Akron Public Schools celebrated the opening of its 35th community learning center Saturday, a milestone that's part of a massive, 15-year and more than $800 million building renovation and construction initiative.
The new high school, called the Garfield Community Learning Center (CLC), is based on the site of the former Kenmore-Garfield High School. It boasts new amenities meant to encourage students to learn technical skills to give them a head start in the career of their choice.
According to a pamphlet handed out at a ribbon-cutting event Saturday, the new building has two gymnasiums, an auditorium that seats 756 people, an air rifle range for junior ROTC students and a learning resource center with a “maker space.” Other amenities include eight science labs, a large workshop for students learning engineering trades and a commercial-grade culinary kitchen that serves as a learning lab for students.
The school does also keep some elements from its past throughout to please alumni, like a new gym bearing the same name of its predecessor (the Martin O. Chapman Gymnasium).
During a speech at Saturday's event, district Superintendent Christine Fowler-Mack said the opening of the school now means the “vast majority” of APS students will be learning at “state-of-the-art” facilities.
“My word for this place continues to be, ‘Wow,’” Fowler-Mack said.
She said the building was constructed with college and career readiness in mind.
Joseph Nicolino, freshman academy principal at Garfield CLC, said he was excited by the new facilities emphasizing APS’ “academy” learning model, where after freshman year, students can choose one of two academies in the building, with different career pathways in each.
For example, the Academy of Emerging Technology and Design will allow students to learn varying disciplines from engineering trades to business management, and the Academy of Innovation and Industry will allows students to learn about culinary arts or nursing.
“It’s all about getting kids ready for their futures, not focusing so much about, you have to take four years of English. It’s about getting you ready for either a job, college, career or military services,” he said.
N.J. Akbar, school board president, said in a speech that the new buildings are called community learning centers because after school ends, the facilities are open to the public and meant to be used by all, not just students and staff.
“This building is for you,” he told the gathered listeners.
Phil Mitchell, engineering technology instructor and himself a Garfield High School graduate, said the new facility provides the perfect home for his program, with a classroom adjacent to an open-concept workshop housing lathes, drill presses and CNC machines.
“Manufacturing’s huge in this area, and just getting it out there, letting people know it exists here and the opportunity is here, I think more and more people are going to want to be involved, and hopefully that relates to more people being out in the workforce in the manufacturing sector in Akron,” he said.
Nikkie Armstrong, a 1996 Garfield alumna, said the new school was just “beautiful.” With her face painted in the school’s colors of maroon and gold, she recalled that the conditions at her former high school were less than ideal. She and a fellow graduate remembered the roof leaking near the main entrance their freshman year.
“They had trash barrels (to collect rain), and we were just used to it,” she said.
Armstrong has her 10-year-old and 13-year-old kids in a private school currently, partly because of the conditions she and her 23-year-old son experienced in Akron Public Schools prior to the recent building projects.
She added that she thinks the new facilities will encourage more parents to choose to send their kids to public school in Akron, however.
The former Kenmore-Garfield High School was the result of a merger between Kenmore and Garfield High Schools in the 2017-2018 school year due to declining enrollment.
