Barberton City Schools to tie curriculum with polymer hub

Barberton City Schools has teamed up with the Akron-centered Sustainable Polymers Tech Hub to enable its students to gain entry into an important Northeast Ohio industry and to provide the cluster’s hundreds of companies with one of the things they need most: people.

“Our kids want to work,” said Josh Gordon, executive director of the Barberton Community Foundation.

The foundation, born out of efforts 20 years ago to rebuild Barberton’s high school—which still looks nearly brand-new today—has been working on the effort along with the Greater Akron Chamber, ConxusNEO, Barberton City Schools and the city of Barberton.

It’s all connected to the Sustainable Polymers Tech Hub formed by the Akron Chamber, which has been awarded more than $80 million in state and federal grants this year.

Gordon said the school system will pioneer a partnership with local industry through the effort, which will be implemented in all grades, from kindergarten through high school.

“There are 31 tech hubs in the U.S., and every state has their version of an innovation hub,” Gordon said. “Barberton is the first school system in the country to have a program aligned with a tech hub. I don’t know how that’s true, but whenever someone is the first and only, it’s a big deal.”

Barberton is not a community burdened by excess wealth. Its median household income of just under $50,000 per year lags behind Ohio’s statewide median income of $67,000, according to U.S. Census data.

Jobs in the polymer industry represent a way for the city’s students to access good-paying jobs in a growing industry. Companies working in plastics, rubber and other polymers often represent a way for people without a college degree to earn good wages.

“These jobs can be $45,000 and up with a high school degree,” Gordon said.

Such jobs already are available, and more are on their way, he added.

“There are 1,400 total polymer-based businesses in Northeast Ohio,” Gordon said. “And do you know what the average age of a worker is in the polymer industry? Sixty. ... They have a demand for people, but there’s no supply.”

Barberton has the people, including its more than 3,600 students, but they need expertise to access those jobs, Gordon said. The new program, dubbed Polymer Pathway, will help them get it.

The program is starting with $375,000 in funding: $250,000 from a state grant and the Akron Chamber, and $125,000 from the Barberton Community Foundation, said Brian Anderson, vice president of the polymer industry cluster for the Akron Chamber.

For younger students, up to the fourth grade, the curriculum will be introductory and will give kids a basic understanding of what polymers are—something Gordon said most adults don’t know. For example, the book “What’s a Polymer?” will be a text for students up to grade four.

“Those kids are going to read that and know what a polymer is, and their parents are going to know,” Gordon said. “Then in fourth through seventh grade, they’re going to have hands-on lab experience. They’ll be given the materials and opportunities to make their own bouncy balls, for example.”

Then, in high school, the real work begins. That will sometimes involve companies such as Akron Rubber Development Labs, a company in Barberton working with the schools to develop curriculum.

Students will learn about more advanced concepts, such as vulcanization, and manufacturing processes like injection molding.

They’ll also be trained in industrial concepts such as lean manufacturing, and students will be able to graduate from high school having already earned their first Six Sigma certification belts.

“It will get them into a cycle-breaking job where they can buy a house and start a family,” Gordon said.

It’s a chance to get the city’s students a lot more than an initial job as well.

“That business will usually invest in them,” Gordon said.

That could result in additional training to improve their skill levels, enter into management or even go to college to get degrees in business, engineering and other related fields.

Jean Barbato, senior manager for the manufacturing sector partnership at Conxus, who has been working closely with Barberton City Schools on the project, said the schools have enthusiastically embraced the new program.

“We’re getting them more polymer-specific because they already have a great advanced manufacturing program, Barbato said.

The program is up and running, thanks in part to the schools’ previous work in manufacturing, and it will expand as it goes. Gordon said he’s talking with other companies, including smaller ones such as Akron Rubber and large ones such as Bridgestone.

“We’re going to welcome others into it because it will just strengthen opportunities for the kids,” Gordon said.