The final newly constructed high school in the Akron Public Schools’ districtwide construction project will be a merger of Garfield and Kenmore high schools.
The decision was made Monday by a unanimous vote of the Akron Board of Education. The board will decide next month where the new high school will be located.
“We have to be thoughtful and mindful of the placement of that building. They both deserve to be heard in the process of where that building goes,” said Patrick L Bravo, board vice president. “We roll out the map and we point and say here are all of our options and this is why they would or wouldn’t work.”
If the board decides on property that is not already owned by the district or the city, it will have to pay for land acquisition. The state will not contribute to the cost of purchasing land for building a new school.
The board’s vote also included a merger of the two high schools’ feeder middle schools —Kent and Innes —at the Innes site in the Kenmore cluster. In addition, Bettes Elementary school will be consolidated into Jackson-Harris Community Learning Center in the North High School cluster.
Board members acknowledged that if enrollment continues to decline in the district, there will be future discussions about more consolidations. The district is also discussing the possibility of consolidating sports programs.
“This is the end of the construction process but the beginning of the consolidation process,” said board member Tim Miller, who reminded his colleagues that some buildings in the district are 50 percent below capacity.
The board had pondered six options presented by Superintendent David James as possible ways to move forward in the completion of a plan to rebuild and renovate school buildings in the district.
The plan, which dates back to 2002, is a partnership among the school district, the city of Akron and the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission (OFCC). It is funded in part by a 0.25 percent increase to the city income tax that voters approved in 2003, with the state paying 59 percent toward construction and renovations of school district buildings.
Because of declining enrollment, the original plan for construction at 58 school buildings has been scaled back to 34. The state — which at the beginning of the project told the district that enrollment projections called for four high schools — in recent months said it would only fund one more high school, based on projected enrollment for a 2020-2021 build out year.
Two weeks ago, the school board voted to enter into an agreement with the OFCC to secure $34.5 million in state funding to construct the last new high school in the city. Akron City Council subsequently approved issuing up to $30 million in bonds for the $69 million project.
To date, the district has rebuilt or renovated three of its existing high schools — East, Buchtel and Firestone. A fourth, Ellet, is in the process.
Now that a decision has been made to combine Garfield and Kenmore, future discussions will focus on a possible name change for the high school.
North High School — which has a large immigrant population and is slated to become a biomedical academy — will stay open for now. The board also will need to make decisions about what to do with the other buildings that have not been touched in the construction project — Miller South School for the Visual and Performing Arts and Firestone Park and Pfeiffer elementary schools in the Garfield and Kenmore clusters, respectively.
“We have an obligation to do what’s best for our students, for the district and for the community, while being fiscally responsible,” Board President Bruce Alexander said. “We’ve done a lot of work and had a lot of sleepless nights, exhausting all of our options and we believe combining Garfield and Kenmore is the best decision we can make at this time.”
The next step in the process is to have discussions with community members where buildings will combine or close. The goal is to start construction of the new high school by fall of 2018.
Colette Jenkins can be reached at 330-996-3731 or cjenkins@thebeaconjournal.com.