Youngstown City Schools

A $200 million capital improvement program, approved by voters of Youngstown, Ohio in November 2000, has been funding the construction of 11 new schools, the renovation and/or expansion of three existing schools and the demolition of 16 schools. Heery International was hired by the Ohio School Facilities Commission, the main funder of the program, to provide construction program management services for the entire effort.

While building schools during the school year is challenging, Heery and the rest of the program team devised a way to meet that challenge without disrupting Youngstown students’ educational progress. Students’ moves to and from new and old facilities occur sequentially so that schools slated to be demolished can be used as temporary space to house students who will later occupy new or renovated school buildings.

Heery’s careful planning helped the District to open multiple schools in 2007 and 2008 on time and within a very challenging budget.  Clearly, Heery’s ability to streamline and economize the construction process has provided value to the school district, helping them eliminate non-essential project components without impacting the building’s integrity.

Heery’s budget-conscious approach to management is exemplified by its efforts to secure federal funding for the schools’ state-of-the-art technology, which extends well beyond the typical data drops and computers. Heery worked with the district and the architects to obtain funding from the federal government’s E-Rate program, in which telecommunications companies reimburse disadvantaged schools’ technology expenditures. To date, Youngstown’s schools have qualified for a remarkable 90 percent reimbursement rate for their technology expenditures, putting nearly $744,000 into the schools’ technology budget.