Lorain Community School hosted a community day complete with bounce houses, shaved ice, video games and time to collect supply lists for their students as well as any necessary information about the school year.
“Right now, we have one (class) of each grade level, but the ability to double that,” said Sarah Marsden, first-year assistant principal at Lorain Community School at 1110 W. 4th Street.
She wants the school to grow to use the two floors the facility, formerly a high school, provides.
They offer art, music and physical education along with the standard K-8 curriculum, he said.
“We want the community to know that we want (the community) to be a part of us and we want to be a part of (the community),” Marsden said.
Their main goal today was to mingle with people, Marsden said they will do that throughout the year as well so the town can see what the school is doing to make it a better place.
This year, with one of each grade at the school, he said, the school will only use the ground floor of the building.
Among some of the other offerings, they have partnered with Horizon Education Center to have an on-campus preschool so young people can enter Kindergarten right away at Lorain Community School.
Horizon also offers an after-school program for those families with school-aged children where parents work later to take the pressure off the parents.
For Marsden and the staff at Lorain Community School, it’s about getting back to basics after COVID-19 has changed how many young people have learned in recent years.
Last year, the school offered semi-face-to-face learning, but is set to return to in-person learning this year.
“We wanted to get back to basics with students because of the inconsistency with COVID, we’re working to get a really structured academic part of their education, but also to meet all of their social and emotional needs,” Marsden said.
The first day of classes at Lorain Community School is Sept. 6, he said.
