FOREST PARK – Winton Woods City Schools unveiled its new $51.4 million North Campus building Monday afternoon.
The facility will serve students in grades 7-12 beginning March 30, after spring break. Students returned to fully in-person learning Monday at the old campus after having been in a blended learning model much of this school year, district community engagement director Corina Denny told The Enquirer.
The district's North Campus is one of two new facilities opening this year to serve students in Forest Park, the village of Greenhills and Springfield Township. Voters passed a levy in November 2016 to help fund the new campuses, together worth $107 million. The K-6 elementary campus on the current site of Winton Woods Middle School in Greenhills is nearly finished, Denny said, and students will begin using it in the fall.
The new locations are adjacent to older, current buildings.
"The beautiful thing about where we're standing today (is) we have a building that matches our instructional platform," Winton Woods High School principal Eric Martin said.
The new building designs were inspired by the New Tech Network school reform model and feature project-based learning environments, officials said. The 239,000 square-foot middle and high school has separate student entrances for middle school and high school students, a new auditorium and expanded arts and music facilities. It has dining areas distributed around the building instead of a large central cafeteria.
The school district partnered with the building firms Skansa and Megen Construction Co. Inc. and Cincinnati architecture group SHP Leading Design, according to a news release. Denny says Winton Woods first started discussing the project in 2003.
"These new buildings are a representation of a new mindset in a culture shift in how we see ourselves as a district and community, and what we can accomplish together," board of education president Katrina Rugless said.
Winton Woods High School was formed in 1992 with the merge of Greenhills High School and Forest Park High School. Its mascot is now the Warriors after the school board retired the chieftains in July.
Winton Woods will have an operating levy on the May 2021 ballot, according to the district's website. The levy will support the expansion of the Preschool Village and enhance school safety measures, including additional resource officers. This is the district's first operational levy since 2009.
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