An aging school building in the Middletown (Ohio) district will add more than a dozen classrooms under a $10 million plan that also makes the new learning spaces available to students from other elementary schools throughout the city.
The Dayton Daily News reports that the 425-student Central Academy would see an additional 13 classrooms built onto its existing campus, which now serves grades kindergarten to sixth grade..
Funding for the new classrooms will come from $10 million in savings from Middletown’s recent $96 million construction project in which a new middle school was built and the adjacent high school was renovated.
The Central Academy is unique in the school system for its multi-age, non-graded instructional program, and school leaders say the expansion of the school is part of a plan to eventually offer a form of the school’s curricula throughout all elementary schools.
“Expanding our innovative programming at the elementary level is the next step of the Middie Modernization Movement,” says Middletown Superintendent Marlon Styles Jr., citing the marketing moniker he launched when joining the district in 2017.
Randy Bertram, school district treasurer, says financing for the Central Academy project comes from the $10 million savings from the high school campus transformation.
“In the four years since the bond issue passed (by voters), taxpayers have only paid on $45 million instead of the $55 million authorized, meaning we have $10 million remaining we can spend on a building project," Bertram says
Construction on the 13 classrooms will begin this spring, and the expanded Central Academy is scheduled to be opened by the start of the 2020-21 school year.
