And this year, Holliday’s room
has been outfitted with 25 new Huion
tablets, which enable students to draw
directly onto a monitor and see their
designs as though they were drawing
on paper. Previously students drew
on a tablet that displayed their work
on a screen, something that took
some getting used to and could be
cumbersome.
“These tablets enable us to work
on the same equipment we’d be
working on if we were out in the world
right now,” says Shaker Heights High
School senior and award-winning
art student Grace McCormack. “The
graphic design program here has been
very clear about being as industrystandard
as possible and now, with
these tablets and all of our illustration
and animation software, we’re there.”
This year, Grace used the Huion
Tablets to design a set of printable
stickers featuring Corgo, an illustrated
Welsh Corgi character she created.
And now that her designs have been
captured with better technology, she’s
been exploring copyright options and
building out a website so that she
could sell items with the Corgo image.
Seniors Louise Spadoni, Rachel
Raddock, and Lane Murray say that
the new sewing and embroidering
machine dovetails well with their IB
Diploma Programme Community
Service Project, CyCLE Clothing, a
nonprofit upcycled clothing business.
The trio inherited the business
from recent graduates who had been
reselling thrifted clothing. But they
took the idea one step further: They’re
using the new sewing and embroidery
machine to embellish or alter thrifted
items, making them one-of-a-kind
before a resale, and they donate 100%
of their proceeds to charity. Previously,
Louise had been doing most of the
stitching and embroidery by hand.
“This is so much faster and you can
make nearly perfect designs so that it
looks like something you could buy in
the store,” she says.
62 WINTER 2020 | WWW.SHAKER .LIFE
(Above, left to right) Lane Murray, Louise
Spadoni and Rachel Raddock purchase
clothing from thrift stores, embellish
them with this special sewing machine,
and resell the items for their business,
CyCLE Clothing. One hundred percent
of the profits go to charity. (Left) An
embroidery detail on one of Louise
Spadoni’s designs.
Skills for the Future
Perhaps the biggest champion for the District’s i3 Initiative is a group of more
than 30 community members and local business leaders who serve as members
of the i3 community advisory council. Among them is Heather Stefanski, a Shaker
Heights High School graduate who returned to Shaker Heights from California in
2018 with her husband, Ben, who is also a Shaker Heights High School alum, and
their two teen-aged sons, Ben and Luke.
In California, Stefanski’s eldest son Ben had been enrolled in an engineering
academy, where much of his learning was project-based and collaborative. The
couple intentionally enrolled Ben in that school, as Stefanski knew from her
graduate work in business and education at Stanford University that the skills
he would gain at the engineering academy were the skills he would need in the
future. She saw the positive impact that learning environment had on her son
and began to work with the i3 Initiative to incorporate elements of her son’s
experiences here.
“This is a big shift for Shaker, but it’s an exciting shift. And we need to keep
developing this path for kids who want to build and invent and create just as much
as we develop a path for kids who want to go a more traditional route,” Stefanski
says. “If we can pull all of this off, then Shaker can truly be cutting edge.” SL
To learn more about projects and programs supported by
the Shaker Schools Foundation or to donate to the Innovation
Fund online, visit: https://shakerschoolsfoundation.org
SHAKER
SCHOOLS
Foundation
COMMITTED TO OUR STUDENTS,
OUR COMMUNITY, OUR FUTURE
/shakerschoolsfoundation.org
/WWW.SHAKERlife.com