Tuscarawas Central Catholic to add field house
The new field house will contain 23,000 square feet of space and an additional gym.
The first phase of the Building on Excellence Campaign is already well on its way; its goal is to allow Tuscarawas Central Catholic and the community to flourish. The initial project, the building of a new field house near the school’s football field, was recently announced and is currently in the fundraising stage.
“This is an exciting time in the evolution of our Tuscarawas County Catholic schools,” said Jennifer Calvo, principal at TCC. “Community members are already talking about how they can make use of the field house and be part of the campaign.”
The 23,000-square-foot building, separate from the school, will house a gymnasium surrounded by rooms for music study and performance, offices, and a community room complete with kitchen facilities. Locker rooms for both home and away teams, space for ticket sales, concessions, and restroom facilities will replace the need to enter the school building for those needs during football games.
“It’s just going to make everything a lot more convenient for our fans, our volunteers who take care of concessions and for our kids, so it’s important to bring the space into our community,” Calvo said.
A portable stage and music room will allow students to explore the arts, the community room has multiple uses to partner with the public and the gym can be split into two floors to allow multiple teams to practice at once instead of sharing the school’s main gym far into the evenings. The building also will offer year-round athletic training possibilities.
The new field house spaces would be set up to be as flexible as possible to meet the needs of the students.
“For the last couple of years, we’ve had drum/percussion as an after-school club,” Calvo said. “They’ve been doing absolutely amazing things. They wrote some grants, and we were able to buy all of the percussion instruments for a drumline. We’re excited to see that grow, and they’ll have some space dedicated to them.”
One goal also is to use the field house to expand music and other arts offerings at the school.
“We definitely want to be able to grow. We’re always looking for ways to increase our offerings in the arts and meet our kids where they are at. We want to find what they’re excelling at, what their passions are and work for ways to make that available,” Calvo said.
The field house amenities will be a welcome expansion since the school consolidated junior high 15 years ago without any additional space.
“The need is real with no current gym for the junior high and growth in our elementaries and youth sports programs,” Calvo said.
Financial support for the $6 million project is more than halfway secured with additional plans for the needed funding in the works. Private donations have made up most of the funds.
“We are just coming out of the silent phase, and right now we’re beginning the broader public part of our campaign,” Calvo said.
The school will begin exploring grants, and anyone interested in donating toward the project may call the school for more information.
Students in the growing Catholic elementary schools will benefit from the project.
“We’re growing to the point where they can no longer share principals. So we’re happy to welcome Jake Love as the new principal in Immaculate Conception,” Calvo said. “It’s great. The elementaries do well, and then we do well.”
In addition to the junior/senior high school, Immaculate Conception Elementary is located in Dennison and Tuscarawas Central Catholic Elementary is located in Dover. Students do not have to be Catholic to attend.
“The EdChoice expansion is Ohio’s scholarship program, which allows parents to choose to send their students to a private school, and the State of Ohio has a scholarship available for those students,” Calvo said. “It is income based; it is really accessible.”
With the program many families would be eligible to receive full tuition. Those who aren’t would receive a portion of their tuition paid.
New students are still being accepted for the 2024-25 school year. Calvo invites students and their families to consider the opportunities for academic excellence, religious growth, athletics and extracurriculars available to them at TCC.
It was recently announced the school is bringing back its wrestling program under coach Bo Gilmore, and a new team of coaches, led by Giovanni Ionno, is in place to lead the football team this fall. Other sports available include golf, cheer, basketball, cross country, track, baseball, softball and volleyball.
Calvo is excited about the possibilities of the new field house.
“This new gym will give us an opportunity to build better relationships, closer relationships with Special Olympics and the Rockets,” Calvo said.
The Tuscarawas County Rockets basketball team played many home games at the school prior to the consolidation of the junior and senior high. Currently, the gym-use schedule is tight. “We just don’t have time to do everything we want to do,” Calvo said.
Visit www.tccsaints.com.