By Joe Miller
The Shaker Heights City School District’s commitment to “excellence for all” is more than just a promise to students. It’s a pledge that alumni take with them after the classroom. If they leave town after graduating, it often guides them back home. Sometimes it pushes them to pursue careers focused on giving back. In short, a Shaker Heights education impacts the entire community.
Shaker graduates — as well as current students and even classroom volunteers — come with many voices. Some are loud. Some are soft. All are important because they weave the rich tapestry of the Shaker educational experience. Here are five of them.
Photography by Gus Chan
A Family Tradition
“Shaker provides the opportunity to interact with people of all walks of life. I wanted our kids to have that.” Dave Carpenter is looking forward to seeing old friends this year at his 35th Shaker Heights High School reunion.
But the 1988 graduate knows he’s just as likely to see former classmates — and their kids — at a Middle School band concert or a cross country meet.
“Of just my core good friends from my graduating class, there’s at least six or seven who have moved back to Shaker,” he says. “I think people get a full appreciation for this community when they leave.
Carpenter thought about moving to Chicago when he graduated from Miami University in Oxford. But an initial job at American Greetings and marriage to his wife, Holly, changed his priorities. The two decided early on they wanted to raise their family in Shaker and send them to public schools.
“I had a really good experience growing up and going to Shaker,” he says. “I think Shaker provides both academically enriched classes and the opportunity to interact with people of all walks of life. I wanted our kids to have that.”
The Carpenters have watched two of their three kids graduate from the Shaker Heights Schools so far — David in 2021 and Anna in 2022 — as well as one of their nieces. Their youngest, Andrew, is an eighth grader at Shaker Heights Middle School. Carpenter believes at least one or two of their kids will choose to live in Shaker and hopefully get the same chance he has had to reminisce with old classmates.
“We just tell stories and invariably we just laugh,” he says. “Whether it’s the people I see all the time, or if it’s someone from Shaker that I haven’t seen in five or ten years, you just start where you left off.”
The Scholar
“I definitely want to support the community I was brought up in.”
When Nya Christian graduated magna cum laude from prestigious Howard University this past May with a degree in political science and minors in sociology and dance arts, the 2019 Shaker Heights High School alumna felt ready to take on anything.
“Dance is my first love and definitely my biggest passion,” she says. “But I know that through my Shaker education and going to Howard, there are many pathways that I feel I can excel at now.”
Christian had dreamed about going to the historically Black college in Washington, D.C., since the eighth grade. To get there, she pushed herself both academically through Shaker’s International Baccalaureate diploma and the MAC Scholars programs, and artistically through the High School’s Dance Club and Sankofa groups. She also captained the school’s cheer team her senior year.
With that experience, Christian says she felt “very empowered to be a leader” on the Howard campus and found opportunities through the student government and the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. Since graduation, Christian has interned at the American Civil Liberties Union’s D.C. affiliate and will perform with an African American dance company for the next year.
Christian sees herself continuing a dance career while she’s still in her 20s, but eventually she plans to pursue a political career, including possibly running for office in Ohio someday. “I definitely want to support the community I was brought up in.”
The Builder
“Mentors come in from other jobs and work with you. I think it’s great that Shaker provides this.”
The sky’s the limit for Rowan Dunn. The Shaker Heights High School senior spent much of his summer learning about all aspects of construction management from the dizzying heights of the Farnsleigh apartments worksite. As an “extern” for Gilbane Building Company, Rowan inspected work on the project to ensure that it was compliant with the architect’s specifications. Hard hat and protective goggles in place, he had steady access to everyone on the construction site, from superintendents to trade union workers. It was a veritable crash course in construction, structural engineering, and architecture.
“A lot of what I’m doing is an introduction to the work environment,” he says. “I can see there’s a lot of flexibility in construction management in terms of paths you might want to pursue.”
That’s the idea of the program, said Christopher Kowalczyk, senior project manager with Gilbane.
“Our college interns, who are already enrolled in construction-related studies in college, usually work mostly in our office,” Kowalczyk says. “We like to give externs like Rowan exposure to the field to see if it’s a career they’d like to pursue.”
Rowan was introduced to Gilbane through the High School’s Architecture, Construction, and Engineering (ACE) Mentor Program. Now in its third year, ACE provides students the opportunity to work on interactive, hands-on, problem-solving activities in a collaborative environment with mentors, including architects, construction managers, and engineers.
The SHHS team mentors included representatives from Gilbane, Van Auken Akins Architects, Equity Engineering Group, The Austin Company, Intertek, CLM Designs, and Independence Construction. The High School’s participation in the ACE Mentor Program is made possible through the Shaker Schools Foundation.
Last spring, Rowan’s four-person team was recognized as one of the top three area ACE teams during a celebration at Windows on the River in the Flats. Their project: design a vocational school for architecture, construction, and design in the High School.
“It’s a great opportunity,” Rowan says. “All of these mentors come in from other jobs and work with you. I think it’s great that Shaker provides this.”
Now a senior, Rowan, 17, is in the process of visiting various colleges and universities and deciding what his next step will be. He’s considering studying marine biology or — you guessed it — construction management. Wherever he ends up, Rowan — whose family moved here from Long Island two years ago — will always have a soft spot for Shaker Heights.
“It’s been great,” he says. “The block parties, the neighborhoods, I really love it.”
The Homecoming
“I’m really excited to be in a position to be able to give back, after everything that’s been given to me.”
Will Warren has plenty of great memories from his days as a Shaker Heights High School student, from hanging out with friends to helping Shaker win the Lake Erie League basketball title his senior year as the team’s co-captain and starting center. But what stands out even more when he thinks back is how many African American men within Shaker schools — educators such as Danny Young, Michael Summers, Larry Miller, J. Lindsay Florence, and Ouimet Smith, to name a few — helped mentor him to success in the classroom and beyond.
“They did this with countless others at Shaker,” Warren says. “To see a Black man in that role changes your entire path. We aspire to be like them.”
Warren, who graduated in 2007, hopes to be “one of those guys” when he makes his Shaker return this year as program coordinator for the District’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion team. The role is based at the High School and includes working with the Student Group on Race Relations and the Minority Achievement Committee Scholars program. It’s familiar territory for Warren, who was in both groups as a Shaker teen.
“I really feel that I’ve been called to come home, work hard, be an example and make a real difference,” Warren says. “I’m really excited to be in a position to be able to give back, after everything that’s been given to me.”
The Volunteer
“The basics come together for all they will need through school, and in life.” Sharon Swagger may be a relative newcomer to Shaker Heights, but she’s become a familiar face at Lomond Elementary School. For the past three years, the retired bank trust officer has been reading once a week with first graders in teacher Adam Mortus’ classroom.
“The younger kids love for you to come in,” she says. “The volunteers in Shaker schools make a huge difference.”
Swagger moved to the Shaker Heights area five years ago to be closer to her daughter and granddaughter, who graduated from the High School in June. Although she retired in 2012 from a 27-year career at PNC Bank and National City Bank before that, Swagger has been keeping busy with volunteering at the Near West Intergenerational School in Ohio City, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Maltz Performing Arts Center.
But it’s her time at Lomond that has given her a chance to watch Mortus, the son of a close friend, in action.
“Adam is a very positive teacher who has a great demeanor with the kids,” she says. “He is incredibly dedicated and he never loses his cool.”
Plus, Swagger enjoys the time with the kids. “I love to see how far they progress during the school year. It is such an important time. The basics come together for all they will need through school, and in life.”
