ThisWeek Community Newspapers

Thursday, January 31, 2008

JENNIFER NESBITT
ThisWeek Staff Writer

The Ohio School Facilities Commission will give the public one more chance to weigh in on plans for the consolidation of the Ohio schools for the blind and deaf before the project moves forward toward construction.

OSFC will host an open house revealing the current plans for the new school buildings from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Feb. 7 at the Ohio School for the Deaf, 500 Morse Road.

OSFC's executive director will attend the open house, along with the superintendents of both schools and representatives of the Ohio Department of Education, said OSFC spokesman Rick Savors.

"This time, (the public) will see what the proposal is to move forward with," Savors said. "The public's going to have the chance to talk and ask questions of these people individually."

In addition, OSFC senior project administrator Rob Grinch said the plans will be broken down by phases of the project, with the first phase planned to focus on the educational facilities for the schools.

Savors said the plans that will be presented reflect the concerns presented to OSFC by the community, the schools and alumni after public meetings last summer.

In August, the commission held an open house, during which it revealed three potential plans for the site: one in which the schools were consolidated on the site of the school for the deaf, one in which they were consolidated on the site of the school for the blind and one in which the schools remained separate.

It was since announced that the commission will move forward with plans to leave the schools on their existing sites.

"One of the concerns ... was that consolidating on to one property, the other would be left to commercial development," Savors said.

Another concern OSFC has worked to address, he said, was the issue of building schools that would be environmentally friendly and that the construction of the new buildings would not hurt the green space surrounding the schools or the Bill Moose Ravine.

"We worked with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to keep this as environmentally friendly as possible," Savors said.

In addition, Eric Algoe, the chief operating officer for the School for the Deaf and the State School for the Blind, said the new buildings will be constructed closer together than the existing buildings, allowing for more green space.

The schools also are working with local environmental groups to discover how that green space could best be put to use and to explore whether a path could be added to the ravine to allow community members and students access to the nature preserve.

"Since none of our plans have been 100 percent finalized, not all of those plans have been able to go forward," Algoe said. "We're certainly hoping it becomes more of an asset to the community rather than the hidden gem it is today."

Having the school buildings more consolidated on the campuses also will help to cut down on the time students spend trudging back and forth between dining quarters, living quarters and educational space, Algoe said.

The new plans set up the buildings in a more logical fashion for life at the school, he said.

"If you look at an aerial view of the campus today ... it's very disorganized," Algoe said.

The new plans also make buildings easier to navigate for the blind students. Dormitories will be more open for better supervision of the students and the buildings will be more efficient all around, Algoe said.

The biggest difference for students, however, will be the quality of the buildings, he said. While the old buildings are perfectly warm, safe and dry for students, Algoe said they are drab and hard to maintain because of their age.

"The thing that's going to be most meaningful to our kids and to the people who visit our schools is the quality of our buildings," Algoe said. "It will just feel like a nicer, safer place. Parents make a difficult decision when they send their children to live here."

Though the plans being presented are what OSFC intends to move forward with, Algoe emphasized it's not too late for the public to provide feedback.

"We're still listening. It's certainly not too late," Algoe said. "I don't want people to come and think we're presenting what has been decided."

Savors said architects for the project will incorporate what the community tells OSFC into the developing plans for the project as it moves closer to construction.

With plans to begin prep work on the site in the fall and to break ground on the project in March 2009, Grinch said the commission hopes to have plans finalized over the next two months.

"Between now and the end of March, we'd like to have a plan that works and that we can afford," Grinch said.