University of Akron offered STEM High School 20-year lease

Akron Public Schools has said its STEM High School must move out of a building now owned by the University of Akron because the college wasn’t renewing the lease. 

But a letter from the university disputes that, saying STEM could stay on campus for two decades — if APS assumes all maintenance costs on the 51-year-old building, which the university acquired in 2012.

The university offered APS continued use of Central Hower High School for $1 a year for 20 years, the Jan. 25 letter from University President Gary Miller states. The currently shared maintenance and utilities costs, with APS paying about $253,000 a year, or 55% of the total, and the university’s $207,000 contribution covering the rest, would be the sole responsibility of APS in a new agreement.

“We are deeply committed to retaining the STEM high school on campus,” Miller wrote. “There is no doubt that the proximity of the STEM high school to university faculty and facilities is a distinct advantage to STEM High School students. We urge you to continue the discussions with the University until a solution that retains the high school on campus can be reached.”

District says costs to stay are prohibitive

Instead, Superintendent Michael Robinson has proposed relocating STEM students to Robinson Community Learning Center, an elementary school building that would cost between $500,000 and $1 million to convert to the needs of a science- and technology-focused high school. 

In an emailed statement, APS spokesperson Mark Williamson said the district needed a solution “that was more in line with what we could afford to do at this time.”

“The cost to us of repairing that building plus keeping it in shape for years to come were prohibitive, based on our budget’s resources,” Williamson said. “We were simply unable to reach a resolution that was fiscally responsible to our families.”

In addition to the maintenance costs, the university said needed upgrades to the building that would make it “serviceable for the foreseeable future” would cost $12 million. Miller suggested that the parties could split an initial $6 million to $8 million investment, and APS would be responsible for the rest over the course of the lease.

Williamson said the district and the university agreed to a lease termination instead, after “considerable effort.” While the university made its letter to the school district available, it did not provide APS’ response and the school district has not yet responded to a public records request from Signal Akron seeking correspondence about the issue. A spokesperson for the university declined further comment about the negotiations.

Williamson said APS has a “long, strong affiliation with the university.” 

“Given the vast needs for new and improved facilities throughout the school system, the strong advantage to STEM High School students in staying on campus and the willingness of the University to continue to work to resolve a difficult situation, it seems a decision to continue negotiations has far more advantages than moving or closing the school at the current time,” Miller wrote.

STEM High School’s proposed new home

Where STEM High School will be located this fall has been an open question for the better part of a year.

Discussions included moving students to the old Morley Health Center on South Broadway Street, which is owned by the city, to the STEM middle school building and to East CLC before Robinson settled on relocating students to Robinson CLC. No final vote on the proposal has occurred, though members of the Board of Education are slated to vote Monday. Robinson CLC is about two miles from the university. 

Benjamin Graber, a freshman seminar and geometry teacher at STEM High School, said there’s been a mixed response to the latest plan.

“We love our building and we wish we could be there,” he said of Central Hower. 

Still, he said, there’s some relief that the district continues to look for solutions.

“I’m just glad we have a home,” he said.

That home isn’t enough for some families. Chris Evans, whose son is a junior at STEM High School and open enrolls from outside the district, said his son is at the school because of its proximity to the university, like others who attend.

“They just walk literally across the street,” he said of students who enroll in college classes while still in high school. 

Evans’ son is taking Introduction to the Ocean at the university. While Robinson said he is exploring getting a shuttle bus from Robinson CLC to help students get to college classes, Evans said it’s not clear if students would have to leave one class early to get to their next one on campus.

Relying on public transportation in the middle of the school day is “weird,” he said, adding that he works full time and can’t leave to transport his son back and forth to one class.

“The program was set up specifically so this wouldn’t be an issue,” Evans said.

Additionally, he said, STEM High School is on a different schedule from the rest of APS — one that aligns with the university. He said school officials are treating STEM like it’s any other program in the district, but it’s not.

“It’s just kind of a weird disconnect,” Evans said. “Everything’s getting all shuffled.”

Robinson CLC parent objects to move

Robinson CLC is a nicer school than Central Hower, Evans said, saying Central Hower is “falling apart.” Still, he’d choose to keep his son at the older building if he could.

He’s not the only one who wishes the STEM High School wouldn’t move. Renee Jordan, who has three children at Robinson CLC, said she wishes STEM wouldn’t displace her family from the community it’s come to love.

Jordan, who lives in East Akron, open enrolls her sons at Robinson CLC. She’s been going there for a decade, since her oldest was enrolled in Head Start.

“It’s a second family,” Jordan said. “It breaks my heart the teachers need to uproot to make way for other students.”

Jordan said she yelled when she got an email outlining the plan to redistribute students at Robinson CLC to Mason and David Hill CLCs. When her oldest son asked what was happening, she told him his school was being shut down.

“Can you please try to talk to them and get them to change their mind?” she said he asked.

The decision by the district makes her feel like her children don’t matter, Jordan said. She’s worried that if they’re taken out of the environment they know, her children will begin to act out. And she’s frustrated that more parents aren’t speaking up in opposition to the plan.

“It’s just not right,” Jordan said. “That doesn’t make any sense that they’re rearranging all these children for this one school. There are plenty of old buildings.”

Combining schools could lead to over-full classrooms and “a whole domino effect of chaos,” Jordan said. She said she doesn’t think that, in a new setting, her children or others will get the attention they need.

“The whole building knows my kids; not only my kids, all the kids,” she said.

Robinson, the superintendent, said last month the decision to move STEM High School to Robinson CLC came in response to community members who wanted a standalone building for the high school and wanted it to be closer to the university. He said it was important to him that the STEM program not be dismantled.

“We’ve listened to what they’ve asked,” Robinson said. “Certainly, they would like it to stay where it is; we’re not able to do that.”
School board members are scheduled to vote Monday on the proposal, which is part of the redistricting and restructuring plan. The vote was delayed after it was originally expected at the end of last month.