Strongsville Ohio Middle School

April 19, 2016 - Photos Taken Today At Pre-Demo Open House 

I drove up from Ashland this afternoon to tour Center Middle School which was holding an open house prior to its summer demo. It is remarkable (and emotionally taxing) over the past 11 months to have toured two middle schools and one elementary school closely associated with myself and my family,  all three in the process of being demolished by school boards that had resisted building levies for decades.

I did not go to this school,  my brother spent his three junior high years here (1966 - 1969) and my mother taught 7th & 8th grade English here from 1969 - 1977 before retiring,  they both complained about the building(s).  Ashland just tore down their Junior High (where I went to school) this year - the surprise to me was  finding that Strongsville's was much nicer.  If you don't believe me click   "Junior High" in the navigation panel to the left.

Physically this is so much better than Ashland's Middle School. 

Here in 2016 it is is in better condition that Ashland's was way back in 1962.  We would have been overwhelmed by our good fortune had we been able to exchange this for our building.

Let's pretend that this was my mother's old classroom,  it is certainly a possibility.  I carried some stuff in (and out) from the car for her at some point and this room looks more familiar than the others,  and it is in the English Department area.

Although my mother passed away more than twenty years ago the tearing down of this school effectively obliterates a portion of her life.   Just two decades and nothing left by which to remember her;  an ongoing reminder of how destroying the past sends a message that our lives  are or little consequence.

I don't think my mother would mourned its demolition.   She was in her 50's when she taught here,  the last stop in a teaching career she did not enjoy.  In is only now that I begin to grasp the largely unappreciated sacrifice she made to make things easier for her two sons.   Life really does suck at times.