NEW MATAMORAS — Frontier Local Schools can finally begin to put the Ohio School Facilities Commission contract behind it as the district begins looking forward to when renovations will take place.

The district entered into the program in November 1999 to build elementary schools and update the high school. Frontier undertook the $24.7 million project in 1999 and there were reports of shoddy workmanship and use of incorrect materials resulting in poor construction.

The district has had to work to make its own improvements over the years. Last month, the district signed a partnership with the Ohio School Facilities Commission that gave them funds to correct some of the work seen in the schools, officials said.

Superintendent Brian Rentsch said last week, he met with a locker company to look about replacing several of the lockers at New Matamoras Elementary School.

“Basically, we will be getting 75 new lockers where the other lockers were rusting,” he said. “These new lockers would be bigger with more room for the book bags in there and it isn’t costing more for the bigger lockers.”

To replace the lockers in the school and the locker rooms, it’s totaled at $13,475, which is funded by the OSFC.

“The new lockers have a different lock and won’t rust,” said Rentsch.

The board approved the renovation to the lockers and that project is expected to begin in June. The district is taking care of the demolition of the old lockers, and Rentsch said that will save them $1,300 on this project.

The windows at Newport Elementary are also on the list to be replaced due to a haze obstructing vision outside, but several of the board members decided the bid for new windows, $19,000, could be spent elsewhere.

“We can put $19,000 somewhere else because the windows are working perfectly fine,” said board member Kurt Bohlen.

The board also approved a painting bid for the high school and light poles at all three schools in the district for roughly $31,000.

“One of the companies (Clean Solutions) gave us a bid for this project for $37,000 and the other was $67,400 so it would be smart to go with the Clean Solutions bid because this needs done,” said Rentsch. “None of this would have happened without the help from the OSFC.”