School district hopes to have it ready by 2024

By Don Rush

In June of 2021, the Oxford Community Schools board of education purchased 32 acres of property on W. Drahner Road from the Dominican Sisters for $2.5 million. By June, 2024 the district hopes to have the main building remodeled and brought up to code for school use.

“Since then the board has been looking at ways to utilize it,” Superintendent Dr. Vickie Markavitch said in a sit-down interview last week. “So, I began working with the administrative team to assess needs and what might be the priorities to use that property. Of course, the top priority is always the students.”

With that in mind, the team along with the architectural firm Integrated Design Solutions (IDS) came up with a plan which was presented to the board last month. The district plans to spend just under $5 million dollars to renovate the main, brick building (which sits behind the big white building, closest to Drahner Road). This building has 57,000 square feet of usable space and was built in 1997. It has three levels, a main level, lower level and second level.

The district has identified four program priorities to occupy that main building: Oxford Bridges High School, LOFT, Oxford Virtual Academy (OVA) and to house the district’s technical department.

“We have the 18 to 26-year-olds special education program at the high school called LOFT,” Markavitch said. “And, it’s right now constricted to a classroom which really doesn’t give a lot of opportunity for growth and development for an adult level, life living, or skills. So, our first priority to go over there was LOFT.”

There the LOFT program will have commercial laundry and commercial kitchen facilities where they can pursue culinary careers. “They will have the ability to replicate a daily living situation where they can learn all the skills of independent daily living. It will be amazing because they can use the grounds and the green house there,” she said.

Bridges, the alternative high school program is currently housed at Oxford Middle School, and Markavitch said once that program is moved to Drahner Road, they too will have the ability to expand and grow and “have opportunities outside the classroom.”

The third program slated to move to Drahner Road is OVA, currently headquartered in a strip mall on M-24, south of the village.

Markavitch said a small wing of the building will remain undeveloped, “because we don’t know how those programs will grow.”

Another partial wing, she said, will be used to house the district’s technology department. “We’re going to bring all our technology people together to one place. Right now we have technology people at OVA, here at the administration building, we have technology people at Drahner – you know, technology people need to speak to one another, it’s how you get great ideas to kindle together. There may also be some student-support services there that we currently just have scattered all over the district. The special education director will be there, so she will be able to bring some of her folks there. We have recovery people spread out all over, we will be able to bring them together as a team, if that looks like a good place for them to be. We have possibilities.”

The old cathedral on the building’s main floor will be left open so those programs can use it for large group activities. It will also act as a community center, where a large body of people can gather. “For example, the Robotics program can use it during their season, or the Dance program could use it during their season,” she said.

She said the remodeling could be done by the middle of next school year, “And, if Bridges and LOFT wanted to move mid-year, we would allow them to move. If they think it is too disruptive they can move in the summer. But, it will be done by June of 2024.”

Funding will come from the Capital Projects Fund. “The good news is we have the funding. The board has been putting money aside in the fund for a number of years. If there has been excess left, that is where that money goes. We have right now in our Capital Projects Fund about $5.5 million dollars,” she said. “Our guestimate from IDS on how much this will cost, will be somewhere around $4.8 to $4.9 million, so that will fit. We will hire a company to design and build, so they can get started right away. It will be a very efficient way of getting this done. They will handle all the bidding according to legal requirements.”