DELAWARE — Buckeye Valley Middle School is about to get a 40,000 square-foot facelift, with a two-story addition that will accommodate 400 additional students.
The expansion includes a 16-classroom addition in the back of the building, featuring flexible learning spaces to accommodate for future growth.
It also allows an expansion of the existing gymnasium, and a more effective bus loop for transporting bussed students home, as well as students whose parents pick them up.
Construction begins later this May, and is slated to finish before the 2027-2028 school year.
“I want to thank our Buckeye Valley community for your trust in our vision. You recognized that an investment in our schools is an investment in the very heartbeat of this community,” said Superintendent Ric Stranges.
Stranges said the project will cost $16.1 million, under the original budgeted amount of $20 million.
All money spent on the project comes from the district’s budget, not taxpayer dollars.
“So we’ve saved by being fiscally conservative, really trying to watch our budget. And we’ve been able to self-fund this project,” Stranges said.
The expansion is a direct result of increasing enrollment that has breached capacity limits, which has been an issue for the last few years.
“For a while now, our halls have been a little tighter and our classrooms a little more crowded, but we didn’t just want to build more ‘space.’ We wanted to build opportunity,” Stranges said.
Middle school classes feel the squeeze with many classrooms sharing the space, and others utilizing mobile carts to work with the space they have.
The future vision for the entire district
The middle school expansion is one piece of a much larger puzzle.
The plan is for the elementary schools to hold kindergarten through third grade, the middle school to hold fourth through sixth grade, the high school to hold seventh and eight grades, and a new high school to hold ninth through 12th grade.
The board previously put a bond levy to school district voters in 2024, and it failed. But the board can’t solely fund construction of a new high school.
“We needed to do something immediately because of growth. So we thought, let’s begin to get the buildings that need it the most,” Stranges said.
The district’s hope is because it invested dollars to fund building capacity, now voters can do the same by funding a new high school.
“At some point, we’re going to need their help with a bond levy. If we can put that off as long as we can to hopefully get through $4.99 gas…eventually we’re going to need their help and support,” Stranges said.
The facilities committee recommended the board put the issue on the November ballot, but the board has not formally said if it will do so or not.
