P-CCS highlights new facilities aimed at enhancing learning and student innovation

Innovation space, natatorium are new resources for academic, athletic and extracurricular success

 

CANTON, Mich. – Plymouth-Canton Community Schools recently gave the community a close-up look at several new facilities that are a result of the district’s 2020 bond to upgrade buildings and provide students with a world class educational experience.  

More than 40 people, including community leaders and parents, toured the district’s new facilities that are being built as a result of a bond approved by the community in 2020. The tour included a brand-new natatorium at Plymouth High School, the soon-to-be-completed stadium at Canton High School and the Innovation Hub, a center for cutting-edge and collaborative learning that can prepare students for jobs of the future. 

P-CCS Board of Education Treasurer Patrick Kehoe was among those who participated in a brick signing ceremony on the site of the Innovation Hub during the April 23 tour.  

“On behalf of the Board of Education, I want to extend a heartfelt thanks to our community for approving the 2020 bond,” Kehoe said.   

The district’s robotics team, which has won world championships and is a perennial powerhouse at the state and national levels, will be at the heart of the Innovation Hub.  

“At Plymouth-Canton Community Schools, we are committed to preparing our young people for jobs that don’t even exist yet today,” Superintendent Dr. Monica L. Merritt said. “We are always thinking about new ways to develop skills among our young people so they’re ready for opportunities of the future, 10 or 20 years from now.”   

The Innovation Hub will also allow students, teachers, community partners and technology experts to work together on a variety of projects, including those that involve artificial intelligence, virtual reality, e-sports and other topics. 

The recent tour began at the new 1,800-seat stadium adjacent to Canton High School. The new stadium adds to the existing ones at Salem and Plymouth high schools and can be used by all three high schools as well as Starkweather Academy. Tour participants stopped at new gyms at Canton and Plymouth high school and visited the new band room addition at Plymouth High School.     

The 2020 bond allowed the district to renovate and upgrade buildings and facilities throughout the district. The new facilities and additions reflect the district’s strategic plan of investing in innovative educational programming that will benefit students long into the future. 

Merritt said the ongoing wave of construction at P-CCS and the newly completed facilities and resources at the Plymouth-Canton Educational Park and across the district aim to give students the best education available.  

“As people go down Joy Road and Canton Center, that is going to be something that showcases the amazing talent that we have,” Merritt said.