Former students, teachers and other members of the community gathered Thursday for an open house at the former Chester I. Lewis Academic Learning Center in northeast Wichita.
Wichita school district officials closed the building in December after discovering unsafe structural conditions there. The district relocated students and teachers to the former Cleaveland Elementary School building in southwest Wichita.
The building was originally Mathewson Junior High, and it served as a community pillar to the predominantly Black surrounding neighborhood…