For the bulk of Akron Public Schools’ buildings, use does not end when the day’s final bell rings.
After students leave during the week, or start summer break, many of these spaces open to local nonprofits, community groups and others under a decades-old agreement between the school district and city to operate the buildings as community learning centers.
While community usage has been lackluster, the agreement allowed Akron schools over the last two decades to tap into a local municipal tax to fund construction for new buildings.
The same agreement that supported the rebuilding project may be a sticking point if the district is forced to shrink its footprint to mitigate enrollment declines and budget constraints.
For all the state and local laws surrounding the creation of a community learning center, there is little guidance on how to close one.
“They’re going to have to look at the number of kids attending [schools],” said retired Akron schools superintendent David James, who worked in the district through the start of the community learning centers project in the early 2000s and led APS from 2008 to 2021.
It’s data Akron Public Schools plans to use as district leadership discusses next steps to balance its books.
In May, Akron schools cut $11 million from the upcoming school year’s budget, but those reductions will not be the last to backfill a $37 million deficit projected for the 2028-29 school year.
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Millions in cuts cannot just come from staff, school board member Phil Montgomery told Signal Akron. There have to be operating reductions.
Being partially funded by municipal tax dollars does not give the City of Akron an ownership stake in APS’ buildings, but it could grant the city a seat at the table if a CLC were to close.
“If a site were to change hands, the question wouldn’t just be ownership,” wrote Patricia Porter, digital media assistant for the mayor’s office, in an email. “It would be: How does this continue to serve the neighborhood?”
When prior leaders consolidated buildings, those schools were already showing their age — mounting maintenance costs to keep up decades- or century-old structures — but the bulk of APS’ current building stock is much newer, with the community learning centers all built in the past two decades.
Also, two major construction projects are underway to replace old buildings: North High School, Miller South School for the Visual and Performing Arts and Pfeiffer Elementary.
“It’s going to be a hard swallow for the community,” James said, “but unfortunately, some of the things that have happened with legislation in Columbus have promoted a drain on public schools to other education options.”
Laws define community learning centers opening, not closing
Akron’s community learning center project started with Wallhaven’s Judy Resnick CLC and Sherbondy Hill’s Helen Arnold CLC, James said. State law allows for co-owned facilities between public entities, and CLCs took advantage of the option as a way to fund construction projects without putting another property tax issue before voters.
It followed in Mason City School’s footsteps. The southwest Ohio school system combined its new high school with a community center in a first-of-its-kind project in the early 2000s, James said.
Former Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic initially pushed for Summit County Council to put a countywide tax to voters to pay for school construction projects. Summit County voters rejected the matter in November 2002, but city residents passed a municipal income tax in May 2003 to rebuild APS’ properties across a 30-year span.
Since then, community learning centers have become a national model, with the Community Learning Center Institute in Cincinnati leading the effort to make schools neighborhood hubs.
In 2015, Ohio legislators passed House Bill 70, which defined laws surrounding the creation of community learning centers throughout the state. That same bill outlined the process for state takeovers of academically struggling schools through a last-minute amendment to the CLC-focused law.
An agreement between the city and the schools governs rental fees, maintenance costs, insurance and other requirements. Under the agreement, the Akron Board of Education cannot sell or transfer any community learning center without the city’s approval, and the proceeds of any sale would be split between the city and school district.
Enrollment in APS buildings fluctuates
Since the district started rebuilding in 2003, its enrollment has continued to fall — dipping below 20,000 for the current school year. Fewer students within the district means fewer kids in its buildings, with some buildings only about two-thirds full.
Conversely, APS has redistricted schools in North Hill to ease overcrowding as the neighborhood continues to grow.
Capacity, as defined by the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission, does not always translate into how those schools’ square feet are used, said Debra Foulk, Akron Public Schools’ executive director of business affairs, especially for special education units that serve only a handful of students in a classroom space “built” for two dozen or more.
Buildings with readily accessible, state-defined capacity are also APS’ newer properties.
- As of late April, Garfield Community Learning Center had the lowest usage when comparing recent enrollment numbers (802 students) to its OFCC capacity (1,417), according to data provided by the district.
- The next lowest was Helen Arnold CLC with 295 students enrolled in a 450-student-capacity building.,
- East CLC followed with 860 students enrolled in a 1,300-student-capacity building.
Foulk said voters were generous to support the district with those tax dollars. Collection runs through Dec. 31, 2033.
“That’s what started our rebuilding,” Foulk said. “Segment one included a look at the student population and structure of every building. That determined which needed to go first.”
Throughout prior construction projects, there were consolidations, said James, who retired in 2021 after 30 years with the district.
Enrollment had also declined — taking per-pupil state funding with it. APS lost nearly 10,000 students from the 2003-04 school year to now. Families transferred their students to suburban districts through open enrollment, enrolled their children in private schools through voucher programs or left the city altogether.
“We just couldn’t maintain the same square footage the district had in the
past because there were just less students and there was no indication that decline was going to end,” he said. “We were going to need fewer buildings as time moved on.
“I guess you get to today where they’re trying to do the best they can with what they have.”
