Cleveland Central Catholic High School is getting a new addition to its historic building in Slavic Village, on Cleveland?s Southeast side. Faux stained-glass windows are replacing the original six windows on the south side of the school building. The original windows date to 1921.
Four of the new windows will represent the founding parish high schools that created Cleveland Central Catholic: St. Stanislaus, St. John Cantius, St. Michael the Archangel and Our Lady of Lourdes.
The other two windows will bear images of Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXIII.
Work for the window project was in the planning stages for quite some time. With funding now in place, the project began on Holy Thursday, March 24.
In 1968, the four Catholic parish high schools merged to form Cleveland Central Catholic. School officials said one of the benefits of forming one school was the impact of bringing students together from both sides of the Cuyahoga River.
The Diocese of Cleveland opened Central Catholic in the fall of 1969 with more than 1,600 students on the four campuses. In the early years, students and faculty rotated regularly from one campus to another.
Over the years, as enrollment decreased, three of the campuses were closed: Our Lady of Lourdes in 1976 and St. John Cantius in 1988. The consolidation of the Scranton (St. Michael?s) and the Forman (St. Stanislaus) campuses took place in 2003, completing the transition to a single-campus school on the St. Stanislaus block in Slavic Village.
During the next several years, in cooperation with the diocese, Central Catholic completed a $13 million capital campaign that added more than 25,000 square feet of new construction for classrooms, labs, meeting space, a chapel and gymnasium. The new addition opened in 2006.
