A committee challenged with proposing how best to refurbish or replace schools buildings in the city of Ironton wants your help.

Members of the recently formed Ironton City Schools Facility Steering Committee have created a public survey in hopes the results will help determine the future of the city school buildings.

The future of the historic Ironton High School building is the critical linchpin of three proposals to update or replace Ironton City School District buildings.

"I think the hot-button issue is the high school although the other schools are issues as well," said Jay Zornes, one of the co-chairs of the committee. "We’d like to at least get some direction from the community on how it feels on renovation or building new schools."

To that end, committee members took a tour of the high school during last Thursday’s meeting.

The tour included a number of behind-the-scenes views of the structure and its inner workings that are often not visible to the casual visitor, Zornes said.

"I think some people were very surprised by the (poor) condition of the high school," he said. "By looking at the high school, it looks great from the outside. I don’t think a lot of people really know the condition of the high school."

The committee is working to help develop a plan to propose to the Ohio Schools Facilities Commission, the state agency that disperses funding for school building projects. The Ironton district learned earlier this year that it was on a list that will be offered state funding this year.

As part of the process, the state only pays 73 percent of the cost of building a new facility with the remainder coming from local money that will require a bond issue.

If the district opts for the most costly renovation of the high school, the state will put 100 percent of the cost of a new building toward the renovation, but the remainder would still come from a local bond issue.

Under the most costly plan to taxpayers, the existing high school could be refurbished and brought up to code for grades 7-12 and a new pre-kindergarten through grade 6 school would be built at the site of the current middle school.

A second plan would build a new school for grades 7-12 at the site of the current high school and a pre-K through grade 6 school at the site of the current middle school.

The third option would be similar to plan No. 2 except the Conley Center would be disconnected from the high school and not renovated. A new gym would be built attached to the new school. The Conley Center could only be used after school hours for sporting events and other functions.

"I think our facilities are in need of repair," said Ironton Superintendent Dean Nance. "Exactly what we do will be up to the community."

Zornes said he hopes the discussions and the survey help educate the community on the poor shape of the district’s buildings.

"It’s very important that our community become aware of the condition of our buildings," he said.