Central Greene preparing to merge Bell Middle School students into high school building
Margaret Bell Miller Middle School
Observer-Reporter
The Central Greene School District bought 17 acres of vacant land near the high school football stadium in November 2015 with the intention of building a new middle school on the property.
The Central Greene School District is selling a parcel of land adjacent to its high school football stadium in Franklin Township where officials had once planned to build a new middle school in order to bring all students onto one campus.
The school board unanimously approved a resolution Tuesday night to sell the 17-acre property, although the asking price has not yet been determined and it’s not known when the parcel will hit the market.
The decision is part of the larger effort to consolidate schools by moving seventh- and eighth-grade students from Margaret Bell Miller Middle School into Waynesburg Central High School’s building next school year. The high school will undergo a $6 million renovation over the summer to make the building suitable for the influx of junior high students, Central Greene Superintendent Kevin Monaghan said. The district’s sagging enrollment has left it with only about 1,500 students, which will allow for all of them to fit in just two buildings.
“It really is going to be a better setup for our kids. And it will be better for transportation having one campus rather than other off-site locations. … There’s a lot of moving parts that will be streamlined,” Monaghan said.
The school district purchased the vacant parcel near the football stadium for $550,000 in November 2015 from R.W.C. Holding with the intention of building a new middle school on the property. But plans changed a couple years later and officials began moving forward with consolidating Margaret Bell Miller students into the elementary and high schools on the Zimmerman Drive campus in Franklin Township. While sixth-graders have already moved into the elementary school, plans to move the seventh- and eighth-graders into the high school languished until last fall when public hearings were held to discuss the changes.
“It just made sense. Everything in that middle school is so antiquated, it is so difficult to find parts for any of the systems. With an aging building like that, it’s hard to maintain it,” Monaghan said. “We had the money to do (the high school renovations), and with the cost to maintain Margaret Bell Middle, we’d rip right through it.”
Margaret Bell Miller, which was built in 1928 and has been slated for closure for several years due to its age, will likely be shuttered at the end of this school year. It’s not known what may happen to that building or property, which is located on South Morgan Street in Waynesburg.
The school district is expected to open bids next week on the high school renovation project, Monaghan said. The project will reconfigure the building to put the junior high on the second floor and high school classes on the main floor, with some crossover between students. An auxiliary gym will also be built, Monaghan said, which can be used for athletic classes, lunch space or other activities.
The anticipated $6 million cost for the renovations will be paid through the district’s savings along with a portion coming of the $3.9 million it received from the federal American Rescue Plan Act’s Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief fund. Monaghan does not expect the school district will have to request a bond or raise taxes to pay for the renovations.
“We saw the numbers we have (and) we can pay for the project without taking out a loan,” Monaghan said.
Construction is expected to begin in May, and the work on the classrooms will hopefully be completed by mid-August when the school year begins. Work on the auxiliary gym will be finished in October or November.