The new high school, which will house grades 9-12, is so far on schedule to be ready by August 2028 as preliminary design work – incorporating feedback from current students, staff and residents – continues as planned, said Monroe Schools Superintendent Robert Buskirk.
“We are still in the design phase … and we’ve talked to a lot of people,” said Buskirk. “There are a lot of details that go into every decision and there is really a lot to consider but it’s also an exciting time for Monroe Schools.”
As part of the $62 million project, he announced a long-desired, second traffic access road to the hilltop campus will eventually be added – north of the current Yankee Road entrance – once the new school opens in August 2028.
And the district’s aging primary school, which was opened in the 1950s, will eventually be closed with its pre-K, kindergarten and 1st grade enrollment moved into some of the learning spaces of the Yankee Road school when grades 9-12 are relocated in August 2028 to the new high school.
Monroe Schools have more than doubled enrollment to the current 2,850 students since the current 2-12 school building was opened in 2004.
In January, the district also unveiled a $2.5 million gym-to-classrooms conversion facility to help ease some of the overcrowding in the 2-12 grade school.
The new high school will be located about 100 yards from the southern section of the current 2-12 grade combined school, which has its elementary, middle school and high school grades divided into three separate wings.
The new high school will consist of a mostly a two-story building – higher for the gym – with a total projected square footage being between 135,000 to 140,000.
“By late spring or early summer you’ll start to see dirt moving,” said Buskirk of the coming ground and construction work phase of the project.
Thad Rhoden, architect with Fanning and Howey, which has designed hundreds of schools across the Midwest and for some southwest Ohio school systems including Little Miami Schools in Warren County and Finneytown Schools in Hamilton County, said the Monroe project “is moving along great.”
“We are looking forward to finalizing details … and getting subcontractors on the project by summer,” said Rhoden.
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