Page 30 - spaces4learning, Summer 2022

spaces4learning PROJECT-BASED LEARNING
OHIO DISTRICT BUILDS $52 MILLION CAMPUS THROUGH PARTNERSHIPS WITH LOCAL COMMUNITY, UNIVERSITY
By John Stoddard
BEING PART OF A NEW CAMPUS BUILD CAN BE BOTH exhilarating and exhausting, especially in a pandemic. But being able to bring our vision to reality and, in the process, create a leg- acy in our community may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
After 17 years in education at Oak Hills Schools, a larger suburban school district in suburban Cincinnati, I was looking for my next opportunity. I found it five years ago at Berkshire Local Schools in Burton, Ohio.
Before being selected as the new superintendent, I was in- trigued by their PRIME initiative, which stands for Partnership for Rural Innovative Models of Education. The more I learned, the more I wanted to be part of it. PRIME is the name that was given to an innovative PK–16 approach to education to consol- idate our smaller rural schools into a larger PreK–12 school on
the Kent State University – Geauga campus.
The idea was to create more opportunities for our students
while creating a more robust feeder system into the Kent State University system, the Auburn Career Center for technical skills, and University Hospitals for a new healthcare track for high-school students.
It is a natural extension of the education process, allowing students to explore different career and trade paths. It can also reduce the overall higher education and training costs for fam- ilies since their children can take college credits, learn a trade in diesel mechanics, and even explore healthcare opportunities through our programming. It also fits in perfectly with our project-based learning approach, as we teach our students how to embrace the concepts they learn in real-world situations.
When we were in the design phase of the school build, these were all cornerstones of our educational principles.
The idea was to combine the different schools under one main, new campus building. The school has three wings for Pre-K/elementary, middle school, and high school, a large cen- tral cafeteria common area, and a new auditorium and multi- ple gyms. This approach creates economies of scale for our food service team, allowing for different lunch schedules, with one larger kitchen for efficiency.
As part of our project-based learning approach, we also have an ample maker space used by multiple grades, a diesel mechan- ics area and new classrooms and labs. Backed by research, proj- ect-based learning deepens students’ understanding of key con- cepts by giving them real-world projects to apply what they’re learning academically. This helps build the soft skills employers are seeking, including collaboration, communication, and crit- ical-thinking skills.
30 SUMMER 2022 | spaces4learning.com
The other unique aspect of our campus is our immersive