Wooster City Schools continues work on master plan, look to future

On Mar 7, 2022

The Wooster High School building showing the west side for a possible new building.

WOOSTER – The future of Wooster City Schools has been an ongoing discussion even before Superintendent Gabe Tudor stepped into the roll.

The Master Planning Committee, which is comprised of teachers, community members and construction professionals, started discussions with the previous superintendent and have met three times since the start of the school year.

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Several updates and recommendations have come from the committee already this school year, and Tudor shared what the committee is working on and recommending for the master plan along with the next steps it hopes to take.

Where is the master plan now?

The master plan is in its second phase where the committee is reviewing things like building location and grade level configuration.

Four buildings are being recommended including two elementary or intermediate schools, a middle school and a high school. The high school building would remain as part of the plan, but the other buildings would be new, according to the current plan posted on the district website.

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The grade level configuration is still an ongoing discussion, Tudor said, as the district has continued to collect feedback through events like the feedback session in September surveys for staff members.

With the current feedback and research done by the committee, Tudor said the committee is currently recommending that the elementary schools be broken up by grade level rather than by location, or “neighborhood schools.”

Several grade level configurations are being considered, including which building will house grades 2, 5 and 7, which can be found on the district website under the facilities master plan tab.

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What will happen to the old buildings, like Cornerstone Elementary School?

Information collected by the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission a few years ago showed that the cost to renovate the elementary schools and Edgewood Middle School would cost more than building new ones. Due to this, Tudor said the district would qualify for state funding and assistance from the OFCC to build new schools.

Based on the data, the committee decided to recommend to eventually close the old elementary schools, but the land may be re-used for future schools. Cornerstone Elementary School is projected as one of the locations the district hopes to use for one of the elementary schools.

Tudor said the committee recognizes Cornerstone holds a lot of sentimentality for many in the community, which has led to the committee to work with the architects to see if parts of the school, including the preschool and the main gym, can be kept as part of the new building.

Where will students stay while the new buildings are under construction?

With construction set to kick off with Cornerstone and the new middle school, Tudor said the plan is to keep the students in their respective schools for as long as possible and use Edgewood Middle School as a “swing space” if needed.

Edgewood will get some upgrades, through ESSER funding the district received from the state, including air conditioning in the building so it can continue to be used for several years, Tudor said.

As schools are completed, students will begin to move into their new schools and out of the older buildings but that will take time, Tudor said.

“It’s (Edgewood Middle School) definitely going to be a building that will be used until that third building is fully completed, which could be 15 years from now,” Tudor said. “Edgewood may not stay the middle school for the next 15 years, but it will house kids for the next 15 years (or so).”

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When does construction start? And, what happens next?

There are no plans of when construction will begin since the plan is still in its early phases, but the committee has come up with a general timeline it hopes to follow.

According to the Phase II plan on the district website, construction will begin with the new elementary school over at Cornerstone and the new middle school. The middle school will be somewhere on the high school campus, but the exact location has yet to be determined, Tudor said.

Next, renovations on the high school will begin along with the construction of the second elementary school. While no location has been set for the second elementary school, Tudor said the committee is considering several locations including Parkview Elementary and near the high school.

Before any construction can begin, Tudor said the committee and school board will continue to finalize the master plan proposal and get feedback, through community meetings coming up this month, before bringing it to the community to ask for their help with funding.