Kettering Schools spent over $15K on two-day trip to Minnesota to tour school buildings | Education & Schools

Kettering City Schools paid more than $15,719 for 15 people, including several district staff, to travel to Minnesota for two days in September to look at buildings considered “state of the art.” The district is in the first phase of a multimillion dollar building project.

The district treasurer, Justin Blevins, said the district doesn’t have everyone’s reimbursement receipts back yet, but most have been submitted. The $15,719 number is based on what has been submitted so far.

He said what was submitted includes: airfare — $12,000; rental van- $553; 12 hotel rooms for one night —$1,914; food for working lunch at Mariner Middle School — $212; substitute teacher cost for four teachers over two days — $1,040.

Kettering City Schools used dollars from the district’s Teaching and Learning budget and came within that fund’s available money allotted for expenditure. No special budget expansion was needed to cover the costs of the trip, Blevins said.

Last spring, Kettering residents passed a 5.93-mill, 37-year bond issue would generate $222 million. Kettering has proposed a 10-year plan divided into two segments to reduce the district’s footprint from 12 school buildings to seven, the majority of which would be new.

Kari Basson, a spokeswoman for Kettering City Schools, said a group of 15 people, including the superintendent Mindy McCarty-Stewart, assistant superintendent of teaching and learning Dan Von Handorf, secondary curriculum coordinator Sherri Alexander, middle and high school teachers, a Kettering Police Department officer representing the district’s school resource officers, the education design consultant and the project architect, went to Minnesota to visit multiple buildings.

These buildings included Eden Prairie Middle and High Schools, Valley View Middle School, Jordan Middle School, White Bear Lake High School and Mariner Middle School in the White Bear Lake School District.

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Basson said the projects presented “demonstrated a strong balance of safety, visual appeal, and student-centered flexibility, setting a high standard for modern educational facilities.”

“When these schools we visited were in the visioning phase of their own recent construction projects, they conducted extensive research and site visit,” Basson said. “By visiting six different school buildings in four different school districts during this trip to Minnesota, our Kettering team was able to synthesize and observe the best practices gathered in a single visit, maximizing both our time and resources.”

The district also has visited other, closer districts, Basson said, including Fairborn, Xenia, Upper Arlington, West Carrollton, Mason, St. Charles Prep School and St. Mary’s School in Columbus.

Basson said the district focused on three main areas when going to other schools: safety and security, student-focused layouts and optimizing space.

“We are fortunate to belong to an educational community- both across the Miami Valley and nationwide- where school districts freely share successes and lessons learned,” Basson said. “It would be a disservice to our community and our taxpayers to make major facility decisions in a vacuum without doing this crucial research, and these upfront investments ensure that when we build, we get it right the first time — delivering safe, modern, and effective facilities that will serve Kettering for generations to come.”

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