Elyria Schools highlights district's construction project with documentary (VIDEO)

ELYRIA — Elyria Schools unveiled a story six years in the making Wednesday evening. At a special board meeting held in the Performing Arts Center at Elyria High School, board members, school officials and district families watched "Pioneering Tomorrow: The Journey to New Schools," a documentary highlighting the behind-the-scenes work it took to build five new buildings and overhaul the district's stadium. In November 2016 voters in the district passed a 3.86-mill bond issue to raise funds for the $140 million project. Two-thirds of the funding for the project comes from the state, with a one-third match from the city for the five school buildings. The district had to pay for the total cost of the stadium, as the Ohio Facility Construction Commission doesn't cover sports facilities. In just under an hour the district-produced video touches on the highs and lows of the project — from securing funding, to the difficulties brought on by COVID-19, and how creative officials had to be to come in on budget despite rising material costs. In the video, building liaison and former superintendent Paul Rigda said construction was barely underway when costs began to become an issue. Treasurer Joy Clickenger said by the time the district had its bonds sold and designs in hand the market had changed dramatically — prices increased by 20 percent in some areas. "The state only had X amount of dollars for us, we had the remaining 33 percent plus the money we had for locally funded initiatives — so the upgrades in certain areas, but when the prices went so high the cost of building just went out of this world," she said in the video. "We had to use some of those locally funded initiative dollars to fund just the basic project." Rigda at one point discussed bringing the number of buildings down from five to three — but a packed house School Board meeting quickly changed those discussions. Instead of changing the designs entirely, Rigda and others made the case to the state to allow Elyria Schools to keep its old buildings, freeing up about $5 million in demolition and abatement funds set aside. After programmatic changes to the building, other reworks to designs, and an agreement with the city and township to lower fees, the district met its goal and construction moved forward. Then the pandemic hit. While it delayed some construction — as skilled tradesmen had to quarantine — it ultimately helped fund some of the renovations at Crestwood and Westwood schools, as federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds were available for air filtration systems, new windows and doors, Superintendent Ann Schloss said in the video. After the presentation, Rigda said teamwork is what got the project done. "We talk so much about teamwork in life, this is where it really worked," he said. "There were so many things facing us that it could've been insurmountable and people could have thrown their hands up. And so could the board — it could have succumbed to pressure. They could've told all those folks in the room that night 'folks we just don't have the money.' I imagine there are some boards some places that would have thought their solution was to go ask for more money – that was never a solution, even with our group we didn't think we could get any more money … everybody working together is what got it done." The pandemic brought its own challenges, he said, but even the workers got creative — limiting the work to specific areas so that when a team of electricians had to quarantine, others could still continue working. "At the end of the day the board, when we passed the levy … everybody sees the new schools, everybody sees the stadium and the board would be out in the public and they'd get questions 'are you done?' 'Are you over budget?' 'Are you under budget?' … We felt we owed it to the public to put kind of closure on this because we're down to punch list items with the schools and the last phase of the stadium." Rather than ask Rigda to give a presentation to the board about the past six years, Director of Communications Amy Higgins and video producer Marty Yadon were brought on board. "It's such a story that if you're not involved with it, you don't hear everything that happened along the way," Elek said. He added later, "I think when the general public sees this movie, sees our buildings, they'll understand the journey a lot better." "Pioneering Tomorrow" is available on Elyria Schools' YouTube channel. Contact Carissa Woytach at (440) 329-7245 or cwoytach@chroniclet.com.