Cleveland.com: "Lakewood parents on edge amid looming school closure decision"

By Cory Shaffer, cleveland.com

Published: May. 05, 2025, 2:58 p.m.

LAKEWOOD, Ohio -- A 50-person community task force formed last year to study whether to close any of Lakewood’s public elementary schools is set to present its formal recommendation next month.

Lakewood City Schools’ Elementary Planning Task Force held its ninth and final meeting -- all closed to the public -- on Wednesday to choose the plan that it believes will best address depressed enrollment and disparate class sizes among the seven neighborhood-based K-5 schools.

Superintendent Maggie Niedzwiecki said in a message to parents late Friday that the task force will present its recommendation at the school board’s June 16 meeting. Niedzwiecki will then make her recommendation to the board in September.

The district has lost over 1,000 students since 2010 and more than 3,000 since 2002. As a result, five of the seven schools sat at or below 67% capacity this school year, according to the district.

The task force was formed in August to explore three options: close one school, close two schools, or keep all seven schools open and draw new boundaries to even out enrollment.

The final decision, which will ultimately be made by the Board of Education, could reverberate in a community where the ability of parents to walk their children to school is more than just a point of pride.

City Councilman Tom Bullock, a champion of projects to enhance the city’s walkability and bike-ability and also a parent of two elementary school-aged children, said he has bonded with other parents during so-called “walking school buses” where parents in the same neighborhood take turns walking groups of children to school.

Bullock called the close-knit relationships between neighborhood parents a competitive advantage for Lakewood and its school district.

“One thing that only Lakewood Schools has is these really strong neighborhood bonds,” Bullock said.

Bullock said that, while he was not trying to influence or pressure the board in any direction, closing a school would have a major impact.

“It is a very hard decision,” he said.

Mayor Meghan George recently took a different approach. In a letter to the board and the community, George urged them not to close any of the buildings.

“Closing neighborhood schools should be taken off the table unless and until there are no other options,” George wrote. “We owe it to the children of Lakewood to do the right thing and keep our walkable, neighborhood school model intact and thriving.”

The task force itself seems to also be divided.

At its April 2 meeting, the task force asked members to rank each scenario in order of their preference before the group met again on April 16. The results, posted on the district’s website, show that of the 34 members who did so, the option to keep all schools open and redraw the boundaries received the most first-place rankings at 14. However, it also received the most last-place rankings with 17.

Repurposing Lincoln Elementary School received the second most first-place votes, with 12. It only received five last-place votes.

In a separate question, the group was also asked which scenario they would eliminate given the option. Redistricting current schools received 16 votes, while no other choice received more than six votes.

Any decision will be phased in and will not begin until the 2026-2027 school year at the earliest, the district said.

Like many cities around the steel hub of Cleveland, the number of people living in Lakewood has steadily declined since its spike in the mid-twentieth century. Its population sank from 70,000 people in 1970 to just over 50,000 in 2020, according to U.S. Census numbers.

The city’s construction to accommodate street cars, small geographic footprint and grid-like layout makes it one of the densest and most walkable cities in Ohio, and the school district has long capitalized on that.

The city’s seven elementary schools are spread across the city, with Horace Mann, Emerson, Harrison and Hayes elementary schools at the four corners and Lincoln, Grant and Roosevelt in the north central, central and south-central portion of the city, respectively.

Much like its population, the district enrollment has dropped since the turn of the century, from more than 6,700 students in 2002 to about 4,250 this year, according to enrollment numbers.

However, the district has hovered between 4,270 and 4,225 students since 2021.

The district says that the drop in enrollment has led to a wide disparity in class size among elementary schools. For example, Horace Mann had 27 first graders enrolled last school year, while Lincoln had 51.

Of the seven schools, only Grant had more than 80% of its total capacity for students enrolled in the building last school year, the district says. Lincoln was the only other school to be at or above 70%.

Niedzwiecki said in prior public presentations that the disparity made it difficult for the district to assign teachers to buildings and provide students with similar class sizes.

The school’s administration and board formed the task force, choosing its members to work in private as a working committee, in August. The district provided them seven possible scenarios to explore: close one of either Lincoln, Grant, or Roosevelt; close Lincoln and Grant; close Lincoln and Roosevelt; close Grant and Roosevelt; or keep all the schools open and draw new boundaries to even out enrollment.

The district previously said that the task force’s goals included how to even out enrollment while keeping the fabric of the neighborhood schools together. And while the seven scenarios were provided at the beginning, the district said the task force could consider any other solution offered by the public or any of its members.

The group has met twice a month, except for November and December, since its formation.

Caity Solomon, a business owner and mother of three elementary school children, said she and some parents got together in January after Niedzwiecki presented information about the task force at her elementary school, and they were all skeptical of the need to close a school.

Solomon and others formed what would become Preserve Lakewood Schools, which has advocated for the board to draw new boundaries for the existing schools.

As it stands, Solomon walks her children every morning to Lincoln Elementary School -- less than a block away.

If the district were to close Lincoln, the next closest school would be Horace Mann, about a mile walk.

“My kids were just getting to the point where I could stand on the front porch and waive them off to school,” she said. “There’s no way they’re walking a mile without a parent.”

Solomon has been critical of the process, including the group’s meetings not being open to the public and not considering any options other than the seven they were given at the outset.

“I think a lot of parents feel that from the parent and student experience perspective, there’s nothing broken with Lakewood schools,” Solomon said. “Why can’t we just start by redrawing the boundary lines and redistributing the kids, know that we need to keep a close eye on enrollment, and have the community behind you?”

Solomon echoes a growing number of parents who have spoken out against the plan at recent board meetings.

Michael Alexander, a father of two, said at last month’s school board meeting that if many of the same homes with century-old basements and postage stamp-sized lots were put in almost any other community, they wouldn’t fetch the $315,000 that an average new home in Lakewood went for in March 2025, according to Redfin.

“These things are not what’s drawing young, well-educated people who want a good education to Lakewood,” Alexander said. “They’re moving because of the walkability.”

Several parents who have spoken at school board meetings in recent months told the board that they chose Lakewood when they moved to Cleveland from across the country to be within walking distance from their child’s elementary school.

Todd Phillips said he and his wife chose to buy a home in Lakewood when they moved from Denver almost a decade ago because of the community’s support for schools, even though they didn’t have kids at the time. They chose to live near Lincoln Elementary School, one of three brand new elementary schools the district built as part of its plan to modernize its buildings.

Now, the school on Clifton Boulevard in the city’s northwestern corner is one of the buildings the district is considering closing and repurposing.

“We would not have chosen Lakewood if the school system wasn’t strong in demonstrating that it would continue to get stronger,” Phillips said.

Parents also worry that increasing the distance that their children have to walk to school will also result in more kids crossing busy streets and the fear of more crashes.

Several parents fear losing the sense of community that walking to their school brings. Parents can get to know the parents of their children’s friends, plan weekend playdates and let their kids blow off some steam after school by playing with their friends for an extra 20 minutes before walking home.

“It’s different than when you’re sitting in some stupid car line waiting for your turn to get in and get out,” Alexander said.

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