When students meet with their counselors in the springtime to create their schedules for the next school year, they are met with a long list of potential classes. In the social studies department, students can choose electives such as Native American Studies or Human Rights and Conflict. In the art department, options include fiber arts or pARTners, among others.

Lakewood High School offers a multitude of classes that are rarely offered in Ohio or not offered at all in other schools. The school has also served as a pilot for new courses in the state. With many different electives across all departments, these classes are what make Lakewood High School unique.

Behind the scenes, it is the dedication of teachers and staff that gives students these opportunities, shaping their high school experience and contributing to the unique and distinctive atmosphere of Lakewood High School.

LHS teachers reflect on how their classes impact both their students and their own teaching experiences.

“I think that it helps to sort of slow down our really fast-paced world of working as an individual and just working towards your own growth. And this is really about working as a partnership and working as a community,” said Dayna Hansen.

Hansen is the teacher and creator of the pARTners program at Lakewood High School, the first of its kind. The class is an interactive class between MILES students and general education students, designed specifically to support MILES students.

“I wrote up the course proposal last fall, and this year I’m running it ninth period with students from the MILES unit,” Hansen said.

Lakewood High School’s quick ability to create and add an entirely new program to their course offerings showcases how much they value student opportunities.

“I think this class applies to so much of our lives as humans—how we participate in our government and our democracy, how we participate in our community, how we inject ourselves into the world around us,” Joe Lobozzo said.

Lobozzo has been teaching Human Rights and Conflict at Lakewood High School for 17 years. This class looks at “historical case studies of injustice in order to look at the choices people made during those times and to apply it to conversations about the choices we make today and how we participate in our democracy,” said Lobozzo.

Human Rights and Conflict’s unique course curriculum provides students with an opportunity to look at history through a different perspective, use the past to understand the present, and use the past to prepare for the future.

A diverse course catalog benefits not only students but teachers as well. Native American Studies teacher Chuck Greanoff said, “It’s opened up a whole new area for me to study and learn and grow in. Last summer, I spent time on the Pequot reservation at the Pequot Museum. So it’s helped to energize me, and I think it’s also very meaningful in part because I created the class.”

Greanoff established the course in 2022—the first at Lakewood High and one of the few in Northeast Ohio. In addition to offering rare courses, Lakewood High has made history by pilot-testing AP African American Studies in Ohio.

“I never received content like this growing up when I was in high school…When I learned about African Americans, it was like slavery briefly touched on, the Civil Rights Movement briefly touched on, MLK, Rosa Parks,” Said teacher Austin Sparks.

Sparks began to pilot the course in 2021, making him the first in Ohio to do so. His comparison of his education as a high school student versus his opportunity to educate high school students now shows just how important Lakewood High School’s curriculum is to both teachers and students.

Furthermore, Lakewood High School’s classes provide a new perspective that many students in other schools don’t get to see.

“It’s to give a voice to the individuals that are often voiceless, that just don’t get…a lot of the credit they deserve in a traditional kind of curriculum. And it’s also to explore…a lot of the world’s issues through that literature,” said Chris Brookholt.

Brookholt has been teaching Diversity in Lit at Lakewood High School for 13 years. The class originally began as Race in Literature before Brookholt “wanted to expand it beyond issues outside of race and so…Diversity in Lit was born.”

Brookholt said, “My hope has always been that something we read or a conversation we’ve had challenges them to view the world or an issue in a way that they hadn’t been able to view it before.”

As time goes on, Lakewood High School continues to be a stepping stone in broadening perspectives, providing unique opportunities, and being a truly unique school.