HOMER — Homer Elementary School and Hartford Elementary School, both in the Northridge School district, will be closed at the end of this school year. Rick Savors, chief of communications for the Ohio School Facilities Commission, said OSFC inspections of both schools show the buildings being rated “very poor.”
In making recommendations to school districts, the OSFC looks at the cost to renovate a building versus the cost to replace it for the same number of students. Savors said Homer is at an 88 percent factor; Hartford is at an 82 percent factor. That means that, in Homer Elementary’s case, renovating the existing facility would cost at least 88 percent of the price of a new building. OSFC typically recommends that at about 67 percent, the district should go with replacement as opposed to renovation.
“The other thing we tell districts that’s very significant here,” Savors said, “ is that the reason we set the bar at about 67 percent is because we do the assessments in a nondestructive manner. That means we don’t go in and tear up walls or punch holes in things, so you don’t know what’s inside of them. We’ve found in a lot of cases that once you get inside a building and start doing the renovations, once you start tearing the walls off and tearing the casements out and replacing stuff, then you run into significant increased costs.
“At some point in time, those replacement and repair costs might exceed the price of constructing a new building. We’ll co-fund a renovation, but only up to the cost of replacing the building. Anything after that is entirely the district’s responsibility. So, it can be a significant financial risk for a district to do a renovation, especially when the renovation-to-replace ratio is that high.”
Savors said OSFC is working with the district to develop an overall facilities master plan, and said Northridge will probably be eligible for some money from OSFC in the next year or two.
Bernadette Collins, whose children attend Homer Elementary, said she is not surprised by the administration’s decision to close the schools.
“I don’t think they had a choice. ... I guess I was a little surprised that we were so high up on the ‘worst building list,’” she said, “but I knew they were going to have to do something — the situation was only going to get worse. I knew when the levy didn’t pass there had to be some changes someway, somewhere.
“Apparently the plan is to put modulars near the middle school/high school to temporarily house elementary students. Unfortunately, what worries me is that Johnstown put modulars in 10 years ago and there’re still there. I would hate for us to follow that same path.”
In November, Northridge voters rejected a replacement school income tax levy which would have been earmarked for permanent improvements.
Northridge school officials did not return calls for comment.
