Several dozen residents, school staff and students protested outside Pfeiffer Elementary School in Akron's Kenmore neighborhood Tuesday, chanting "Save our school!" and "Build our school!"
Akron Public Schools officials have said the project to replace Pfeiffer Elementary and the Miller South School for the Performing Arts with one building, located on the site of the old Kenmore High School, has increased by $10 million since it was approved in 2023. The district presented several options to the board at its May 19 meeting that call the project into question:
- Move forward with the plan to rebuild a school in Kenmore to house both Pfeiffer and Miller South students
- Build a new Miller South school but not replace Pfeiffer and send those students to other schools across the district (estimated savings - $15 million)
- Move Miller South students to Litchfield Community Learning Center and build a $40 million addition at that school (estimated saving - $36 million)
Louise Johnson, the substitute teacher for Pfeiffer Elementary, said losing the building and sending students elsewhere would be a big blow to the neighborhood.
"We love Pfeiffer. We love the educators here," she said. "We love the youth that are here and it has so much promise right here in this community and without it, there's going to be a lot of lost youth and a lot of lost parents trying to figure out where and how to get their youth to school, where they can just walk to this one," Johnson said.
Tina Boyes, the council member for the neighborhood, who was born and raised there, said the district will be going back on its word if it doesn't build the new school in the neighborhood. Declining enrollment has led to 20 school closures over the last three decades at Akron Public Schools, with six in Kenmore alone. She said the neighborhood is a perfect place to rebuild the Miller South performing arts school.
"And I think this is a great opportunity to rebuild that. Six recording studios, two live music venues, all kinds of art going on on Kenmore Boulevard, one block away where this project should be taking place," she said.
Residents have said both Pfeiffer and Miller South need replacing after the district rebuilt the majority of its schools over the last two decades. Tonya Kanis, a mother of a Pfeiffer student, attended the school when she was younger. She said students in the neighborhood deserve modern classrooms with air conditioning.
"Pretty much everything at the school is falling apart. They really need a new school and it's really sad that they're trying to take it away from the neighborhood," Kanis said.
The district did not respond to a request for comment sent Tuesday morning. A vote on the Kenmore project is not yet listed on the board's agenda for it next meeting on June 9.
The district's latest five-year forecast shows it in the red by the end of the 2029 school year, even after $10 million in budget cuts planned for the 2025-2026 school year and another $10 million the following school year.
