CLEVELAND – More than a dozen Cleveland schools are getting a massive facelift this school year as part of a new strategy to raise expectations and change the culture of the district’s lowest-performing schools.

Carl and Luis Stokes Central Academy had been renamed Alfred A. Benesch Elementary School and was relocated to a more modern building five blocks from its previous location. There is a new principal, all new teachers, new school equipment and an entirely new approach to educating students who have struggled at Stokes for years, Cleveland.com reports.

Shannon Caldwell, the new principal at Benesch, told the news site the radical changes are an opportunity to start over with a new focus on making learning fun in an educational environment where parents and students feel welcomed and respected.

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“You can’t revert back to the old norms, because the building is gone,” Caldwell told Cleveland.com.

Benesch is among 13 Cleveland “Investment Schools” that were targeted for special improvement efforts this spring that will significantly change the culture of learning. Most of the Investment Schools have a track record of failure, including Stokes, which received a failing grade from the state in 2012.

The vast majority of teachers in the revived schools have been replaced with educators from outside the district, as well as recruits from the successful Teach for America program, which utilizes top college graduates who are put through a rigorous teacher training program.

Teachers in the Investment Schools were required to sign commitment letters devoting themselves to doing what it takes to help students succeed, and have received intensive training from school turnaround consultants from Voyager Educational Services, the news site reports.

Voyager Vice President Judy Zimny set the tone in a meeting with new teachers Thursday, making it clear it will take a lot of hard work and determination to make the transition a success.

“Because this is an Investment School, there are expectations that are larger,” Zimny told teachers, according to Cleveland.com. “This is going to be a demanding school.”

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“Zimny said Voyager focuses on setting a solid ‘operational foundation’ – good schoolwide and classroom rules and procedures, as well as a disciplinary and conflict-resolution system – that eliminates distractions and lets teachers focus their energy on teaching,” the news site reports.

“We are setting up structures that increase the likelihood of students and teachers having immediate success,” Zimny said.

Teachers seemed cautiously optimistic.

They were asked to write on Post-It notes their thoughts about the new approach.

“Excited, yet a little overwhelmed,” one teacher wrote.

“Urgent – I need to be committed fully and to act urgently to make a change in the kids’ lives,” wrote another.

It sounds like the new school culture of higher expectations is working already.