Wooster board signals shift away from Cornerstone as school facility planning accelerates

When it comes to discussing Wooster City Schools’ facilities, the Cornerstone Elementary building often dominates the conversation.

It was no different during the Nov. 20 regular session of the WCS Board of Education inside the Wooster High School Large Group Instruction Room when Superintendent Gabe Tudor presented options for the district’s future master facilities plan.

“The Cornerstone conversation has been going on for a while, a long time — a long, long time,” said Board President Rik Goodright, who spent 11 years of his four decades in education as an administrator for WCS, most recently as the assistant superintendent from 2008-11.

It appears that could end in the near future, though, as board members shared their preference for moving ahead with a facility plan without Cornerstone, which was built in the 1920s as the community’s high school until the current high school was built in the early 1990s.

“I would love for Cornerstone to continue to be a building in our community, but I do not think it should be a school building anymore,” said Jody Starcher, board vice president.

Because the board didn’t decide on a facility resolution, Tudor said he will bring more detailed information to the December regular board meeting about two of the five new options presented that don’t include Cornerstone.

Tudor stressed the need for a decision about facilities soon for several reasons.

“The last few years as levies haven’t passed, we have done repair work, but we haven’t done major repair work in those buildings, and those will be needed if we are going to stay in our current facilities,” said Tudor, adding the newest building, the high school, is more than 30 years old, and all the other buildings besides Cornerstone are around 60 years old.

Tudor said timelines for getting a levy on the ballot in May or next November, as well as receiving funding from the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission, are fast approaching. To get a levy on the May 2026 ballot, the first resolution would need to be approved at the Dec. 16 meeting and the second in January, he said.

During the public comment period of the meeting, resident Ted Hill, who ran for the school board in November but lost, urged the board to wait to take up any resolution on facilities until the two incoming board members join in January. One of the incoming members, Bonnie Nair, was at the meeting. Clayton Deighan is the other new member.

Ryan Kuzma and Cody Austin are the two members whose terms expire at the end of the year who didn’t run for reelection.

Austin, a financial adviser, said the reason he doesn’t favor any of the three options that include Cornerstone is the new intermediate school option for third grade through fifth grade, with co-funding from the state, wouldn’t cost that much more than the Cornerstone major repairs option.

“When you think of a difference of $5 or $6 million in total cost for a 100-year-old building versus a new build, that’s hard for me to stomach,” he said.

The intermediate school option would place K-2 in Kean, Melrose and Parkview elementaries and sixth grade through eighth grade in Edgewood Middle School. Feedback from the community would prefer an option where sixth grade through eighth grade are in Edgewood and ninth grade through 12th grade are in the high school, according to Tudor.

The other option with a new building, a new K-5 elementary school, would accommodate that community preference, but also is the most expensive option and would replace all the elementary schools.

The option with a new middle school for sixth grade through eighth grade was rejected by voters in May.

In addition to the option of making major repairs to Cornerstone, the other two that would include Cornerstone are districtwide permanent improvements and modulars, which are less expensive than the options with new buildings but wouldn’t include state co-funding and Tudor and a few board members said would be “Band-Aid” solutions.

“As wonderful as Cornerstone is and as historic as it is, I still question if it is the best environment for learning,” member Joy Kleinhenz said, later adding what most of the other members echoed: “I strongly feel we have to look at a new option.”

For more detailed information about the meeting and the facility options, visit www.woostercityschools.org/board-of-education.