Services for youth living in foster homes and kinship care placements

IMAC school will move to Raemelton Center to save on rent
Lou Whitmire, Mansfield News Journal, Oct. 11, 2006, pg. A3.

MANSFIELD -- Interactive Media & Construction, or IMAC, one of the Mansfield City Schools' conversion schools, is moving Nov. 1 out of the Richland Academy building at 75 N. Walnut St.

IMAC is moving into the district's Raemelton Center on 856 W. Cook Road. to save money.

Harold Dean, director of IMAC, said about $48,000 the district is paying annually in rent to Richland Academy will be saved.

Earlier, there was talk by school officials of moving the program to the 150 W. Fifth St. building, among other sites.

"Since March or April the district has explored six or seven different places and that worked best," Interim Superintendent Joe Madak said, referring to Raemelton.

Madak said the Raemelton building is able to provide the technological setting for the computer-based program.

Students last year started classes in the Richland Academy building, where they could get a high school diploma and learn a valued skill.

There are no plans for the space in the immediate future, said Anngie Tager, director of operations at Richland Academy.

Raemelton Center houses offices for departments including pupil services, special education, therapists, guidance counselors, health services, interpreters and school psychologists.

IMAC has 75 students, Dean said.

The district also sponsors two other conversion schools.

The Mansfield Elective Academy, housed at the Ocie Hill Neighborhood Center, 445 Bowman St., targets students Kindergarten-8 in foster care or children living with extended family members, such as grandparents.

The district also operates the Mansfield Enhancement Academy, 215 N. Trimble Road.

Instruction is provided to students from Mansfield and the surrounding area, ages 17-21, who have dropped out of school or are at-risk of dropping out of high school.