COLUMBUS, Ohio — A historic junior high school is getting a new lease on life as the city’s semi-public, non-charter school moves forward with plans to expand.
Metro Schools is renovating the former Indianola Junior High School on 19th Street with plans to expand its STEM-based middle and high school program. Meka Pace, the Metro Schools Superintendent, said it was time to expand as the system has a waitlist every year.
Indianola Junior High bears the plaque of being the first junior high school in the country in 1909. That original building is a few blocks away on 16th Street, but the building under renovation now took its place in 1929. It’s on the National Register for Historic Places, meaning the exterior must look as close to the original as possible. The inside, though, is theirs to change.
"On the inside, right, it's ours to do with. So, if the inside doesn't fit what the school program is, then you should change it and make it what it needs to be,” said Pace.
The project is an expensive undertaking and comes with a price tag of about $34 million. The building had been empty since about 2010 and was sold to OSU from Columbus City Schools in 2018.
It’s Battelle’s biggest philanthropic donation, committing about $13 million to the project as it and the Ohio State University were instrumental in the founding of Metro Schools in 2006. It is now an independent STEM school.
Pace said that expanding into the Indianola building will free up space at their current Kenny Road campus to open a STEM-focused elementary school.
"We knew back when Metro was started that we needed to do something different in order to give underrepresented students access to STEM careers," said Pace. "We have all worked collaboratively to realize the vision of this space. It's exciting for us. We get to offer more seats to students in this building, we get to start new industry pathways because we have space to do it."
Metro Schools uses a lottery system to determine slots for students. Pace said about half come from within Columbus and the other half is allotted to students statewide. The current capacity of Metro Schools is about 900 and the addition of Indianola will allow them to expand to about 1,200.
The Indianola renovation will include extra lab spaces and green spaces for students to focus on STEM and STEM-based job training. Pace said some of their students will take college classes at the same time or participate in internships. She said some students are eventually offered jobs through these internships.
STEM jobs are growing in central Ohio with the growth of Intel, Amazon, Honda and Microsoft.