Kent City School District

Infobox School District
name = Kent City School District

motto = District offices at former Depeyster School in Kent
type = Public
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established = 1860cite book |last= Wardle|first= Michelle|authorlink= |coauthors= |title= Images of America: Kent|year= 2005|pages= 53|publisher= Arcadia Publishing|location= Charleston, South Carolina, USA|isbn= 0-7358-3381-5]
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grades = Pre-K through 12
superintendent = Dr. Joseph Giancola
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teachers =
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students = 3,562 [cite web |url= http://www.ode.state.oh.us/reportcardfiles/2006-2007/DIST/044164.PDF|title= Kent City School District 2006-2007 School Year Report Card|accessdate=2008-05-23 |format= PDF|work= Ohio Department of Education Local Report Card Files|Publisher= Ohio Department of Education]
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location = Kent, Ohio
country = flagicon|USA USA
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website = http://www.kentschools.net

The Kent City School District is a secondary school district headquartered in Kent, Ohio, United States. It serves just over 3,500 students living in Kent, Franklin Township, Brady Lake, and Sugar Bush Knolls, as well as a small portion of southern Streetsboro. [cite web |url= http://www.cleveland.com/pdgraphics/interactive/propertytax2007|title= Property Tax 2007|accessdate=2008-05-12 |author= |date= 2008|work= www.cleveland.com Business|publisher= Cleveland Plain Dealer] The district has seven schools including five elementary schools (Davey, Franklin, Holden, Longcoy, and Walls) housing grades K-5 (Davey Elementary also houses the district's pre-school program); Stanton Middle School, which houses grades 6-8; and Theodore Roosevelt High School, which houses grades 9-12. The current superintendent is Dr. Joseph Giancola who began serving in the Fall of 2007 after serving several years as assistant superintendent. The district offices are located in the historic and former DePeyster School on North DePeyster Street in Kent.

History

The district was formed in 1860 by merging several smaller one-room school house districts into one centralized district for the village. As Kent was still known as Franklin Mills, the district was originally known as the "Franklin Union School District". [cite book |title= History of Portage County Ohio|last= Brown|first= R.C |authorlink= |coauthors= Norris, J.E.|year= 1885, 1972 revision|publisher= Warner, Beers, and Company|location= Chicago, Illinois|isbn= |pages= 441 It is not clear when the district's name was changed to the current "Kent City School District." It was still being referred to as "Franklin Union" in this book, 21 years after the name change to "Kent".] The district would continue to be known as a "Franklin Union" district even after residents voted to change the name of the village from Franklin Mills to Kent in 1864. During the 1860's, the district began to divide the students in the school houses by grade level. As a result of the curriculum and management changes, the district elected to close the schoolhouses and erect a centralized building for all grades. Although initially planned for 1868, construction delays prevented the building from opening until Spring 1869. During the school year leading up to the opening of the new building, which would initially be known as the "Union School" and later as "Central School," students in the high school grades were housed at the Franklin Township Hall [cite web |url= http://www.franklintownshipohio.org/about_franklin_township.htm |title= About Franklin Township|accessdate=2008-05-26|publisher= Franklin Township|date= 2006] in Kent while all other grades remained at their respective school house. The building would serve as the home of all students until growth in the community necessitated the construction of two additional elementary schools: South School in 1880 and DePeyster School in 1888 . Even with the new schools, the original Union/Central building would be the home of Kent High School until 1922.

As Kent continued to grow throughout the twentieth century, new schools and changes became necessary. A new high school was built in 1922 and was named in honor of Theodore Roosevelt. The original Union School would continue to be used as a K-8 building known as Central School until 1953 when a new Central Elementary School was constructed on its predecessor's front yard. Following the completion of the new school, the Union School building was torn down. Additional elementary schools followed first with the construction of Longcoy Elementary School on the city's west side. By 1958 the high school had outgrown its facility, so a new high school building was built on the north side of the city. It retained the name of Theodore Roosevelt and the former high school building was rechristened as Davey Junior High School in the fall of 1959 when the new high school opened. 1959 also saw the merging of the Franklin Local School District and the Brady Lake School District into the Kent City Schools, [cite news |first= Roger|last= Di Paolo|title= New chapter for old school|url= |work= Record-Courier|publisher= Record Publishing|location= Kent and Ravenna, Ohio|pages= A5|date= 2006-03-19|accessdate=2008-08-04] which added two more elementary schools: Franklin Elementary and Willard (Brady Lake) Elementary. The 1960's saw the last elementary schools built in Kent with the opening of Holden Elementary in 1965 on the city's south side and Walls Elementary on the east side in 1966. [cite book |title= Kent Ohio: The Dynamic Decades|coauthors= Kent Historical Society Book Committee|editor= Darrow, Ralph (ed.)|year= 1999|publisher= Kent Historical Society|location= Kent, Ohio|isbn= |pages= 14] Most of South School was razed following the completion of Holden except for the building's gym which currently serves as the home of the Kent Recreation Department.

"*= see footnotes below for notes on enrollment numbers."

ee also

* [http://www.kentschools.net Kent City Schools]
*Kent, Ohio
*Theodore Roosevelt High School

References