{"id":123641,"date":"2026-02-26T01:35:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T01:35:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/123641\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T01:35:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T01:35:06","slug":"new-innovation-hub-makerspace-opens-for-reading-community-city-schools-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/123641\/","title":{"rendered":"New innovation hub, makerspace opens for Reading Community City Schools"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tReading Community Schools is officially opening the doors to a maker-space and innovation hub for students K-12.It\u2019s all because of a state grant. This comes at a time when state funds for education have been uncertain. As soon as you step inside the Reading Community City Schools Innovation Hub, there are opportunities everywhere you look.&#8221;From what I&#8217;ve seen, these 3D printers look more advanced and like precise from what ours are,&#8221; senior RJ McCormick said. From 3D printers to laser cutting technology, STEM learning is the centerpiece of this massive project.&#8221;I can now make more precise cuts and go further into the depth of what I want to achieve,&#8221; senior Matthew Lawson said. Students will soon be able to use this state-of-the-art equipment.&#8221;It&#8217;s definitely more advanced from what we&#8217;ve been able to use in the past and currently, right now too,&#8221; McCormick said.This space will help them be career-ready.&#8221;I&#8217;ve wanted to go into civil engineering, and now that I have the second semester of my high school career to go into it more, I think it&#8217;s beautiful,&#8221; Lawson said.The innovation hub in the high school and maker space in the elementary school are the products of a two-million-dollar state grant.&#8221;When Governor DeWine came to visit our district to award us the grant to then visioning and then building and construction, we saw this happen very quickly,&#8221; Superintendent Damon Davis said.  Davis says Reading was awarded this money back in March of 2024. While funding has been a gray area for many districts in the past year, Davis says they&#8217;ve taken extra steps to make sure it was rolled out effectively.&#8221;You have to be very mindful of how are you going to continue to sustain the project once it&#8217;s built and developed,&#8221; Davis said. &#8220;And so for us, we&#8217;ve been very intentional about that and mindful where we haven&#8217;t had to hire additional staffing.&#8221;The hope is that this state investment will set students up for success starting from day one.&#8221;And so for us, Davis said. &#8220;This is going to be something that students will be able to have access to that they&#8217;ve never had access to before.&#8221;As graduation nears for both RJ and Matthew, they&#8217;re looking forward to how the hub will shape their future.&#8221;You can come in here, you can use these machines,&#8221; Lawson said. &#8220;You can truly learn what you want to do.&#8221;The goal is to continue training teachers and staff and work this into students&#8217; schedules in the next month or so.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tREADING, Ohio \u2014 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Reading Community Schools is officially opening the doors to a maker-space and innovation hub for students K-12.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s all because of a state grant. This comes at a time when state funds for education have been uncertain. <\/p>\n<p>As soon as you step inside the Reading Community City Schools Innovation Hub, there are opportunities everywhere you look.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;From what I&#8217;ve seen, these 3D printers look more advanced and like precise from what ours are,&#8221; senior RJ McCormick said. <\/p>\n<p>From 3D printers to laser cutting technology, STEM learning is the centerpiece of this massive project.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I can now make more precise cuts and go further into the depth of what I want to achieve,&#8221; senior Matthew Lawson said. <\/p>\n<p>Students will soon be able to use this state-of-the-art equipment.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s definitely more advanced from what we&#8217;ve been able to use in the past and currently, right now too,&#8221; McCormick said.<\/p>\n<p>This space will help them be career-ready.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve wanted to go into civil engineering, and now that I have the second semester of my high school career to go into it more, I think it&#8217;s beautiful,&#8221; Lawson said.<\/p>\n<p>The innovation hub in the high school and maker space in the elementary school are the products of a two-million-dollar state grant.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When Governor DeWine came to visit our district to award us the grant to then visioning and then building and construction, we saw this happen very quickly,&#8221; Superintendent Damon Davis said. <\/p>\n<p> Davis says Reading was awarded this money back in March of 2024. While funding has been a gray area for many districts in the past year, Davis says they&#8217;ve taken extra steps to make sure it was rolled out effectively.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You have to be very mindful of how are you going to continue to sustain the project once it&#8217;s built and developed,&#8221; Davis said. &#8220;And so for us, we&#8217;ve been very intentional about that and mindful where we haven&#8217;t had to hire additional staffing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The hope is that this state investment will set students up for success starting from day one.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And so for us, Davis said. &#8220;This is going to be something that students will be able to have access to that they&#8217;ve never had access to before.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As graduation nears for both RJ and Matthew, they&#8217;re looking forward to how the hub will shape their future.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You can come in here, you can use these machines,&#8221; Lawson said. &#8220;You can truly learn what you want to do.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The goal is to continue training teachers and staff and work this into students&#8217; schedules in the next month or so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reading Community Schools is officially opening the doors to a maker-space and innovation hub for students K-12.It\u2019s all&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[57962,15476,36443,9513,57959,54212,57960,57963,57957,57961,128,130,129,57958,2009,9312,57964,57956],"class_list":{"0":"post-123641","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-3d-printer","9":"tag-access","10":"tag-davis","11":"tag-district","12":"tag-high-school-career","13":"tag-lawson","14":"tag-makerspace","15":"tag-massive-project","16":"tag-new-innovation-hub","17":"tag-past","18":"tag-reading-city","19":"tag-reading-city-headlines","20":"tag-reading-city-news","21":"tag-reading-community-city-schools","22":"tag-space","23":"tag-state-grant","24":"tag-stem-learning","25":"tag-student-k-12"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}