YOUNGSTOWN The new East High School: 'Doing something different'

The layout will help foster a small-schools concept.
By JoANNE VIVIANO
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Its unusual architecture and unique site will make the new East High School something rarely seen in an urban setting, planners said, and a flagship to carry the district and the city in a new direction.
"This is an opportunity to depart from all the norms of what Youngstown is," said Gary Balog of Ricciuti Balog and Partners Architects of Youngstown. "This building is designed to ... say, 'Youngstown is moving forward and doing something different.'"
Architects were asked to create something that was "not backward looking," Balog said.
What they ended up with is a tri-level building to be etched into the side of a slope on a site along Bennington Avenue between East High Avenue and Parker Street. A visit to the site offers a wooded area with a stream bed and a view of downtown Youngstown and Youngstown State University.
"Usually in an urban school district on an urban site, you don't get any parklike feeling," Balog said. "But here, there's a stream running through and trees along Parker Street. It's unique for a city situation in that there's that much topography."
The new 1,200-student East High School, scheduled to open in fall 2005, is part of the district's $182 million school facilities improvement project that includes six new buildings and renovations and additions to 10 others. Funding comes 80 percent from the Ohio School Facilities Commission and 20 percent through a local tax issue.
Unique design
The new East High is unlike any other school in Ohio, and its drawings attracted much attention at a recent statewide conference of Ohio school board personnel, said Tony DeNiro Jr., the district's executive director of school business affairs.
"It's a real tie to the city area," he said. "To me, it's like standing on top of a mountain and looking down over the city. I think it's beautiful."
The school's entrance, off Bennington Avenue, offers access straight through the building to three tiers joined by a common stair.
Each tier is arc-shaped. Due to the slope of the lot's topography, these tiers are not stacked one beside the other but are instead set into the side of the hill. As such, windows line edges of each tier.
The top of the staircase will offer the best view, Balog said.
Before reaching the stairway, at the entrance is a common area that will be used daily for lunch periods. The common area feeds into the gymnasium and a 600-seat auditorium and could also be used for pre-function receptions or meetings.
Also in the building's front area are a media center, technology and science rooms, and art rooms clustered near the auditorium. Cutting-edge technology spaces will help foster partnerships between the business community and the school district, Balog said.
Community access
This layout helps create easy access to areas that could be opened to the community, such as the media center, DeNiro said.
"Because school buildings are now the public buildings of a community, and when you're spending this kind of money, you almost want the buildings to be 24-seven," Balog said.
The building also features two large courtyards and a "Walk of Fame" walkway to be made of bricks etched with the names of donors.
In each tier, Balog said, lockers and restrooms will be clustered near the stair area. This eliminates hallways lined with lockers and clusters student activity and noise in one area, he explained.
Each level also will have its own administrative office, classrooms, special-education rooms, meeting rooms and teacher preparation areas. This layout will help the school move on with its High School Transformation project, DeNiro said. The project, funded by a $7.5 million grant from the KnowledgeWorks Foundation in Cincinnati, seeks to create three smaller school communities within each high school.
Due to the architecture and topography, the building's roof will slope up and down in a type of ripple so it will not block the view toward the city.
"This is not your mother's school. There's a lot of roof, and the roof is important," Balog said. "This is not just a regular building."
viviano@vindy.com