MARIETTA — The administration of Marietta City Schools is moving ahead with ideas to make the district more compact while delivering an improved education, according to reports from a meeting held Thursday afternoon.

The meeting, called by administration and attended by district staff representatives, was closed and lasted about 90 minutes.

J.D. Benson, president of the Marietta Education Association — the bargaining unit that represents teachers — said administrators presented five options for going forward. The district has been considering a strategy to accommodate declining enrollment after its primary solution, an $85 million project for new schools, was rejected by voters in November. The district is now faced with adjusting its old buildings, which were built to hold 4,000 or more students, for educating a much smaller group of students. State department of education data show that in October 2019 the district enrollment was 2,440.

“Each of the options involves some changes to the district,” Benson said. “The board of education has charged the superintendent with trying to provide a better education, reduce the square footage and at the same time determine how we can better educate students. Some of the options had no elementary school closures, or two elementaries, or the middle school, none of them involved closing the high school.”

The district has four elementary schools, one middle school and a high school. The oldest building in the district, Marietta Middle School, was constructed in 1912, and the newest, Marietta High School, was built in the early 1960s. Washington Elementary School was built in 1926, and Harmar, Putnam and Phillips elementaries all went up in the 1940s and 1950s.

Enrollment data from the state department of education show that all the schools have lost students over the years. In the past decade, the combined number of middle and high school students has declined by 21 percent, and elementary school enrollment has dropped by 17 percent.

Benson said the changes, regardless of the option selected, are going to be substantial.

“I would say there are significant changes coming to Marietta City Schools, in terms of buildings, in terms of services offered and employment of people,” he said.

Courtney Kleintop is president of the Ohio Association of Public School Employees district local for Marietta. She said the district is faced with difficult choices.

“This is something none of us wants, but after the levy defeat, these are the choices we have,” she said.

Superintendent Will Hampton said the district administration held the meeting to get discussion moving with the staff.

“We put together some scenarios — some more logical than others — to give people something to think about,” he said. “And this is not me working in isolation, it’s an administrative team, we talked about the benefits and drawbacks, and there also are some unknowns.”

The district also has undertaken a study of the buildings.

“We’ve had engineers come through and really take a close look,” he said. “We know the buildings need work, and we’ll see if it makes sense to put money into them, whether it’s feasible or responsible to make changes, if the building is inadequate or on the brink of failure.”

He said the district is still waiting on the results of the studies.

A presentation is being prepared for the board, he said, and it’s expected to be presented at a special meeting that probably will take place Feb. 3.

The district and board have maintained both before and after the levy vote in November that change is inevitable.

“How you walk into change often determines how you come out of it,” Hampton said. “If you go into it with the idea that it’s an opportunity, then often it comes out as something good.”

Michael Kelly can be reached at mkelly@mariettatimes.com