By: Dennis McCully, Editor in Chief and George Maillis, Co-Editor

It’s no secret that the organization of the Poland schools has been sporadic over the course of the last decade. With a declining number of students, building repairs, and a change in leadership, the community has had mixed responses about which buildings their children should be attending.

Many people have been pushing for new buildings while others are in favor of preserving the historical aspect of our schools. The correct way to move forward has been hotly debated.

The Seminarian spoke to our superintendent, Mr. Craig Hockenberry, about the “master plan” for the buildings as well as some potential options for our school buildings. 

“We’ve been exploring this for about five or six months; we’ve been working with an architect firm that has been taking some of the ideas we have and putting some costs to it,” says the Superintendent Hockenberry.

He continued, “We looked at every possible scenario you would think of regarding all the properties we currently own including North, Union, Mckinley, Poland Middle, the Seminary, and we even looked at the little red school house… and now, what we’ve been doing is going out all throughout the community and trying to get some feedback from the voters.” 

Option 1: This option would bring the demolition of North Elementary, a new K-5 building ($35,000,000) a new 6-8 building (25,000,000) a renovation of the current seminary (35,500,000). The total of this first option is $95,500,000. Although this option is one of the more expensive, it would include two new buildings while keeping the historical Seminary.

Option 2: This would bring us a new K-5 building (35,000,000) and renovate the middle school (27,000,000) and the Seminary (35,500,000). This option, coming in at the most expensive option ($97,500,000), renovates our historical sites of the middle school and the Seminary yet giving Poland a jolt of youth with a new K-5 building

Option 3: This option would be building a new K-12 “campus” on the existing Seminary property. This would have a generalized area of all the students, very popular among many different school systems in recent years, coming in at $90,000,000.

Option 4: Option 4, while being the cheapest option brings a little more to the table for many history fanatics, would completely renovate the existing school buildings such as Union, North, McKinley, and The Seminary. This keeps that historical value but gives the students a new age feel.

This article is a simple run down of basic information. If you are interested in what more Mr. Hockenberry has to say about the building’s master plan, please see the interview video attached above.