tech­nol­ogy Center.

Mar­tin explained that this is the max­i­mum amount of square footage the dis­trict will receive for the project, which will be funded by a $6.1 mil­lion qual­i­fied state share and $250,000–300,000 in the local share. Included in those funds would be the tear down of the old school build­ings (Whet­stone Ele­men­tary, Sul­phur Springs Ele­men­tary and the Inter­me­di­ate School).

Board mem­ber Norm Huber noted, “We don’t gain much, in fact we’re los­ing space. There are fewer class­rooms and noth­ing for the music or art departments.”

Board mem­ber Mike Willacker said it was appalling.

Ini­tially, the administration’s plan was to keep some parts of the exist­ing high school, includ­ing the indus­trial arts shop, gym­na­sium, pool, cafe­te­ria and some class­rooms. The rest of the build­ing would be torn down and remod­eled at the district’s expense.

Huber felt it might be nec­es­sary to keep more of the exist­ing high school than antic­i­pated, just to con­tinue to offer the cur­rent course load.

Mar­tin empha­sized that there is still much dis­cus­sion to be held and he will keep nego­ti­at­ing, but 15,400 square feet is the max­i­mum size allot­ted for the addi­tion. He added that there will not be any final draw­ings until March and hopes to have a town hall meet­ing with the com­mu­nity in April. A mas­ter plan for the project is due in May.

While the meet­ing ended on a somber note, it began on a more pos­i­tive one. Prin­ci­pals Ruth Ann Noblet and April Bond rec­og­nized stu­dents who recently com­peted in the County Spelling Bee: fifth graders Daylen Bal­li­ett and Alli­son Brause, sev­enth graders Spencer Mutch­ler and Chloe Car­man, and eight grader Lexi Wireman.

[Matt Echelberry/media-credit] William Craw­ford Inter­me­di­ate Prin­ci­pal April Bond poses with 7th grader Chloe Car­man, who was the first place runner-up at the County Spelling Bee. Car­man also took first place at the spelling bee the school held.

[Matt Echelberry/media-credit] Han­nah Craw­ford Ele­men­tary Prin­ci­pal Ruth Ann Noblet shakes hands with 5th grader Daylen Bal­li­ett, who com­peted in the County Spelling Bee.

Mar­tin announced that the boys and girls bas­ket­ball teams each won dis­trict tour­na­ments, and sev­eral mem­bers of the swim team have advanced to state com­pe­ti­tion. “We’re very proud of all of our stu­dent ath­letes,” he commented.

He also read a thank you let­ter from a fam­ily in the dis­trict who recently suf­fered a house fire, thank­ing the school and com­mu­nity for support.

In superintendent’s rec­om­men­da­tions. the Board approved all of the fol­low­ing: Work­able as the entity to con­duct phys­i­cals for all bus dri­vers, the renewal of food ser­vice oper­a­tion licenses for the school build­ings at a cost of $937.34 and the non-renewal of all 2012–13 co-curricular con­tracts effec­tive June 30, 2013.

It adopted the 2013–14 school cal­en­dar, approved ALICE train­ing for stu­dents pre K — 12 and

approved a mem­o­ran­dum of under­stand­ing with the Colonel Craw­ford Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion regard­ing the advance­ment of tuition reim­burse­ment for teach­ers required to obtain the Read­ing Endorse­ment (part of the Third Grade Guarantee).

In other con­tracts, the Board approved Ron Bower for mow­ing, main­te­nance and secu­rity for the Whet­stone Ele­men­tary School begin­ning April 19, at an approx­i­mate cost of $1,208.

It approved the 2013–14 stu­dent hand­books for William Craw­ford Inter­me­di­ate and Han­nah Craw­ford Ele­men­tary, as well as a con­tract with the Ohio School Boards Asso­ci­a­tion for board pol­icy update ser­vices for one year, at a cost of $650.

The fol­low­ing indi­vid­u­als were approved as coaches: Mariah Grave, Joey Bauer and Dave Greenich for assis­tant junior high track, and Brett Kaple as head golf coach (for the 2013–14 school year).

Colonel Craw­ford Board of Education’s next meet­ing is March 25 at 7 p.m., in the William Han­nah Media Center.

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Feb 27 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.