A group of Kenmore neighborhood residents and former residents are petitioning the Akron Board of Education to “Keep the Current Kenmore High School Building Open.”
Two of them —Matt Lance and Julie Ann Sweet-Buntin — are scheduled to present their plea to the board on Monday during its regular meeting. They are also expected to deliver a change.org petition that garnered nearly 900 signatures in two weeks.
“We have to stand up and let the board know that we want a high school to remain in Kenmore. We understand that we won’t get a new school, but we don’t want to see our high school close,” said Lance, a 2000 Kenmore graduate. “In an ideal world, the board will decide not to close Kenmore High School and work with the community to build up enrollment in the cluster.”
The board and the Akron City Council are faced with a decision on where to build the final high school in the city, as part of a $700 million project to rebuild and remodel all Akron Public School District buildings. The project, which began in 2002, is co-funded by the state.
Kenmore is among three high school buildings that have not been touched. Garfield and North are also in that group. Three — East, Buchtel and Firestone — have been constructed and renovated. Ellet is in the construction process.
In recent months, the state has said it will only fund one more high school building, based on projected enrollment figures. Declining enrollment in the district — a drop from 30,511 in 2002 to 19,126 in 2015 — has translated into less money for fewer newly constructed and remodeled buildings.
The school board and city council now need to determine where to build what is expected to be the final high school building, co-funded by the state. The state has about $25 million on the table, or about half of what is needed for a new high school. That funding, however, could shrink if projected enrollment figures (expected in October) show another decline.
All the options that have been presented for moving forward include building a new high school at the Garfield site and closing North and Kenmore.
For Lance, Sweet-Buntin and those who have signed the petition, that hasn’t been good news.
“We are fighting for our kids and our community. We don’t want to become an education desert and watch our property values go down,” Sweet-Buntin said.
“We have so many good things going on in Kenmore to revitalize our community. We have really good momentum going. Closing the high school would be a huge setback for us.”
Akron Superintendent David James is working on new options that are expected to be presented during a joint school board and city council meeting at 4 p.m. Sept. 19 in the FirstEnergy Auditorium at the Austen BioInnovation Institute, 47 N. Main St. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the final phase of the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission building plan.
“At the end of the day, our district cannot support the rebuilding of three high schools. We’re going to have to close at least one or combine them in some way,” James said. “We have been dealing with declining enrollment for years — this is nothing new. It would be irresponsible to build new schools that we can’t fill. And I think it’s unfair to ask taxpayers to foot the bill for schools that aren’t filled. We’re going to have to consolidate.”
The school district, which has been moving away from traditional neighborhood high schools to high schools with special programs that attract students from throughout the system, has a building space capacity of 30,442 students. Its current enrollment is 20,772.
Year-end enrollment data shows that Kenmore High School has 522 students, who fill the high school to 33 percent of its capacity — the lowest of the district’s high schools. Garfield has 694 students and North has 829, putting both buildings at 51 percent capacity.
Lance and Sweet-Buntin said they understand the district’s dilemma, but they do not believe the Kenmore cluster has been treated fairly in the process. They noted that of the seven high school clusters, Kenmore had three schools rebuilt or remodeled, while Garfield and Buchtel had four; Firestone and North had five and East and Ellet had six. Fewer building projects in Kenmore also means less money was invested in the cluster, they said.
“When we passed the income tax levy 13 years ago, it was promised that ‘every cluster will receive equal attention.’ Well, it doesn’t look like Kenmore got equal attention,” Lance said. “And when we look at the number of schools closed in each cluster, Kenmore had the most. Closing schools in a community destabilizes the future of that community. Our community needs to keep its high school.”
James said schools were closed in the district based on enrollment and building capacity, including elementary schools in the Kenmore cluster because they had less than 350 students.
The building capacity figures for the three clusters with high schools on the pending construction list are: 63 percent at Garfield; 43 percent at Kenmore and 73 percent at North, where plans for a Bio-Med academy are underway.
“The decision that the board makes will not be popular with 100 percent of the people. Somebody is not going to be happy,” James said. “But just because it’s not going to be popular doesn’t mean we don’t have to make a decision. A decision has to be made and it needs to be the most fiscally responsible decision.”
Colette Jenkins can be reached at 330-996-3731 or cjenkins@thebeaconjournal.com. She can be followed at www.twitter.com/ColetteMJenkins.