SPRINGBORO -- This summer, Springboro Schools Superintendent Gary Meier says, he will focus on facilities.
In three months, the district will open a two-story, 217,000-square-foot high school on 50 acres just south of the existing high school. It will be large enough for 1,200 students.
Sixth- through eighth-graders will move from the junior high school to the old high school. The junior high school will close for one year so it can be renovated and then reopened in September 1999 as the district's third elementary school.
"We're just all facilities-oriented this summer," Mr. Meier said. "The overcrowding will be relieved at the junior and senior high schools. We have to work through one more year of overcrowding at the elementary schools."
The construction projects are being paid for through a $29.8 million bond issue voters approved in 1995.
The heating systems at the high school and Clearcreek Elementary School were converted from electricity to natural gas last year as the first phase of the project.
"We're right on schedule," said project engineer Mark Thomas, of Dugan & Meyers Construction Co., general contractors.
"We're in the finishing phase right now. We're doing floors, tile and the ceiling grid. We'll do the carpet next week. We still have to put a final coat of asphalt down, finish the interior painting and do landscaping work."
Mr. Thomas said the project will easily be finished by the Aug. 14 deadline. That should leave plenty of time to move materials from the old high school to the new before classes resume Sept. 8. Two trailers containing two classrooms each will be moved from the junior high school -- one to Clearcreek Elementary; the other to Jonathan Wright Elementary -- to ease crowding while the junior high undergoes renovation, Mr. Meier said.
"We'll monitor the enrollment all summer and hope we don't need another trailer," Mr. Meier said. "We don't want to put too much (money) into trailers, because in just a year, we'll have enough space."
Enrollment has gone from 2,052 in 1986 to 2,740 in 1995 and 2,943 last October. Mr. Meier said he expects 100 to 150 more students when the new high school opens in the fall and 3,352 students by the 2000-2001 school year.
