In North High School's Signet Jewelers Academy of Global Technology and Design, the students sometimes can't even turn on their computers.
The air conditioning on their side of the building — the "newer" side, as it were — hasn't worked in months. If they turn on all the classroom computers, the room gets too hot. One 60-degree day this week, it was 80 degrees in their classroom.
North has about 1,000 students , many of whom are immigrants or come from immigrant families. They battle an abundance of challenges every day due to their building's age.
The "old" side is just shy of 100. They can't have the same technology other classrooms across the district have because they can't drill into the walls, for fear of what toxins would enter the air. Paint peels regularly. Classrooms have buckets to catch water from roof leaks. Floor tiles can't be changed without remediating for asbestos.
"Every time we repair one part of the roof, water finds another way in," Principal Charles Morrison said on a recent tour of the building.
Akron Public Schools moved mountains to rebuild more than 30 schools in Akron, including all of the other neighborhood high schools. But North — the high school in the only cluster that's showing population growth — has been left behind.
The district is asking voters to change that by approving a levy on the November ballot.
APS is asking for a 1.3-mill bond issue to fund a rebuild of North, in addition to a 7.6-mill operating levy. The two requests have been combined into Issue 27, and must be approved or rejected as one.
The operating levy would cost homeowners $270 and the bond issue $45 per $100,000 of assessed value annually. The bond issue would last the life of the district's loan, which would be 35 years. The levy would be continuous.
The district has not passed a levy in 12 years. Since then, it has overhauled many of the ways children in Akron receive an education, including converting all the neighborhood high schools in the College and Career Academies model and adopting a literacy curriculum based on the science of reading . North High was the first high school to adopt the academy model eight years ago, and saw its graduation rate skyrocket.
"I don't think you can argue there's not progress being made, and the gains , the double-digit gains being made in some areas, like math, the graduation rate," Issue 27 Citizens Committee Co-Chair Carla Chapman said.
The district and the board have not said what would be cut if the levy doesn't passes.
Without the levy, the district is projecting it will face a deficit of almost $26 million by 2026 and nearly $51 million in 2028.
"What is really most important to me is I don't like it when things have to be taken away," Chapman said. "Because when they are taken away, it's hard for them to come back as they were. It takes time to bring things back, things are different when they come back, and then that's more time lost. Then we start to eat away at the gains being made."
Chapman touted the 7,000 hours of college credit earned by Akron high school students, and the 72,000 hours spent in internships.
The district has already made about $25 million in cuts, including about 285 jobs. About 100 of those had people in them, including about 50 teachers. About 30 of those teachers have been rehired into other jobs that opened up after the layoffs.
"I personally feel that we've kept cuts as best we can from the classroom, but should we go into deep deficits, I don’t know how the board will not impact academics, programs for students, extra curriculars, all the things that we cover are going to somehow be examined," she said.
The operating levy would generate about $27 million a year.
The bond issue would raise $85 million for a rebuild of North on the same property where it now sits in North Hill.
Teacher Catherine Hughes has to move her classroom every time there's a hard rain until the ceiling dries, then she can move her students back in. She said there have been instances where a second-story classroom floor disintegrated enough to see through to those in the classroom below.
"You want to be friends but you don't want to be talking through the floor," she said.
Issue 27 Citizens Committee to host North High School open house
The Issue 27 Citizens Committee will host an open house at North High, 985 Gorge Boulevard, from 4-6 p.m. on Sunday for the public to walk through the building.
Contact education reporter Jennifer Pignolet at jpignolet@thebeaconjournal.com, at 330-996-3216 or on Twitter @JenPignolet.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: New North High, operating fund request on ballot for Akron Public Schools | 2024 Election
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