VINCENT - Warren Local Schools is looking for some authors, not to write textbooks, but to design new schools.
Parents, business leaders and other community members will get their chance to meet with architects and help design Warren's proposed new schools, beginning with a Monday vision planning meeting at 6:30 p.m. in the high school cafeteria.
"Our primary goal is to get the community to be the author of the new schools," FJM/TMP Architecture marketing director Gail Allevato said. "Then when it comes down to the vote, it's less likely that the community will vote down something they authored."
Warren is seeking to pass a November bond issue to build four new elementary schools and renovate the high school in conjunction with the Ohio School Facilities Commission. If voters OK the bond issue, Warren would pay approximately 54 percent of the project and the state would pay the remaining 46 percent. The state estimates the total project cost will be $52 million.
The Monday meeting will allow community members to offer characteristics that they would like to see in their new schools, FJM/TMP Architecture project designer Gary Jelin said. A second public meeting will be Feb. 4 at the same place and time to prioritize those ideas. Participants in the meetings will also be given disposable cameras to take pictures of what they like in architecture and schools they've seen elsewhere.
They will bring the cameras back to give the architects ideas, Jelin said.
Third and fourth public meetings will be held on Feb. 18 and April 21, respectively, to review and craft an outline of new schools.
Scott said he will be sending flyers home with students to remind parents of the public meetings. The school's Web site and newsletter will also keep community informed.
By the end of April, FJM/TMP Architecture is scheduled to return with concept designs of each building. The location of the new schools should also be set by late April. The designs will be presented on posterboard and left in each building for the public to view.
"The whole process is about giving information to the voters," Allevato said. "No one will walk in and vote yes to raise taxes unless they understand how it will benefit their community."
Board member Willie Holbert told architects the challenge will be in creating four equal elementaries, yet unique to each Warren community.
"What's good or liked in Bartlett may not be liked in Little Hocking," Holbert said. "We have five separate communities and they are all different."
Warren Local serves about 2,660 students. Warren, Barlow-Vincent and Little Hocking elementaries enroll students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Cutler and Bartlett split the grades - kindergarten through third grade at Cutler and fourth grade to eighth grade at Bartlett. All of the schools feed into Warren High School in Vincent for grades nine through 12.
Under the four new elementary schools plan, Bartlett and Cutler schools will be combined to form one school. Additional redistricting will be required to even out each kindergarten through eighth-grade new school to about 450 students.
Another part of information process will be to promote voter registration, Allevato said.
"Some people think parents are good voters, but likely they're not," she said. "I see, on average, that only 40 percent of parents are registered voters."