People say seeing is believing.

If this is true, Ironton City Schools officials hope that if the community sees the condition of Ironton High School, they will believe it needs to be replaced.

Three open houses are planned to allow the public to tour the high school and see its condition. Superintendent Dean Nance said the open houses will be 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, Sept. 24; 1-2:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 27 and 10 a.m.-12 noon Saturday, Oct. 8.

The open houses are in advance of the November election when city residents will be asked to decide the fate of a proposed bond issue and levy that would pay for all new schools.

"These are three invitations for the community to come to the high school and so they can see, hopefully, for themselves the condition of the building and have their questions answered." Nance said.

"They will be able to see the classrooms, the boiler house and the school's heating system. We do have classrooms that are much under the state's guidelines for space," Nance said.

"There are some classrooms with 20 students and the room is so small, the kids in the back row are touching the back wall and the kids on the ends of the rows are touching the side walls and there is no way the teacher can walk around it."

Schools officials will be on hand during the open houses to answer questions and lead the tours.

Nance said as people toured the school, he hoped they would try and picture what it would be like to be a student trying to learn under the conditions that exist in the building.

No open houses are planned for the elementary or middle schools since there has not been a public outcry to save those structures.

School officials are asking the public to approve

$18 million in bonds to pay for the local share of the project. The local monies will be matched with $30.28 million from the state, for a total cost of $48.28 million.

This money will be used to build a new consolidated elementary school, new middle school and a new high school.