YOUNGSTOWN — The Mahoning County commissioners on Monday gave $300,000 to the Mahoning Valley Community School to help it get a South Side building ready to use, to expand programs at the start of the next school year.

MVCS is a nonprofit community drop out and recovery school currently located at 2725 Gibson St. on the South Side, sharing space in the city school district’s Woodrow Wilson Alternative School.

The community school, which was founded in 2008, is sponsored by the Office of School Sponsorship at the Ohio Department of Education and is intended to serve youth who need an opportunity to get on track with their academics. It is open enrollment and serves 130 students in grades 7-12.

But the school has found a new South Side building that it hopes to use starting at the beginning of next school year. It will be large enough to accommodate twice as many students as now, MVCS Superintendent Jennifer Merritt said Monday during an event to acknowledge the $300,000 grant from the commissioners.

The news conference was held at Mahoning County’s Oak Hill Renaissance Place on Oak Hill Avenue. The school has some administrative offices in the building and uses space there for the school’s adult-diploma program.

The funds came from the $42 million in American Rescue Plan funds the county was awarded by the federal government in relation to COVID-19.

Merritt said the Community Learning Center model the school follows has proven to be effective in helping students get on track in their education but also in “reducing youth violence.” Students can obtain training and credentials in the trades and obtain mental-health and physical-health services. It also provides child care on site.

Most of the students enrolled in the school are from Youngstown, but also some from other parts of the county and Trumbull and Columbiana counties.

“It fills a gap for students who do not fit in the traditional setting,” said Judge Theresa Dellick of Mahoning County Juvenile Court, who started the program. It used to be called Mahoning Valley High School. Merritt has been the school’s superintendent since six months after the program began.

MVCS will need $1.3 million altogether to make the move to its new building, but it has another large grant to cover some of that cost. Merritt said she hopes to have a signed purchase agreement for the new building by December.