Mount Vernon facility advisory committee recommends K–5 model, three new elementaries and OFCC partnership

Mount Vernon City Schools' facility advisory committee recommended on April 16 that the district maintain a K–5 elementary structure, build three new elementary schools (keeping Twin Oak Elementary), and renovate the middle and high schools while pursuing a partnership with the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission to help pay for the work.

The recommendation came after roughly a year of advisory-committee work, facility tours, enrollment and financial analysis and an educational visioning process. The committee summarized aging building conditions, evolving teaching needs, limited space for intervention and accessibility problems as key drivers for “significant” facility changes.

Superintendent Bill Seeder said the committee’s vote was unanimous on one point: “100% of the group said we need to make significant changes.” The committee then voted, by advisory ballot, that the district should partner with the OFCC; Seeder reported that 82% of committee members supported that step.

The committee’s base master-plan estimate is about $153,000,000, of which the OFCC would fund an estimated 36% of eligible costs and the local share would be about 64%, the presentation said. The district also carries a $7,600,000 expedited local partnership (ELP) credit from the earlier Twin Oak project that the advisory group expects to apply against the local share.

David Connolly of Rock…