District debuts new school building

OAK HARBOR — Benton-Carroll-Salem Schools administrators unveiled the district's new intermediate school on Wednesday. At least a hundred community attended a ribbon cutting and tour of the newest addition to the district, Oak Harbor Intermediate School, which will open early next year as a replacement for Oak Harbor Middle School, which is set to close. In 2018, the school board found the cost of replacing systems within the current middle school — like HVAC, electrical and plumbing — would cost somewhere in the range of $9 million to $15 million. In contrast, district superintendent Cathy Bergman said the cost of building the intermediate was just under $14 million. Due to the cost and age of the middle school building, the district knew the building's time was coming to an end. "The middle school has done its work," the school's board of education president, Kim Dusseau, said. "Now it's time to rest it." "It has been a vision for the board for many, many years," Bergman added. "It is awesome to see it come to fruition." The school began construction of the facility in June 2022 with the architectural help of Garmann Miller, a firm based in Minster, north of Dayton. Highlights of the new building were recently previewed in a district newsletter and included pictures of the new classrooms, health clinic, lockers and locker rooms. The project was completed in November and paid for with no new taxpayer dollars. The school board and treasurer, Cajon Keeton, were able to work with what the school had and paid cash for the new building. Teachers will start unpacking and setting up their classrooms as soon as this weekend and students will begin classes on Jan. 4 when the students come back from winter break. With this update, the district is down to two campuses, the high school and the k-6 campus. The high school houses seventh through twelfth grade, the intermediate will take fourth through sixth and the kindergarten through third will be in the elementary school. Those who will be moving into the building, like assistant principal, Janene Lattimore, and student, Ella Devito, are excited about the change. Devito, who will be part of the first fifth-grade class to go through the building, listed the changes she is excited about. "The gym, the newness and the bathrooms," Devito said. "They have doors that actually lock." Lattimore said she has been a lifelong resident and a prior teacher of the district, so it is nice to see a new building come in. The last time there was construction of a building was in 1976 when the high school was built.