This school year, the district formed a Future-Ready Facilities Steering Committee of community members, business leaders, city and school staff, students and parents/guardians, which is hosting a forum from 6 to 8 p.m. March 20 in the recital hall of Fairmont High School, 3301 Shroyer Road.
“I encourage residents to attend this informative meeting as we work to involve the community in this important process — one that will shape decisions impacting not only today’s students but generations of learners to come,” said Superintendent Mindy McCarty-Stewart.
Through a partnership with the OSFCC, Kettering City Schools could receive 43% for the base cost of construction, said consultant Mike Ruetschle of Ruetschle Architects, who also is a Fairmont graduate.
Ruetschle, who spoke to the board of education during a work session earlier this month, said the commission recommends building replacement if the cost of renovation is two-thirds or more of the cost of new construction.
“When they did the assessments, essentially all of your buildings were calling for building replacement,” he said.
The exception was the 20-year-old Greenmont Elementary School in a neighborhood south of Patterson Road and west of Culver Avenue. Also, a large portion of the high school has had new construction but not its core academic building.
As the district considers options, it needs to “right-size” buildings.
“Kettering is in a fairly stable to slightly declining enrollment,” Ruetschle said.
A five-year enrollment projection is 7,392 students for the 2028-29 academic year, compared to this year’s enrollment of 7,752.
However, the five-year outlook does not take into consideration a change in state law that takes effect April 9 that allows children of active-duty military parents to enroll in any public school — so long as the district has space — that could bring in more students.
A hypothetical master plan would include a demolition and renovation of the academic portion of Fairmont; replacing the two middle schools with one school of about 1,600 students; and building four new kindergarten-through-fifth-grade schools with 739 students each.
The state prefers larger buildings for economies of scale to have fewer kitchens, fewer heating plants, said Ruetschle, who added that the plan is hypothetical so the district could opt for five elementary schools.
The district could then abate and demolish the old schools, sell them or repurpose them, he said.
Any construction does not need to happen all at once, but could be done in segments based on district priorities.
The all-in plan with 43% co-funding from the state would cost $406 million in today’s dollars.
“That’s a big number. Part of this exercise was to lay out a hypothetical, lay out the full picture to then see how we can work with this moving forward,” Ruetschle said.
Under this model, $259 million, or about 64%, would be locally funded and $147 million would come from the state of Ohio.
“That’s what’s propelling this generational opportunity. How often has Kettering had the opportunity to bring in $147 million in state money for new facilities?” Ruetschle said.
Following the March 20 community forum, the district will work through its options phase and present the community with master plan options during a second community forum this fall. After the second forum, the district will refine those options and in December will move toward a plan with the hope the board in January could begin reading legislation to go on the May 2026 ballot.
If the levy is placed on the ballot in May and approved by voters, construction would take one year to design and two years to build the first buildings, which would be 2029 at the earliest.
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