Shaker Heights City School District

The Shaker Heights City School District is located in Shaker Heights, Ohio, immediately east of the city of Cleveland in northeast Ohio.

The system serves residents of the city of Shaker Heights and a small portion of the city of Cleveland near Shaker Square. Shaker Heights began operating its own school system in 1910. Boulevard Elementary (1914) is the oldest building in the district, Shaker Heights Middle School (1957) (formerly known as Byron Junior High School) is the newest; the average age of buildings currently in service is approximately seventy-three years old. The system is funded in large by property tax millage levies approved by residents based upon home valuation.

The district employees approximately 430 teachers for a student / teacher ratio of 13:1 (average Ohio ratio 16:1). Lomond Elementary School has the highest student to teacher ratio of the elementary schools in the district at 14.8:1. 78% of Shaker teachers hold masters degrees; 5% of teachers hold doctorates or PH'Ds. The district estimates that roughly 90% of Shaker graduates attend college; approximately of 10% graduates receiving first choice acceptance to Ivy League colleges and universities.

Shaker Heights is considered a progressive school system in its approach to education and social balance. Shaker was among the first school systems in the United States to actively pursue school desegregation in the early 1960s by neighbors of Ludlow Elementary School. The success of that initial attempt by residents lead to voluntary busing between schools in the system in order to achieve better racial balance. As a result of these efforts, Shaker schools avoided the court ordered busing programs of the 1970s.

At its peak enrollment in the late 1960s the system operated nine elementary schools, two junior high schools and a high school. Population and demographic shifts, along with the evolution of academic theory, have reduced the number of elementary schools from eight (grades K-4) to five: Fernway, Onaway, Lomond, Boulevard, and Mercer. Woodbury Elementary School originally Shaker High School and later Woodbury Junior High School) serves as a district-wide collector school for grades 5 and 6. Shaker Middle School serves all students in grades 7 and 8. Shaker Heights High School houses grades 9 through 12. The Shaker Heights High School mascot is a “Raider”. School colors are red and white.

Notable graduates

*Paul Newman, 1943 - Actor and Race Car Driver
*Roger Penske, 1955 - National sports car racing champion (1966), Race Car Team Owner

*David Mark Berger, 1962 - Israeli Olympic Team Member 1972; held hostage and then executed along with his teammates in Munich during the Olympic games by terrorists
*Sara Bloomfield, 1968 - Executive Director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C.
*Richard Koblentz, 1968, Chair of the Cleveland Baseball Federation
*Lee Fisher, Former Ohio Attorney General and current Lieutenant Governor of Ohio
*Brian Patrick Clarke, 1970 - Actor (Eight is Enough)
*Peter Lawson Jones, 1970 - former Ohio House of Representatives member and current Cuyahoga County Commissioner
*Jane Campbell, 1971 - Former one-term Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio and former Ohio House of Representatives member
*Judith Butler - Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, gender theorist and philosopher, author of "Gender Trouble"
*Paul S. Mason, 1973 - Executive Producer of ABC News Magazine Specials
*Anita Hollander, 1974 - Actress, Singer, Playwright
*Marci Koblentz, 1976 - Author, founder of Companies that Care
*Andy Borowitz, 1976 - Co-Creator of "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" and political satirist
*Kym Whitley, 1980 - Actress, Comedienne
*Sharon A. Hicks, 1981 - Attorney, recognized expert in Federal death row appeal cases
*Gerald Levert, 1984 - Award-winning R&B musician
*Jamie Babbit, 1989 - Director of Television (Popular, Gilmore Girls) and Movies (But I'm a Cheerleader)
*Michelle Federer, 1991 - Broadway Actress, "Wicked" as "Nessarose"
*Carter Bays, 1993 - Creator, "How I Met Your Mother"; Head Writer, "American Dad"; writer/playwright and producer
*Nate Clements, 1998 - San Francisco 49ers cornerback
*Peter Engel - Co-Producer "Saved by the Bell", executive producer "Last Comic Standing"

External links

* [http://www.shakeronline.com/about/education/ City of Shaker Heights Online: Education]
* [http://www.shaker.org Shaker Heights City School System]
* [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3857937 National Public Radio: 'The Reunion:' The Integration of Shaker Heights]