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MARIETTA -- Having launched a district-wide program to meet the short-term facilities needs of its students, teachers and the community at large, Marietta City Schools is now turning to the longer game.
A group of citizens led by Eric Reed, an Ohio Department of Transportation engineer and a parent with three students in the school system, began meeting last year after the district's levy proposal was defeated. The group, coordinating its efforts with the board and administration, is looking for ways to determine what the district's facilities will look like over the next two or three decades and beyond.
That group met late Monday afternoon at an open meeting with the board and several other people – about 25 in all – for a lengthy conversation about figuring out what Marietta voters might accept as a facilities improvement plan in November.
Reed said his group since they began meeting in December had tried to puzzle out the public mind, the reasons the $85 million levy had been defeated.
"I think you guys are just crushing it in terms of education – my daughter is getting algebra in third grade," he told the board and administrators Monday. "It's just a matter of getting our kids into decent facilities, that's what I care about."
Reed said the November vote went much the same way as the previous levy proposal in 2010.
"But you had some great marketing programs this time. I started wondering if there was just something fundamentally wrong," he said.
The discussion went around the room, with consideration of ideas that included changes to the defeated plan that could involve a new upper-grade building near Washington State Community College and putting up a new K-5 school on the site where Marietta Middle School now sits.
The board and administration already has held a dialogue with the public on a short-term plan that would close two elementary schools and change the grades that attend the remaining four buildings. The long-term committee is examining what the district could do beyond that.
"A great plan and the right plan are two different things," said board vice president Russ Garrison, who is the board's chair for the long-term committee. "We have to figure out what the right plan is, the plan that will pass."
Despite a pro-levy campaign funded by $75,000 in outside money, the November levy was defeated by a margin of 14 percent.
"The first step, I think, is how do we engage the community to define what we're trying to accomplish?" he said. "I hope it's not, 'Live within what you have – we won't raise taxes.' But if that's the collective view of the community, it's important for us to know that."
Among those attending the meeting was developer George Broughton. Reed had given a brief slide show at the start of the meeting, which included pictures of a 1966 Mustang and a 2019 model. Reed said the choice given the community in the levy vote was comparable.
"In this town, it's the old Mustang that's going to sell. I'm in sales, I'm in selling ideas, and trying to sell people the same thing again, that's a bad idea," he said. "Come up with a plan to use what we have. The Washington State Community College plan, people thought, 'That's their land,' it was up there, couldn't be seen. With the nostalgia vote, fixing up the old buildings, I think we'd have a shot."
The district, however, needs to solve its operating problems, which cost it between $100,000 and $300,000 a year more than it brings in.
"Our facilities are in poor shape because we have prioritized people over facilities," Garrison said. "Ninety-two percent of the districts across the state have higher revenue per student, our teacher salaries are low in this region, which puts us at a competitive disadvantage, and we can't divert operating money to buildings, it's a challenging situation," Garrison said. "I think we need the levy money (for buildings) to get into a solid position and the permanent improvement levy money to keep them maintained."
How to develop a plan that the majority of voters will support is the challenge for the committee, and it starts by knowing how to reach them. The district held several meetings this month on its short-term facilities options, drawing more than 100 to the first two and fewer at the last.
"My sense is, if we're not hearing from 600 or 1,000 people willing to say, 'This is what I think,' and they're saying that to other people, then we're not reflecting the community," said superintendent Will Hampton.
The committee scheduled its next meeting for 6 p.m. March 24 at Washington Elementary School. The meeting is open to everyone.