Fri, 19 Feb 2010 14:45:12 +0000

 

By Colin McEwen

Record-Courier wire editor

Once the Ravenna School District moves into its new high school on North Chestnut Street later this year, the old facility on Clinton Street may be left empty.

Or maybe not.

With no buyers lining up to purchase the Ravenna High School building, discussions about what to do with the facility are ongoing. And mostly, they are just discussions. 

However, the district is considering a move that would transfer all of its own operations into a portion of the high school property — a central location for all of the district’s operations.

Sitting on nine acres, the school could be subdivided into three separate buildings: The original 1921 Ravenna City High School building, Whittaker Hall, built in 1967, and Coll Annex, built in 1958. 

The district is interested in Coll Annex, the northernmost section of the facility.

The gymnasium in the annex was considered by the city of Ravenna for its recreational purposes, but that idea fizzled out because of the city’s financial crunch.

At a special Ravenna Board of Education meeting Friday, Superintendent Tim Calfee proposed two possible architectural schemes, both involving converting Coll Annex into the central hub for the district. 

The renovated building could include the school board office, administration and business operations, according to the feasibility study conducted by Theodore Manfrass Architects and Planners.

If the district decides to remove the gym, approximately 10,000-square-feet of storage could be added to that area. Calfee said that could eliminate the need for as many as six buildings in the district, which could then be sold to make up some of the district’s costs.

“One of the things we’ve talked about is ‘Can we consolidate the buildings?’” Calfee said. “There would be questions about what we will do with the other buildings (that are vacated). Do we sell them? Do we give them away?”

According to the study, the approximately 34,000-square-feet building would undergo a transformation to suit its new needs. Lockers and bleachers would be removed. Elevators would be added. Some doors would be sealed, others would be created. All rooms would be remodeled.

The single source of heat is located in the original 1921 building, and if the facility were to be split up, so would the utilities, Calfee said. And that presents a problem.

The cost to convert the Coll Annex, and save the gym, is about $1.6 million, according to the study. If the district would take over the entire building it would cost an estimated $1.9 million. Both  estimates include the cost of heating, plumbing, electrical work and a new roof.

“It’s a great idea — if we want to get rid of the gym,” said board member Deborah Davison. 

Board member Mike Tontimonia agreed, but added that the overall cost could be considerably pared down.

“I don’t think it has to be that fancy,” he said. “Everybody hates to do away with that gym —including me — but do we need it?”

Calfee referred to making Coll Annex a central hub as a “40-year solution.”

Ravenna Mayor Joe Bica said the city cannot afford to purchase the gym, but may be interested in the future.

“From the city’s perspective, funding is definitely an issue,” he said. “We have an estimated $1.4 million to $1.8 million deficit. The city is spread too thin when it comes to facilities and services we offer the public.”

However, he is optimistic the district will find tenants for the high school.

“I think there are so many possibilities with that facility,” Bica said. “My biggest fear is that with these economic times, that the building will sit empty for any length of time — and I don’t think the school district wants that, either.”

As for the sale of the other portions of the existing high school, not much progress has been made.

Feedback from the community has so far shown that at the very least, the original portion of the building should be spared from a wrecking ball.

Calfee said he has talked with other organizations and institutions, including Family and Community Services, Neighborhood Development Services and the Portage County Educational Service Center.

In another proposal, a Ravenna High School graduate has come forward with an idea to build a summer theater in the current auditorium. But no one has yet come forward with a proposal to buy, Calfee said. 

“We do not want to become landlords,” he added.

Funding for the new school could pay for demolition of the old building, but not for renovation. And another school could not move in to the location, according to the terms of the state funding used for construction of the new school facility.

“There are a lot of things we still have to talk about,” Calfee said.

 

Comparing Worldbook Encyclopedia 2008, WikiPedia, and Digital Stories

Tomorrow I'm sharing the opening keynote for the 2009 Annual Scholars Academy, hosted by the Educational Service Center of Cuyahoga County in Aurora, Ohio, for area school administrators. The presentation will be a remix of my opening keynote for eTechOhio 2009: "Reinventing Education for the 21st Century: Designing School 2.0." In the introduction, to try and make the point that our communications landscape is vastly different, I'm going to use some images I snapped this afternoon at the Aurora Memorial Library with my iPhone and compare what I found to the current English WikiPedia.

When I was in New Zealand in February presenting at the Learning@School conference, I purchased an extremely interesting children's historical picture book titled, "The Maori Wars." The author has written historical works about this timeperiod for adults, but this picture book is a shorter version summarizing the colonial wars Britain waged against the Maories from approximately 1860 to 1900. This was during the time of the U.S. Civil War, reconstruction, and westward expansion. I found this book fascinating because this was a chapter of history I had never heard or read anything about in my prior years of K-12 and university education. Apparently the name "The Maori Wars" is synonymous "The New Zealand Wars."

This is a photograph of the 2008 Worldbook Encyclopedia set in the public library here in Aurora, Ohio.

The article in the encyclopedia for New Zealand is ten pages long.

In that article, only three paragraphs are dedicated to the Maori Wars / New Zealand Wars. No images are included.

Contrast this extremely short and abbreviated summary to the current English WikiPedia article for "New Zealand land wars," which includes 36 paragraphs of text, links to related WikiPedia entries as well as external websites, and suggestions for further reading. The comparatively superior depth and breadth of WikiPedia on this specific historical topic is clear.

As teachers, we've never suggested that students only consider a single source when conducting academic research. Generally, especially at lower grades, teachers encourage students to use at least three different sources and compare them. At higher grades, many more sources are often used. Wikipedia should not be viewed as a threat to the validity of information available to learners today. On the contrary, it should be viewed as a powerful tool which can provide an outstanding place to begin research and locate additional websites to utilize during the research process. We know the information in WikiPedia should be validated and compared to other sources, so this should make the importance of information fluency even more apparent within the research process.

Without WikiPedia and other online materials, student researchers in Aurora, Ohio, might be VERY limited in the amount of information they could access, compare, and learn with concerning the Maori Wars.

Another example is the 2008 Worldbook Encyclopedia entry for Oklahoma and its short article addressing the Oklahoma City bombing.

On the subject of the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995, the entry includes just five paragraphs of text. One image is included.

A comparison to the current English WikiPedia article for "Oklahoma City Bombing" presents a stark contrast in the quantity as well as depth of information provided, similar to the previous example for the New Zealand Wars. Going beyond text and images, however, let's consider the value of video and personal stories to relate the events of history. The following are two different videos created for our statewide Celebrate Oklahoma Voices project, focusing on the bombing and its impact on Oklahomans as well as our nation.

The video "Innocence Lost" (2 min, 39 sec) frames the bombing in the normal, everyday events and news items which preceded this tragedy. The author, Andrea, did a masterful job writing her script and syncing her narrative to both images and music in this video.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

The video "KCBombing_1" (2 min, 9 sec) created by students of Mallory-Randa-Jessica not only relates facts of the bombing, but also tells the personal story of a young bombing survivor and his family.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

It is remarkable to consider how powerful digital video can be in relating not only the facts but also the feelings and emotions which are connected to historical events. We need to be using digital, hyperlinked resources like WikiPedia regularly in our classrooms, and also viewing as well as CREATING video content like the two examples above to gain an even deeper understanding of the topics in our mandated curricula.

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