Cleveland.com: "Legal challenge forces Lakewood Schools to restart process for closing elementary buildings"
- Preserve Lakewood Schools
- Aug 7, 2025
- 3 min read
By John Benson, special to cleveland.com
LAKEWOOD, Ohio -- The saga continues over the potential closing and subsequent repurposing of an elementary school or two in Lakewood.
Originally, Lakewood City Schools Superintendent Maggie Niedzwiecki was due to make her recommendation to the Board of Education this month.
That was later delayed to next month.
“September was when I planned to have a recommendation to the board,” she said.
“Unfortunately, due to the demand letter we received in May, we have spent a lot of time with public records requests and working with our legal counsel on how to move forward.”
The potential closing of an elementary school drew the attention of parents and residents opposed to the concept.
Community groups such as Friends of Lakewood and Preserve Lakewood Schools emerged to push back against the district’s task force group effort and overall discussion.
This spring, Friends of Lakewood filed a demand letter to outline its grievance. The letter stated that the district’s children and taxpayers deserve better.
A statement from Friends of Lakewood to cleveland.com reads: “Friends of Lakewood Schools is seeking good governance and proper strategic planning from our elected school officials.
“Whether the school board is deciding to close a school or build new administrative offices, the subject matter is not the focus.
“It’s the process. Poor governance and a lack of strategy and planning leads to poor outcomes.
“Lakewood’s school board and superintendent have demonstrated that principle thoroughly over the past year, all while running roughshod over Ohio laws designed to mitigate these situations.”
The group of Lakewood residents and taxpayers is demanding accountability and a change in how the school board operates.
In response, Niedzwiecki said the district was forced to make a sea change in its elementary school conversation, which began roughly a year ago when the district convened a 50-member community task force to study the future of the seven elementary schools.
The superintendent said at this point there is no timeline associated with her elementary school recommendation, which would be followed by a Board of Education decision.
It could come later this year or well into 2026, she said.
The impetus for the delay -- due to the demand letter -- is that the district has to divorce itself from anything related to the task force.
“The demand letter itself questioned the task force, community involvement and organization of that involvement,” Niedzwiecki said.
“So with that, unfortunately, the time and the effort that was put forth with all those community members for an entire year has to be set aside at this point.”
Due to a decade-long trend of declining enrollment -- with roughly 1,600 fewer students in the district and its seven elementary schools at 66 percent capacity for K-5 students -- the task force this spring presented the option of closing either Roosevelt Elementary School, Grant Elementary School or Lincoln Elementary School.
The closed building would be transformed into an early learning center.
The group also noted that redistricting is another option.
Niedzwiecki said dissociating her decision from the task force’s effort means relying on the district’s historic enrollment data.
“I’ve always wanted to be collaborative about the process, so we gathered community members for an entire year to discuss this process and the data points that we had as a district,” she said.
“We allowed open conversation to occur with the task force itself. We went to every elementary building and held a community conversation.
“We believe we have been transparent in our process,” she said.
“Unfortunately, when changes might occur that may affect a certain individual or their household, people get worried or nervous or fear the future.”
Something no longer a consideration in the elementary school discussion is the state’s biennial budget.
