Two groundbreaking celebrations were held Friday, Feb. 14, a the campuses of Mills Lawn and McKinney/YS High School. Pictured putting shovels to soil, from left: John Gudgel, school board member Dorothée Bouquet, school board President Rebecca Potter, Mills Lawn Principal Megan Winston, Superintendent Terri Holden, Treasurer Jacob McGrath, Operations Director Jeff Eyrich, school board member Amy Bailey and McKinney/YSHS Principal Jack Hatert. (Photo by Lauren "Chuck" Shows)
District breaks ground on facilities upgrade projects
- Published: February 24, 2025
It was a cold, but sunny morning as YS Schools officially broke ground on two facilities upgrade projects Friday, Feb. 14. Despite the cold, community members and village leaders gathered outside at the campuses of Mills Lawn and McKinney/YS High schools to celebrate the beginning of the long-awaited projects.
The groundbreaking events included musical performances from Mills Lawn choir students and the McKinney and YS High School band and drumline; a proclamation from Mayor Pam Conine; introductions and addresses from Superintendent Terri Holden, school board President Rebecca Potter, Operations Director Jeff Eyrich, principals Megan Winston and Jack Hatert and representatives from Ruetschle Architects and Conger Construction; and addresses from Mills Lawn students River Lydy and Amandine Bouquet-Saber, McKinney student Maggie Bullock and YS High School student Jane Chambers.
Summing up the general tenor of the morning’s events, Bouquet-Saber said: “Today isn’t just about breaking ground on a new building — it’s about building a brighter future.”
Lydy added: “Thank you again for believing in us and for investing in our future.”
After two failed levies intended to address facilities upgrades in 2018 and 2021, Yellow Springs school district voters approved a combination bond issue and income tax levy in November 2023 to fund a $55 million facilities upgrades project. The project includes renovation at the Mills Lawn campus and a combination of renovation, demolition and new construction at the East Enon Road campus of McKinney Middle and YS High schools.
Mills Lawn will be restructured as a pre-K through fourth-grade school, and upgrades will include repairing the exterior of the building and deep renovations for some classrooms, hallways and restroom facilities and the school’s kitchen; and renovation to create new offices and a secure vestibule at the school’s entrance. The modular band room will be demolished; it will no longer be needed at the elementary school when the fifth and sixth grades move to the East Enon Road campus, as the local band program begins in fifth grade.
Grades 5–12 will be housed at the East Enon Road campus where the middle and high schools are now located. The schools’ current band room, the modular middle school wing and the facility’s current three-story “tower” portion are slated to be demolished.
A new secure vestibule entrance and offices are planned at East Enon Road, as well as new band and choir/performing arts rooms; two new building sections to serve as middle school (grades 5–8) and high school (grades 9–12) wings, connected by an updated commons area that will contain the media center and cafeteria; and a new, larger gym for middle and high school use. The campus’ original 1963 gym and surrounding classrooms will be renovated, with the gym to serve fifth and sixth grade students in physical education classes and as an auditorium with retractable seating for performances. In addition, parking areas and pickup/drop-off locations at the campus are slated to be updated.
The facilities upgrades project is projected to be completed in 2026.
At a regular Wednesday, Feb. 12 school board meeting preceding the groundbreaking events, Mike Ruetschle, of Ruetschle Architects — the contracted firm that has worked with YS Schools for several years, from pre-levy exploration all the way through to design — presented updated master plan documents, as well as new renderings of what the insides of both campuses will look like. The renderings reflected airy, light-filled spaces; they may be viewed in a slideshow presentation available at facebook.com/YellowSpringsSchools.
“Tonight is a milestone as we’re transitioning from the design phase to the construction phase,” Ruetschle said.
Superintendent Holden noted that, at the time of the meeting, students were preparing to move into temporary, modular classrooms to make way for renovation and construction; students were out of school Tuesday, Feb. 18 as district educators and staff completed the transition. Holden added that work on the facilities upgrades project will begin soon, saying: “You’re going to see a construction fence up, and we are moving.”
After Ruetschle’s presentation, the task before the school board was to approve a guaranteed maximum price, or GMP, for the project with Conger Construction, the project’s construction manager at-risk. The GMP — which effectively sets a cap for how much cost the school district will incur for the construction project — was for $44 million dollars, and includes the majority of the work Conger will complete. A second GMP for the remainder of work will be considered by the school board at a later date.
When laying out the terms of the GMP, and the funding of the entire project, the overall message from Treasurer Jacob McGrath was: “We are right on budget.”
“We shook the trees, asked for more bids — and that was a good exercise; we actually came out a little bit under budget,” McGrath said, adding that the “under budget” portion of funds remaining was applied to a contingency fund for Mills Lawn’s renovation.
Contingency funds are part of the overall budget for the project, intended to account for any overages that might occur during construction. McGrath noted that, in the event that the contingency funds are not needed, they will be put back into the facilities project to add items — such as additional furnishings and equipment — that are not already included in the budget and GMP.
Holden added that additional items not already included will likely be funded through a future capital campaign, which she said would be discussed at a future meeting. She noted, however, that everything integral to the construction process “is already in the budget.”
The overall budget for the project, as laid out by McGrath, is $58.5 million; he noted that the amount borrowed by the district against the approved levy funds was around $55 million, but that interest collected by the district after borrowing $15 million in high-yield short-term notes last year has allowed the district to add to the scope of the project while remaining on-budget.
With all these things in mind, the school board voted unanimously to approve the GMP and, effectively, get started on the facilities upgrades project — to applause from all those present for the meeting.
To stay up-to-date on the facilities upgrades project as it progresses, go to http://www.ysschools.org/construction.
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