COMMUNITY CONNECTION
Facilities Planning is in Full Swing in SMFCSD
O
ur schools are a great source of pride in the community. In order to protect our residents’ investment in our schools, from time to time, we analyze the way we do business to ensure we deliver on the quality and efficiency our community expects, including our school buildings. For many years, Stow-Munroe Falls City Schools has taken great care to maintain our schools. Providing safe, warm, dry, and effective learning environments for our students is of the utmost importance. Recently, our district has launched a multi-step process to review the current state of all of our buildings. With buildings that range from over 30 to 80 years old, it’s important to review what it is costing residents to patch and repair our aging schools, especially if the state of Ohio is willing to pay for 24% of the cost. Starting in 2019, the district worked with construction and school facilities experts to analyze every square inch of our school buildings – both from a financial and educational standpoint. This is a free service provided by the state of Ohio as part of the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission (OFCC). In addition, the district created a Facilities Task Force made up of a large cross section of our community to assist the district in coming up with a Master Facilities Plan. The assessment revealed that although our staff has done an incredible job with maintaining our schools, many of our building systems are nearing or well beyond their lifespan. In addition, our classroom space does not reflect what students will encounter in today’s colleges and job market.
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Now that the assessment has been completed, the next steps include involving the community on what, if anything, should be done to address any facility needs through a Master Facilities Plan. The community-led Facilities Task Force is working with construction experts, architects and school officials to help create a Master Facilities Plan. We will hold multiple community meetings to gather feedback from community members as well. After we solidify the details of the Master Facilities Plan, the board of education will determine the next steps and whether or not to move forward with an action plan. We are keeping an open mind. We are not moving forward with preconceived notions or assumptions. All options and suggestions regarding the school buildings will be thoroughly vetted and guided by the input of the community. We encourage all residents to participate in the conversation. We hope to complete any plan developed by April 2022 and will offer tours of our school buildings in fall 2022. We understand transparency through every step of this community-led plan is a crucial component of the process. Our district will be updating our website with progress frequently. We encourage you to visit https://www.smfschools.org/Administration2/114 on a regular basis for insight on developments. Any questions about this process can be directed toward the director of operations at 330-689-5413.
