‘New’ Heights High keeps old memories alive

For the past two years, Mark Sack, a social studies teacher at Cleveland Heights High School, taught his students out of Wiley Middle School in University Heights while the high school underwent its fifth renovation.

On Aug. 21, Sack along with the 1,800 students will enter the newly refurbished halls of his alma mater at Cedar and Lee roads, though many of the halls are unrecognizable since he walked them as a student.

“I’m getting a little bit excited about getting into the renovated facility,” he said of the school which serves the residents of Cleveland Heights and University Heights. “I’m very grateful the community has decided to invest in renovating and making it a modern facility conducive to teaching and learning.”

In November 2013, voters passed a $134.8 million bond issue that went toward the high schools renovations as well as future renovations to the district’s two middle schools, Monticello and Roxboro.

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Heights was always an example of diversity, which was celebrated in a 1975 issue of Seventeen magazine highlighting the variety of students who attended the school. Sack experienced the school’s diversity firsthand when it had 3,000 students, about half of which were Jewish, until he graduated in 1976.

“It was a pretty diverse place even then in the ’70s,” said Sack, a basketball standout for the Tigers. “It was a comfortable place to be, as a young Jewish person. But it was also a comfortable place to be for African-Americans and Christians. There was diversity there.”

In 1989, Sack returned to the high school as a staff member after being an educator in Israel.

“(I wanted) to give back to my community and the kids that were now part of my community,” he said. “I felt like it was a great place to grow up – a lot of opportunities. And the sense of it was the right thing to do.”

While the school now has a small Jewish enrollment, Superintendent Talisa Dixon said the school’s historic diversity still rings true helping strengthen the school’s pride today.

“You have people from not only the Cleveland Heights community, but also from University Heights community who have something in common that really binds them and that was the high school,” she said. “I think that pride is there because it transformed the lives of so many people from, yes maybe the Jewish community who started there years ago to when African-American families moved into this community.”

Source: Cleveland Heights-University Heights Source and CJN Digital Archive

The school has been completely updated from demolishing the old science wing to technology and machinery to classrooms and auditoriums – all to create a unique learning atmosphere for students. However, students can touch history as they walk to their next class through the two stairwells with banisters and balusters to the tile floors on the first and second floors.

“Those were really the only elements that hadn’t been significantly altered over the last 75 years and they were the only elements that every single graduate has been there for,” said Eric Silverman, a member of the school board. “Every 10 years or so, there’s been an addition or alteration, but these are what we call constants and the history of the building for the 50,000 kids who have gone there. If you’re a graduate in ’36, ’56, ’76 or ’96, all of those graduates have that connectivity ”

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Because there was not enough money in the budget to create a new auditorium, Silverman said the ceiling, paint colors and seats have been updated and renovated, but still have the same appearance that students have experienced since 1926.

“It’s a space that every alum has sat in that seat over the last 90 years,” he said. “Yes, the paints changes, the colors changed and the seats are new, but this is the same room.”

Even though the classrooms have been updated with adjustable tables for students, air conditioning, more efficient heating and projectors in classrooms, the lessons of previous classes such as “Literature of the Holocaust,” which used to be taught by Leatrice Rabinsky, remain. And after being a student in the class, Sack now teaches the updated version.

“When she retired, it became a social studies course called ‘Lessons of the Holocaust’,” Sack said. “I requested to take over the course because of the impact that course had on me and the potential it has to teach people to make good moral choices in how they treat others and not to stand by and be indifferent when they see things like bullying.”

Students will not be the only ones to take advantage of the renovations of the auditorium and natatorium. The public also will be able to have access to the facilities.

“It’s a community asset,” said Kal Zucker, vice president of the school board. “As we move forward, I think this is the, ‘How do we open to the community?’ Even the entryway … it’s just a very welcoming place.”

When students enter on the first day of school, they will be able to feel the school pride, but also feel safe because of a renovated security desk next to the main entrance. A security guard will be present along with cameras throughout the building.

“It’s a secure environment,” Zucker said. “Of course, safety is our first priority, but having said that, you can still feel safe and welcomed.”

Zucker said he hopes the new renovation can inspire students, the staff and the community.

“Combing this old shell of the school and seeing the history and the majesty of all that with this new infusion of state of the art spaces,” he said. “I just think it’s invigorating and inspiring. I think we’re going to make a difference not just to the students but also the staff and also the community.”