“The building signage was not called out by the state to be updated through the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission (OFCC) building project, so we are tackling that project now,” said Superintendent Brian Kuhn. “Last school year we updated the yard sign, and this year we are refreshing the exterior wall signage, so anyone visiting the school knows that it is both Shawnee High School and Shawnee Middle School.”
The new signage is part of the district’s continued efforts to update the facilities while preserving its history.
The district removed the Shawnee Brave sign from outside of the building “to preserve and maintain the district’s long-standing traditions and history,” and it is now on display inside the North Gym.
“When we looked at adding the ‘Middle School’ lettering, we discovered that the Shawnee Brave signage was deteriorating due to weather exposure over the years,” Kuhn said. “Updating our signage presented an opportunity for us to preserve this treasured Shawnee symbol by removing it from the exterior where it is exposed to the elements and redisplaying it inside the building.”
The new signage will be added to the exterior of the building in the coming weeks.
The district held a groundbreaking in October 2018 for the construction of the $52 million pre-K through sixth-grade school building. Voters approved a $37 million bond issue in August 2017 to build a new elementary school and renovate the middle/high school. The bond issue was for 5.3 mills for 37 years and costs the owner of a $100,000 home a little more than $15 a month. The Ohio Facilities Construction Commission (OFCC) covered about 30%, or $15.6 million, of the cost of the project.
Renovations to the middle and high school were completed in the fall of 2020. Seventh and eighth graders had attended middle school at the primacy school buildings before moving into their own wing in the high school building in 2017, marking the first year middle and high school students were in the same building.
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