Schools Cut Back with New Buildings (OH)
May 11, 2010
When Mindy Victor says goodbye to Room 24 in New Burlington Elementary later this month, the sixth-grade teacher will miss few things about the school.
She says she won’t miss its mismatched and sometimes wobbly chairs and desks. She won’t miss how her room gets 20 degrees hotter than others across the hall because it’s on the sunny side of the building.
"This will be the last time I sweat in my classroom," she said last week, dreaming of her move to one of two new, air-conditioned elementary schools that Mt. Healthy is opening in August.
"It’s an oxymoron. OK, we’re getting smaller, yet we’re doubling in size" in each school building, she said.
It’s the end of an era for at Mt. Healthy, said Judith Ashton, district spokeswoman. The district is transforming into a leaner and environmentally greener district, shuttering five neighborhood elementary schools and opening two, larger elementary schools.
The 3,450-student district also is opening a combined junior and senior high school in January.

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"We’ve had declining enrollment, but make no mistake," Superintendent David Horine said, "This is being driven by economic efficiency."
Mt. Healthy will save $1.5 million to $1.8 million a year from its $35 million annual budget by operating fewer, newer schools, he said.
It’s happening all across the Cincinnati region: some suburban school districts are closing old, neighborhood elementary schools and opening newer district-wide buildings. School leaders hope that fewer, "greener" schools will save millions of dollars in energy, staff and operational costs.
Many transforming districts are using state dollars paired with local bond issues. Here are some examples:
Three Rivers voters last week approved a plan to close all four of its schools by fall 2013, when a new, single school will open to serve kindergarten-through-12th-grade on one campus on Cooper Road in Cleves. About 40 percent of the project’s $62 million cost will come from the Ohio School Facilities Commission.
Hamilton City Schools is going from 14 elementary schools to eight new ones, opening this year and next. The state is paying for half of the $240 million project, which includes additions to its high school and other improvements.
North College Hill will close its three elementary schools May 20 and open one K-through-4th-grade building, North College Hill Elementary, this fall. The district also is replacing its junior high-high school building with a new middle-school and high school building.
Fairfax Elementary is closing at the end of this school year and its students will head to Mariemont Elementary. The district, which will renovate and make additions to other buildings and rebuild its junior high, is going from five schools to four.
School leaders and taxpayers are increasingly agreeing to close buildings while building new ones, hoping to find efficiencies.
"I think there’s a higher degree of awareness of operational costs among districts than there has been in the past," said Rick Savors, spokesman of the Ohio School Facilities Commission, which is funding the projects.
"In some instances it is more efficient to lower the number of schools in a district," he said. "In addition to reducing the number of buildings, districts are looking at the campus effect, moving buildings closer together to reduce transportation costs."
Downsizing the number of schools is inevitable, Savors said, especially in urban and metropolitan suburban districts that lost students over the past decade.
"Most districts are doing this because it’s really the most cost-efficient way to maintain," said Rhonda Bohannon, superintendent of Three Rivers in Cleves. ‘I think when you have the ability to have all your staff together, there’s so much more opportunity for teaming that will allow for better collaboration and continuity of your curriculum and programs … and more sharing of staff who will have more access to resources."
Horine said Mt. Healthy’s savings will come from bringing more students and teachers together. Instead of some classes being half full, all will be full, and the district will need fewer teachers, he said.
So far the district plans to cut 11 or 12 teachers’ jobs, out of 238 or so employed, but there may be more, he said. Also, there will be 10 fewer bus drivers, 1.6 fewer administrators, at least one less secretary.
There will also be more cuts, he said, he plans to discuss at an upcoming board meeting Monday.
<p&g t;With each teacher cut, the district saves about $50,000 in salary and benefits, he said.
Even with the cuts and some uncertainties, Victor says she looks forward to the new schools next year.
She’ll gain natural light in her future classroom, air conditioning, more advanced computers, a microphone that projects her voice throughout the class, and an electronic white board, sometimes called smart boards.
She will miss the chalkboards, though, and plans to smuggle a few pieces of chalk into the new building, just to hold on to.
"School is supposed to be about red bricks and chalk and that Little House on the Prairie feel to each classroom," she said. "Now, we’re going to be all high-techy, with brand new stuff. I’m going to carry around that chalk in my pocket so I can remember the days when we all used chalk."