WARDSVILLE - There's no commitment, yet - not even a formal proposal.
But Blair Oaks School District administrators are talking about building a larger high school building on part of the 25 acres of land east of the district's current school complex, that the district acquired in December 2011.
And Monday evening, Superintendent Jim Jones shared some of the preliminary numbers for that proposed new project with the school board.
"The key element is, everybody says, "We need to see a diagram or a drawing of what the (new) high school's going to look like,'" Jones noted. "Ultimately, there's a lot of ground work that has to happen between now and then."
He shared a list of the current high school's square-footage for designated areas, compared with a draft of the expected need for those same areas in a new building.
Those included expanding:
• Classroom space from the current 9,935 square feet to a proposed 11,500 square feet.
• The cafeteria from 5,679 square feet to 11,250 square feet - but with a smaller kitchen area.
• The gymnasium from 20,468 square feet to 26,200 square feet.
• Administrative spaces for principals and counselors from the current 2,518 square feet to 5,200 square feet.
"Ultimately, there would be 198 square feet per student" in the proposed new building, compared with the current 154 square feet per student," Jones said, reminding the board the numbers are very preliminary.
"This thing is not nearly done," he said.
But the challenge will be to match everybody's wish-lists with the financial realities of tax revenues from a slowly growing assessed property value and the effects of current state laws that limit how much a district can ask voters to raise taxes by.
"We're going to sit down with the architects in the next week or 10 days," he said, "and, ultimately, we may be asking the board to get together for some work sessions in the future."
There still is no firm timeline for when the Blair Oaks board might ask voters to approve a bond issue or tax increase.
But, as he said in early August, a bond issue in 2019 or 2020 could be for more than $15 million, without needing a tax increase.
Jones also treated the board to a quick report on this summer's construction project, moving the Blair Oaks High School's office to the front of the building - for the first time in the district's 50 years existence.
"The bid number on that project was $115,645," Jones reported. "There were a couple of minor change-orders that will add a little bit to that total.
"We had some things blocked (off) that were not in the original design - but while the (concrete) block people were here putting up those doors, it was a good time to get them."
Jones reminded the board of its resolution, passed last spring, to pull $75,000 for the project out of last year's budget.
"We knew it wouldn't cover the whole cost," Jones said, "but we wanted to make sure ... that we had all our bases covered."
The board also held a closed session discussion on personnel issues.
There was no immediate report of any actions taken during that session.