'It's beautiful': A first look inside North Canton City Schools' new buildings

NORTH CANTON ‒ The North Canton community can get a peek inside the school district's new elementary and intermediate schools on Saturday.

A preview event is planned for 10 a.m. at the Primary School, 200 Charlotte St. NW, and at 11:30 a.m. at the Intermediate School, 150 Clearmount Ave. SE.

The $58 million project consolidates five buildings into two. The district broke ground in September 2021 with construction getting underway in early 2022, said Tim Walker, the district's director of development and special projects.

The Mary L. Evans Early Childhood Center, Clearmount Elementary and Northwood Elementary were merged into a primary school for students in preschool through second grade. Greentown Intermediate and Orchard Hill Intermediate are combined into the new intermediate building for the third, fourth and fifth grades.

Students in preschool through fifth grade will return to the classrooms during a phased opening beginning Wednesday for fifth graders; Thursday for second and fourth graders, Sept. 1 for first and third graders, and Sept. 6 for preschool and kindergartners.

Open houses for students to meet their teachers are slated before the start of the school year. Each school will serve about 900 students. The Primary School will have an additional 200 preschoolers.

What are the best features of the new North Canton schools?

Architects with SoL Harris/Day Architecture developed open spaces with natural lighting at both schools. The walls are colored with oranges, blues and greens. Hammond Construction was the project's general contractor.

"They did a great job," Walker said. "Both schools have a lot of similarities but are a little different."

One thing they share is flexibility.

"Flexibility was our key driver," Superintendent Jeff Wendorf said. "We wanted multi-use spaces. No space was designed for one thing. We wanted the opportunity for collaboration."

Grade-level classrooms are divided into wings of the two-story buildings.

Each classroom is divided by a whiteboard wall that can be opened to make one larger room.

Classrooms also share an extended learning area, a space outside of a pod of four to five classrooms that provides additional instructional room for larger groups. The extended learning areas have flexible seating conducive to the grades they serve. Some areas have tables and chairs along with wobble stools and bean bags.

Back to school: See what's new in Stark County schools as students head back to class

The halls are lined with half-sized lockers and additional storage for teachers, and intervention classrooms are set up in each grade-level wing.

Both schools have an open-concept cafeteria with flexible seating that includes booths and tables, and gymnasiums that can be divided to accommodate more than one class. The gym floor in the Primary School is synthetic while the Intermediate School's gym floor is wood.

Walker said the North Canton YMCA has partnered with the district to utilize the primary school gym.

The cafeterias open up to outdoor space. Each school has a covered area outside of the cafeteria that can be used for outdoor learning or for students to use during recess, as well as fenced-in playgrounds.

Both schools feature a separate parking lot for drop-off and pickup and a separate lot for buses. During the day, students can use the bus lot as a hard surface playground with basketball hoops and four square games.

Preschool students have a separate fenced-in playground and a separate entrance to the school.

Each school also has an office for the school resource officer. Every district building has a dedicated school resource officer, Walker added. Both schools have elevators.

Kindergarten and first grade classrooms have individual bathrooms for students. The new schools also have calm down and sensory rooms that feature 23 different colors of lights, Walker said.

North Canton schools designed with teacher input

Wendorf said a design team, consisting of about 25 to 30 teachers and staff members, provided input about the interiors.

Teachers were able to try out four sets of furniture during the previous school year to weigh in on the best setup for the new schools.

The approximately 104,000-square-foot Primary School sits on 9.6-acre property that once was occupied by another school facility, which was razed about 12 years ago, and the Mary L Evans building. Wendorf said the new building shares the same address as the former building.

The Intermediate School is about 100,000 square feet and fronts East Maple Street. The main entrance is located at the south end of the building facing two large parking lots. The entrance to the school is off Clearmount Avenue SE.

District voters approved a 36-year, $58.5 million bond issue to pay for the two new schools, as well as improvements to the football stadium and a new bus garage.

Voters will also decide whether to approve nearly $30 million in new funding for the district’s next phase of its facilities project, which includes a new middle school and improvements at the high school. A 1.6-mill 36-year bond issue and a 0.7-mill permanent improvement tax levy are on the Nov. 8 election ballot.

Days before the community review, workers were putting last-minute touches on the newest building while teachers began setting up their classrooms and unpacking boxes from the old buildings.

Intermediate art teacher Denise Boyd sat in her classroom with a smile on her face.

"I've been an art teacher for 16 years. For the past 14 years I have been in a room with no windows," the former Greentown teacher said pointing to the large windows in her classroom. "This is an aha moment. It's beautiful. It's a great space to be creative."

Reach Amy at 330-775-1135 or amy.knapp@indeonline.com.

This article originally appeared on The Independent: North Canton Schools readies new primary, intermediate schools