Learning Together

Great schools help our children get a strong start in life. In Akron, our schools are filled with educators and staff who go above and beyond, as well as promising initiatives like the College and Career Academies. But the issues facing our kids in our neighborhoods - poverty, housing instability, violence, and more - are spilling into the classroom, and vice versa. To improve both the reality and perception of our schools, we need strong collaboration between our city government and school leaders to create a fully supportive environment for our youth. Our Learning Together plan sets out three main priorities that our entire community should rally around to stabilize our schools and create thriving communities.

Charting a path to universal pre-K

The challenges facing our kids these days are complex, but one thing is pretty straightforward - the earlier a child starts to learn, the better their educational outcomes. Quality pre-K and early learning programs can also help address behavioral challenges that lead down a road to violence. And COVID showed us that affordable childcare can make a huge difference in whether and where a parent is able to work.

Across Akron, we have many great organizations providing childcare and pre-K, but many folks can’t access it and the different programs lack coordination. As a community, we must make citywide, universal pre-K our collective goal - to support families and give kids the strong academic start they deserve. It is a moral imperative and an economic necessity. As Mayor, Shammas will work to build a permanent, sustainable partnership to get this done.

Fulfilling the promise of our community learning centers

Akron has a unique strength - we built community learning centers (CLCs) throughout our city with the promise that they would be schools by day and community centers on evenings and weekends. There have been a lot of obstacles to this goal - insurance, staffing, funding, and bureaucracy. But more than ever, we know that children and families need more support - from after-school programming, mentoring, and summer job opportunities, to health and legal clinics, and more.

Our Learning Together plan pledges to partner with Akron Public Schools to finally fulfill the promise of the CLCs as neighborhood centers outside of school hours, building on the lessons of the United Way Family Resource Centers and the I Promise School. And as discussed in our Working Together plan, our CLCs should also be neighborhood hubs for workforce programs, so that every Akronite is within walking distance of an in-demand certificate or skills training program.

Lifting up the University of Akron as an engine of economic growth

Shammas grew up on the University of Akron campus, watching his Mom teach, and he knows that both UA and Stark State College can be engines of economic growth in our city. In recent years, the University of Akron has seen turbulent times, with budget cuts and falling student enrollment mirroring the same issues we see with our city and our overall population.

With new leadership and faculty support, we are seeing a lot of positive signs from UA. Our Learning Together plan seeks to prioritize our city government’s relationship with UA and Stark State. We will seek to make off-campus and downtown a safe and inviting area for students by prioritizing foot patrols and other community policing strategies (as reflected in our Safer Together plan), advocate for seamless transitions between APS, Stark State, and UA, and make sure that the university’s academic priorities are helping drive our community’s economic development strategy, and vice versa (as reflected in our Working Together plan). Together, we can ensure that Akronites will benefit from the transformative impact of our higher education institutions for years to come.

Join the conversation

What you see here is just the start. We want to spend the next few months talking about safety, getting your feedback, and releasing more details about how we’re going to transform these ideas into action. Your input will help inform the final detailed plans the campaign will release.

WAYS TO ENGAGE