Triway schools starting building process for new campus
Students in Shreve Elementary School’s Enrichment program, using math skills and LEGOs, as well as four days of planning, created a 3-D LEGO model of Triway Local School District’s proposed one-campus building to house preschool through 12th grade: sixth-grader Renee Webb, left, Triway Superintendent Nate Schindewolf, sixth-graders Matthew Kennedy, Caleb McCain, Joy Acker and Ella McPhillips, fifth-grader Gage Kota, and Shreve Elementary School Principal Adam Stein. Kneeling is fifth-grader Logan Speelman.
Triway Local Schools has begun the process of building a new one-campus building housing preschool through 12th grade.
Surveys underway at the proposed site of the existing Triway High School and Triway Junior High School will determine the exact location of the over 200,000-square-foot building being funded by an additional 1 percent earned income tax approved by the voters in the fall.
“We are humbled by the support of the voters and really excited about the next step,” Superintendent Nate Schindewolf said.
Data being gathered includes land elevations, soil tests and locations of utilities. “Once we get those reports back,” Schindewolf said, “we will make the best decision for the site location.”
The building will cost an estimated $53,145,163 and be financed by the income tax in conjunction with the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission, which will pay the state share of $17,006,452. The local share is estimated at $36,138,711.
“We have a partnership with the OFCC in this process,” Schindewolf said, “so we are bound by their time lines.”
Construction is estimated at 20-24 months, but when ground will be broken will depend on the length of the design phase and time line established by OFCC.
The district plans to hire an architect by the end of this school year and have a construction manager on board in the following four to six weeks. A design team made up of representatives from each building will be created during the summer months “to act as a voice” for the project.
“We want an architect that will listen to our staff members,” Schindewolf said, noting that includes every single member. “We want to make sure we have something that fits our needs.”
The community also will have input in the design. Schindewolf said before Triway Local Schools campaigned for funds for a new building, it spent a couple of years gathering community input on the direction of education at Triway. “That won’t change now. We want the community to have a voice in this process as well,” he said.
In the meantime teams of staff have made weekly visits to newer educational facilities across the state over the past couple of months, looking at various stages of construction.
“These schools have been very transparent with us in telling us what went well and what they would have done differently,” Schindewolf said.
They’ve also discussed the process of moving from more than one school building to one. The Triway district will transition from four buildings: the junior high and high school along with Shreve and Wooster Township elementary schools.
The one-campus building proposed would operate as three separate buildings — elementary school, middle school and high school — and will feature two cafeterias served by a shared kitchen, three separate gyms, independent academic spaces by grade level, staggered start times for primary and secondary students, and two different bus routes.
Additionally Schindewolf said, “We are 100 percent confident we have something that will enhance our fine arts program.”
Schindewolf said the proposed building includes a state-of-the-art auditorium with seating for about 750 people. He said the plan is for the community to use it as well. “We’ve been meeting with different community organizations on how they could utilize the space,” he said.
Schindewolf said the one-campus approach will make the district more fiscally responsible and strengthen programs in all aspects of education. “We won’t have to replicate STEAM labs,” he said.
Additionally it will foster greater staff collaboration and consolidate maintenance, food service and safety resources, anticipated to result in accompanying cost savings.
“We’re really excited about what that collaboration will look like moving forward,” Schindewolf said.
Anticipating the closing of Shreve Elementary School, the administration is in the process of forming an economic development committee that will represent the village.
“We understand the village’s reliance on that income tax,” Schindewolf said, “and we feel it’s necessary to have a team effort to come up with a plan to best use the 10 acres of land [the school now occupies.]”
Schindewolf said the committee will include the president of the Wayne County Economic Development Committee, as well as representatives from the village.
“This has always been about education first,” Schindewolf said.
At every community meeting conducted prior to deciding to ask the community for a levy, Schindewolf said he led with "this is about education first; this is about the future of education."
"I feel good about how we went about that. We’ve really made tremendous strides with the product that we have,” Schindewolf said.
Those strides include the addition of secondary-level courses on drones, engineering pathways and robotics. “We added these courses because they sound fun,” he said. “We know our students are going to be doing these types of things in the future. The drone industry is growing more rapidly than any other industry. Farmers are using drones, and the pipeline [operators] are using drones. We want students exposed to that technology to gain valuable skills in the classroom.”
Schindewolf said the aim is authentic learning. “We want to move from textbooks to hands-on learning,” he said, adding the one-campus building really paves the way for what education is going to look like at Triway.