JAMESTOWN — The Greeneview school district is looking to expand the middle school to accommodate a growing fourth grade and do so without asking residents for money.

The school board is selling its building on Cottonville Road via auction Monday, Oct. 28 to raise the necessary money to complete the middle school expansion. The expansion is necessary because it’s anticipated that the fourth grade will need a fifth classroom next year and the current elementary school is out of room.

The elementary school has four fourth-grade classrooms and officials don’t want classes to be overloaded with 30-plus students each. When the middle school was built, it was done to accommodate adding four additional classrooms without increasing costly HVAC, plumbing, or electrical infrastructure. There is already one available room in the middle school.

“We have no space in our elementary structure,” Superintendent Isaac Seevers said.

The Cottonville Road building, which the board purchased in 2017 and began using in February 2018, would raise at least $870,000 — the minimum bid set by the board, which is equal to its appraisal price. When added to the $700,000 in the permanent improvement fund that came from the high school construction settlement a few years ago, the middle school expansion would be covered.

“This is a financial decision for our board to say, ‘This is an asset that we have.’ We have a student need that they feel outweighs the adult need,” Seevers said.

The board paid $230,000 for the 9,000 square foot building, according to district records and previous articles. With work done to the facility the last two years, the total board investment is $314,556. The district receives $28,500 annually from Kettering Physicians Network, which leases space in half the building. Kettering is in year two of a three-year lease and it is not guaranteed after that, Seevers said.

According to a post on the district website, “At the minimum bid price, it would take the District over 17 years of lease payments to earn the same amount of money as we expect at the time of the sale.”

The district considered moving the eighth grade to the high school to make room for the fourth grade, but Seevers said that was not well-received by residents.

“We did hear the community last year,” he said. “The board kind of took that feedback in March and said what other options do we have.”

Once the building sells, the board will likely move back to its old offices on South Charleston Road, Seevers said.

If it does not sell at auction — Seevers said nobody has reached out to inquire about the building year — the board could sell it via private sale. Ohio Revised Code requires an auction before a private sale. If it fails to sell at all, the district still plans to move forward with expansion.

“We still have a need for middle school space,” Seevers said. “We’ll have to find a way to pay for it one way or another.”