As the new year begins, Aurora City Schools continues the master planning process which will provide a roadmap for future facilities in the district.  Superintendent Mike Roberto, provides and update on what lies ahead in the process.

Continuing the Master Planning Process

A primary goal for Aurora City Schools has always been to provide students with the best educational opportunities, an optimal learning environment, athletic pursuits and artistic outlets. This all points to student growth as a main priority. We recognize that their success is what makes Aurora City Schools one of the top 10 districts in the state of Ohio. Our staff continues to encourage our learners by focusing on developing their passion for lifelong learning. 

And as a community, we appreciate your ongoing support.

As the district enters 2024, we are continuing efforts to establish a facilities master plan and create a roadmap for the future facilities in Aurora City Schools. 

This process began in early 2022, when the district started conducting engagements with parents and teachers to gain their feedback on challenges with our current school facilities. As stewards of limited district resources, we felt it was prudent to develop the best long-term plan for our facilities. Considering that our city is experiencing greater development and we have several aging and crowded schools, we need to ensure that Aurora students have an optimal and modern educational environment. This is crucial in our ever changing global community.

In early 2023, the district selected an architectural firm, ThenDesign Architecture, to work with our Construction Committee and synthesize the feedback from 2022 into preliminary plans that would satisfy the needs of the district. 

This process culminated in 2 different plans. With these developed, the district conducted a series of community engagements to explore our community's preference of master plan. 

The first plan included building a new K-3 school and was geared towards addressing the immediate needs of the elementary grades, replacing Craddock, an over 100 year old building. The second plan was centered around building a new high school, demolishing Craddock and shifting grades throughout the district. This solution was intended to improve all buildings in the district.

A detailed breakdown of each plan is included on our website.

Further Exploration of the Plans

At the community meetings in April and May, it was evident that many supported a focus on the high school plan. 

Ultimately, the Construction Committee recommended to the Board of Education that a new 9-12 high school be constructed in the field between the current high school and Harmon middle school. Grades 6-8 and the Aurora Board of Education Offices would then move into the Old High School, Grades 3-5 would move to Harmon, PreK classes as well as grades 1 and 2 will be held at Leighton, and Kindergarten would remain at Miller Elementary.

We appreciate the feedback we have heard on both plans, and look forward to speaking more about it. 

Looking forward, we plan to hold additional meetings with district staff to gather their feedback on the preliminary master plan while also engaging a group of community members through a "Construction Steering Committee" who will further serve as a sounding board for construction plans and to help refine the overall master plan.

We anticipate additional community meetings will take place in late April and early May to gather feedback on these facility plans. Our hope is to have a finalized master plan by the summer break, then over the summer the Board can decide whether to put the proposed master plan on the November 2024 ballot. If so, then a campaign committee would take over to build support for this plan. 

All these activities and a project timeline are further detailed in Mr. Roberto’s ACSD Update 1/9/24.

We appreciate your continued engagement, feedback and thoughts during this process. We have a comment box on our master planning website for anyone to submit comments during the process. As plans develop, we will continue to post information on our website regarding the specifics of the plan and any future developments.