At a school board meeting in 2013, Columbus City Schools approved the sale of three school buildings.
According to news reports at the time, the district sold Barrett Middle School on Deshler Avenue for $2.6 million dollars.
The district sold Fair Elementary on Fair Avenue for $300,000.
And the district sold Kent Elementary on Gault Street for $300,000.
And then in 2014, it demolished the controversial, historical Clinton Annex.
It may have come as a surprise when officials announced last night that the district is forming a committee to assess needs for renovation and new building construction. The district has long wanted to duplicate successful lottery programs such as CAHS, in order to expand service capacity. These needs for new construction would fuel the placement of a levy on a future ballot.
Efforts to construct new buildings are typically expensive for the district. At present, the budget projections for the ongoing construction of Africentric PreK-12 have exceeded 42 million dollars. That’s up from earlier cost projections around 37 million.
The district’s last levy attempt was in 2013. Issues 50 and 51 were targeted towards enhancing technology in the district, as well as providing city oversight. Even so, the campaign season rhetoric indicated that the district’s situation were dire. The head of the Columbus Education Association at the time, Rhonda Johnson, was reported in the organization’s newsletter as fearing “takeover by the state due to fiscal emergency, classes that grossly exceed maximum size, no art, music and physical education specialists in elementary schools, and massive layoffs.”
The 2013 issue failed. To date, the district’s budget has still not encountered the predicted shortfall.
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