Tara Loar speaks to Bowling Green City Schools Board of Education members Tuesday evening. Loar is with the facilities advisory committee, which is recommending building a new high school.
J.D. Pooley | Sentinel-Tribune
The facilities advisory committee is recommending Bowling Green City Schools build a new high school.
The preferred time to put the issue on the ballot is November.
At Tuesday’s school board meeting, Tara Loar presented the committee’s findings.
“Our recommendation to the board is a new high school,” she said.
The process started last summer and included six meetings, a tour of Northwood Schools facilities and two community meetings.
During the course of the meetings, 99% of members said there was a need to upgrade Bowling Green schools, Loar said.
And while 65% preferred to do the work in phases, the group split 50/50 on whether to build one elementary or two, she said.
“We were shocked when this came up on the screen,” Loar said. “It really showed division amongst our committee, which we believe was a true reflection of the district.”
Eighty-two percent said a high school replacement was the highest priority.
“That’s not to say the elementary is not an upmost priority as well … but 82% of the committee said we need to get the high school replaced, and that was the path of least resistance,” Loar said. “That was the one thing we could all agree upon.”
The tour of the new Northwood campus was critical, she said, as many committee members had never been inside a new school.
“There were lots and lots of eyes that were opened,” Loar said.
Eighty-seven percent opposed partnering with the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission.
That vote came after weeks of discussion and education on what OFCC does, Loar said.
“That looks so simple but the process of getting to this was anything but simple,” she said. “There were tons of questions and research. … Every meeting came back to this topic.”
Ninety-five percent preferred to build a new grades 9-12 school while 5% wanted renovation with a partial addition.
An entire meeting was spent discussing when to do a bond issue and based on increasing interest rates and the related higher expense for materials, 95% preferred November. The remaining 5% wanted May 2023.
The deadline to get the paperwork on the November ballot is Aug. 10 for a property tax and July 26 for an income tax. The board last month met to discuss the pros and cons of both funding methods.
It is up to the board to decide on which ballot to use and no timeline was given as to when that decision may be made.
The plan is to retain the existing high school gyms, the cafeteria, the locker rooms and the FFA/shop area, Loar said.
“No one has ever said we have too many gyms,” she said, adding there will be a new gym and new cafeteria as well.
A possible footprint of the new site shows the existing school sliced in half at the office and the long entrance hallway maintained.
The new parking lot stretches from what is left of the school to Poe Road.
The new high school could be built on the site of the existing parking lot and may be attached to the Performing Arts Center.
“Please don’t pay attention to the shapes,” high school Principal Dan Black said.
The footprint presented is only to show the school can fit on the current high school site, he said.
Board member Norm Geer asked why the committee didn’t vote to renovate the existing school.
Black said they would need a place to put the students and that it would take twice as long to renovate than build new.
It has previously been reported it would cost $29 million to renovate the high school and between $48.2 million and $58 million to build new.
The school was built in 1963.
“People were very committed to this process,” said school board President Jill Carr.
