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School’s design gets lots of input

Groundbreaking  ceremony today for $46 million high  school project.

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By Eric Robinette, Staff Writer 12:31 AM Sunday, September 20, 2009

TRENTON — A project as large and complex as the new Edgewood High School, which breaks ground at 2 p.m. today, Sept. 21, has to be a creation not only of an architect, but of everyone who will be affected by it.

That’s why the design of the $46 million school has seen input from everyone ranging from the board of education to community members. The current freshman class, which will be the first to attend the new building, will have its say as well.

“We were involved in the design and planning,” said John Snyder, board of education president. He said the board especially liked how the building featured many wide, open spaces, with an emphasis on natural light.

“It’s not a luxury kind of thing. We’re taking advantage of what’s available. We’re not building a Taj Mahal,” he said.

One of the main reasons the new building was needed was to relieve overcrowding, particularly in the elementary buildings.

“It provides us more room, for one thing. In the last year our enrollment did fall off a bit. We think that will pick up again. We’ll set ourselves up for 25 to 30 years as far as this new facility. We should not have space problems for years to come. It gives us the ability to put kids in classrooms and not cram kids under the stairwells,” Snyder said.

The Ohio School Facilities Commission, which provides oversight of the construction project, is paying for $20 million of the cost, while the district will pick up the other $26 million. Eventually, this will necessitate a need for more operating money, said Superintendent Larry Knapp.

First the district will ask for a renewal of its current operating levy. However, once the building opens in 2012, there will be a need for additional money, he said.

“This will be a bigger, better, smarter building ... the heat and air conditioning will be economically designed and installed ... it will be more economical to operate in the years to come,” said Knapp.

The staff members at Edgewood High School has chimed in too. One of their ideas was to group similar classrooms together, like math and science, to allow more chances for collaboration and sharing of resources.

“We’ll be sure the money goes toward education and not aesthetics. The new high school will give us the ability to use resources in the most effective fashion,” said Bob Buccheim, the principal of Edgewood High School.

Since the Ohio School Facilities Commission does not fund amenities like auditoriums, the new high school will not have one. The one at the existing high school will continue to be used, and administrators expect that should suffice, since it was built with about 200 more seats than is typical for a school of Edgewood’s size.

The district’s design team also invited parents to express their concerns, which included the fact that the building would be technologically advanced. The OSFC requires that every classroom has an LCD projector, the principal said.

The class officers from the class of 2013, the first that will attend the new school, will be at today’s groundbreaking, and members of that class will have input on design aspects as the building gets close to completion, Buccheim said.

The project also allows for expansion. Of the 101-acre site in St. Clair Twp., about half is being taken up by the building, said Mike Dingeldein, a vice president of the architectural firm Steed Hammond Paul, which designed the school.

“It has a minimum life cycle of 40 to 50 years. It’s designed for growth in all the wings,” he said.

Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2836 or erobinette@coxohio.com.

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