School super O'Reilly had an article praising the Grandview Yard development in the TVN this week. It was standard boosterism for the deal with NRI, but a few things popped out.

He said twice in his bulleted points that no new money for the schools will be on the way in the short term. We get it. No Champagne for the school board.

After noting that finances are tough and the school gave up taxes in the G.Y. deal, O'Reilly wrote “However, DeGraw and others who make decisions for the taxpayers of Grandview Heights truly believe this is the best course of action for the future of the city.” Was that a way to say “the schools got arm twisted into the deal and if it goes wrong blame DeGraw?”

Did you notice an odd omission from the article? There was not one mention of the new kids that G.Y. will be bringing into the school district. No “we welcome the new students from the housing in G.Y. and project the schools will have no problems”.

That's sort of understandable, the school has been told there is no projection on the possible number of new students. NRI has negotiated complete autonomy on the number of housing units into the deal with the schools, it could be none, it could be many hundreds. The stepped compensation deal is supposed to cover the costs of new students, but it left a wide window of possibilities open.

If you are a board member, and you are told “you might get hundreds of new students, you might get none”, how do you do long term planning?