Upcoming Event

The next upcoming event for the Citizens for Quality Greenville Schools will occur on Saturday September 10, 2011 at 10:00 AM at Memorial Hall.  Invitations have been sent out to all elected officials in the 8 townships, 2 villages and the City of Greenville that compose the Greenville School System. At this gathering all of the information concerning the proposed new school will be presented to these community leaders.  It is the hope of the committee that this will form a nucleus of people where good information on the school project can come from..

THE STRAIGHT SCOOP ON THE NEW SCHOOL

This is the building the committee chose.

The Project 
- A new, fully furnished facility for grades k-8 and renovations to the existing High School. .
- An environmentally friendly and efficient building utilizing the benefits of "green"technology
- A building in which security features provide a safe environment for students and staff.
- New classrooms providing up-to-date technology, science labs, and flexible learning spaces to enhance the instructional environment.
- A building providing the space and accessibility to meet the needs of our physically challenged population.
- Renovations to the exisiting high school to create efficiencies of operation and enhanced educational opportunities.

• The Rationale: - 
• .The Ohio Schools Facilities Commission (OSFC) advised the district that aging buildings would cost more to renovate than to replace and OSFC would provide co-funding accordingly.
• The consolidation of Woodland, East, South, and the Junior High would allow operational cost reductions contrasting the current building configuration.
• The State's financial commitment to GCS's for the project is $18,192,750.
• Interest rates are at an all time low. 
• It is much more cost efficient to run one new building than four old buildings.

• The Cost For Taxpayer:
• 6.43 Mills for 28 years and 1/4% School District Income Tax
• With the elimination of a 2 mil permanent improvement levy enacted in 1989
• $ 100,000 home = $173 annually (taxpayer 64 years old and less living in home)
• $ 100,000 home = $144 annually (taxpayer 65 years or older living in home)
• $ 25,000 income = $63.00 annually ($50 Senior Credit)
• For information on figuring your tax burden go here: www.darkecountyrealestate.org/TaxEstimator/

The last new school built in the Greenville School District is the current High School. It will be 50 years old in 2013. There is money in the Ohio School Facilities Commission grant to refurbish the high school. It seemed that this was the most prudent course of action to take at this time. The current cost for operation of our current buildings is around $1.70 per square foot. New schools similar to ours are operating for less than half of that. So we go from four inefficient schools to one very efficient school and our operating levy lasts that much longer.

Publications Group

Citizens  for Quality Greenville Schools has met for an organizational meeting and many sub groups are busy working on different parts of the campaign to get the money to build a new school.  The Publications Group will handle everything that has to do with promoting the levy.

That committee met tonight and subgroups went to work on various parts of that groups areas.  People are working news releases, adds for the fair as well as information for hand outs and presentations.  Meetings are  being scheduled for local voters so that there are no questions unanswered.  Look for more information right here very soon. 

August 11, a Big Day for GSD

This evening there will be a meeting to introduce the school levy campaign to people who are interested in helping with the campaign.  The information given out tonight will only pertain to what the campaign will consist of, how the campaign will be run and what it will consist of.  Anyone who is interested in the campaign and wants to help should be at Memorial hall at 7.  Hope to see your there.

We're on Our Way

An organizational meeting was held in the Anna Bier Room of Memorial Hall today for the committee that will guide the district through the election process to acquire the money necessary for a new school.  The meeting was well attended and people volunteered for assignments in areas that they felt comfortable in.  This will all lead to an eventual development of informational presentations that will be presented throughout the district.  Watch here for more info as the process continues.

Was anyone really mad at the BOE/

The firing of the coaches by the City School Board caused an eruption of sentiment that ranged from support, to get rid of all of them. I wrote on Countynewsonline.org after it happened and offered a couple of solutions for the problem of dealing with this board. There was a recall petition of all of the board. That is a simple matter; all it takes is identifying the act that would warrant the recall, (which might be a problem) getting the petition signed by the correct number of people and then having it placed on the ballot. I haven’t heard of THAT happening yet..
Then I mentioned taking out a petition and gathering the correct amount of signatures to get your name placed on the ballot to actually run against these people that no one seems to like. I don’t think that’s happened yet. I also made mention that if we the people got rid of them, their names wouldn’t be on the brass plaque in the hall way of the new school. That would fix them! (OUCH!)
One of the board members questioned me on my motives for offering these suggestions, especially the first one and the last one. Well you see, I’ve watched things here for a long time. Previously some people would write letters to the editor where they had to sign their name. Now with chat boxes on two local web pages, there exists the ability to publish in print ones likes and dislikes without ever identifying one’s self. My suggestions were met exactly how I figured they’d be met. Absolutely nothing happened and they are still talking today.
If anything, some of the biggest complainers stopped complaining. That’s probably a good thing. What it says is that a lot of people complain for an opportunity to vent. They have no intention of actually doing anything about the problem, if in fact one actually exists. There was obviously some sort of problem with the coaches in question and perhaps we just don’t need to drag them through the mud any more than has already been done. Perhaps we don’t really need to know why they were fired. By the same token, the board making decisions with an empty gallery at most board meetings doesn’t say a whole lot about the rest of the people living in the district. That’s probably the place to do your complaining, before the fact, not after.
So since the board isn’t getting impeached and no one is running against them, that part is over with. Now to the task at hand.
We need to do something about our antique school buildings. We have five of them. They range in age from 100 years old to 50 years old. The 50 year old one is still acceptable mostly because of construction practices that were used in the 1960’s when it was built. The rest of the buildings are falling apart. That isn’t because they’ve not been taken care of, it’s because you can only fix things so many times, and these buildings are at their limit.
The energy inefficiency is only a part of the problem of the high cost to run these buildings. The roofs leak, the pipes leak, the pipes are buried in the floors, the electrical panels are obsolete and on and on. in May we had the good foresight to pass an operating levy to keep the district going. That was a good thing. A new building that will operate at half the cost of the old ones will guarantee that the operating levy will serve us well for a long time. Now we have an opportunity to have the State of Ohio share in the cost of a new energy efficient building and even pay for the dismantling of the old buildings. If we keep the situation the way it is, we are just throwing good operating money after bad situations.
Joe Payne was correct in his recent article, just because one thinks that the board made a mistake on the coaches doesn’t give the rest of us the right to make a mistake on funding a new school. The last generation of people to have had to worry about a new school is almost extinct. Let’s don’t try to compare apples and oranges anymore. The new school is a separate issue and needs the attention of all of us to get all of the facts and make an intelligent decision on voting day.
Traditionally about 30% of the 15,374 registered voters in the Greenville City School  District vote on issues. In May when the operating levy was on the ballot 20% of the 15,000 people voted. So much for complaining where it really counts.