Ironton City Schools Superintendent Dean Nance is preparing for a marathon. But he doesn't need his running shoes.

His run won't end with a finish line, but rather an election.

Nance and other school administrators are working fast to organize a community effort to raise money for new or refurbished schools for the district.

"It's not going to be my (plan) it's going to be this town's," Nance said.

Nance met with members of the Ohio School Facilities Commission on Monday to discuss the next steps in the process.

OSFC is the state agency that determines which school districts receive state funding for buildings and which do not. Ironton learned earlier this month that it made the list guaranteed to receive funding.

The funding, however, is contingent on having local matching funding, which in Ironton's case means the passage of a bond levy.

OSFC planners gave Nance two plans for consideration. One would build totally new schools while the second would build some new schools and refurbish another, Ironton High School.

Nance he's not ready to discuss the plans yet, because he wants a community committee to make the ultimate decision. Nance said he hopes to have the committee formed by mid to late April.

"The ultimate plan will be decided by this committee," he said. "The committee will either accept one of these plans, a combination of the two or come up with their own plan as long as the state approves the funding."

From a funding aspect, the OSFC prefers new construction. It will fund 73 percent of the cost of new buildings, with the city district picking up the remaining 27 percent. For refurbishing projects, the OSFC will commit 100 percent of a new building's cost toward the refurbishment. The local cost, however, is usually significantly more, Nance said.

The school district is currently accepting proposals from potential architects. They hope to have selected an architect in the next week or so. Then the architect can work with the district, the committee and the OSFC to work up a proposal for the specifics.

Then, with that in hand, Nance and others will work to lobby for the bond levy.

For Nance, the need to make sure the city's students have the best facilities is a critical part of his mission to make the schools the best.

"When I came to Ironton four years ago, everybody said, 'we've got the best football team around,'" Nance said. "And they were right, but I said, 'why can't we have a great basketball program and a great baseball program and great academics?'

"We're once again rising to the top academically," he said, pointing to growing enrollment over the last two years. "Ironton has lost 30 to 40 students every year since the plants closed, for every year until the last two."

Ironton's population isn't growing, so why is the district's enrollment? The reason, Nance said, is simple: open enrollment and a rapidly improving school district. People in surrounding districts want to send their children to Ironton, Nance said.

And making those schools better may help the economy, too.

"As we're looking to try to market this community, no matter what, we have that wants to open up shop, we've got to have a good school system," he said. "We don't want the Ironton City Schools to be a reason someone says 'we don't want to come to Ironton.' We want to be a recruiter for Ironton."