The $48-million school is among the crown jewels of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District’s construction plan, which began more than a decade ago. The building, an almost entirely one-floor affair planted on a football field-sized footprint, replaces the outdated vocational high school on Detroit and West 45th.
Big, gleaming workshop bays line the main hallway. In those rooms, students will dive into particular trades, like welding, plumbing, wiring, auto repair, etc. In fact, the whole building very much has a “workshop” feel to it, with exposed pipes and wires filling out the aesthetics of the hallways, just above the newly minted rows of lockers.
Practically speaking, the school’s layout is a step in the right direction. (Students and teachers had to send cars up an elevator to the second floor for work in the old Max Hayes building.) With a graduation rate that leaves something to be desired districtwide, this high school is expected to galvanize the westside student base and push future grads closer to applicable job skills.
Max Hayes High School — located on West 65th Street just south of the I-90 overpass — is joined by John Marshall High School ($47 million total cost) and the Cleveland School of the Arts ($40 million total cost) as the trio of new high schools opening this fall.
This article appears in Aug 26 – Sep 1, 2015.
Sweet. New equipment does not equal smarter students
This is really nice and it looks amazing, but I sure hope the students decide to treat this new equipment with care and respect so the building still looks great years from now. Lots of people complain how they never get nice things. Well here is a 47 million dollar “nice thing” for you, please treat it as such and show that you are deserving of getting more “nice things” in the future.