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Boardman Center Intermediate school’s green space makes school beautiful inside and out
By Bruce Walton
BOARDMAN
You can’t judge a book by its cover, but now Boardman Center Intermediate School can be the exception, thanks to its recently completed outdoor green space.
The green space, at the main entrance to the back of the building, came from fifth-grade teachers June Baker and Jeff Puskar and their desire to decorate the outside of the school. At the same time, the Boardman Center Project makeover focused on the inside of the building.
The Boardman Center Project was a large-scale renovation effort led by Principal Randall Ebie, to help house the students from a consolidation of Center and Glenwood middle schools.
Baker and Puskar brought the idea to Ebie using the motto “less prison and more park” as a way of setting a goal for the project.
“As we were thinking about this building we thought, ‘If this is just the place inside the fence here in the parking lot, where the kids are going to play and exercise and stuff like that, why not beautify it?,’” he said.
The fifth- and sixth-graders would have outdoor recess for the first time at the school in decades, and the teachers wanted to make the area where they’d play more inviting.
As a landscaping enthusiast, Puskar approached Lowe’s on Doral Drive, which already assisted in the makeover, with his own presentation on the layout of the green space.
The area consists of three new planter beds with a variety of flowers, bushes and grasses as well as three potted plants. It also has two tree logs to sit on, five boulders representing the five pillars of the Boardman Center Project and two murals on the walls.
They received a grant from Lowe’s for the building material for the planters and employees for the labor. Other local companies, such as Valley Landscaping, Blasco Landscaping and Lafarge Construction from Lordstown supplied more materials and labor for free. Baker helped by inviting Luke Carabbia, a Lowe’s employee and father of a former student who led a mural creation with a couple of former students and his wife. Matt Kiuchar, a local pastor and artist, provided the second mural.
The construction started Aug. 18 and was finished by month’s end. The community effort covered the cost of $2,500 so the district didn’t have to pay a thing. Now that the building’s inside and outside are redecorated, Ebie said it is the cherry on top for the makeover’s completion.
“I couldn’t be happier with what this was,” he said. “This is truly now a school for fifth- and sixth-graders.”
Baker said parents, teachers and students alike have given positive feedback that the space gives them a boost and makes them feel like smiling.