Lakewood Observer: "Katie Slife Rustad: Supt Recommends Closing Lincoln, All Neighborhood Pre-Ks, Against District’s Own Data"

This article appeared on LakewoodObserver.com on October 9.

by Katie Slife Rustad

For anyone who attended the Lakewood City School District’s Community Engagement meeting on September 29, it may come as a shock to hear that at the Monday, October 6 school board meeting Supt Niedzwiecki made recommendations that include closing Lincoln Elementary School and all of the neighborhood PreK programs to create a consolidated PreK in the vacated Lincoln building.

The CHAMPS, RISE and gifted programs will be relocated, and district lines will be redrawn.. This will impact families across the entire community – not just Lincoln families.

The feedback from the community meeting was overwhelmingly in favor of redistricting and maintaining all 7 elementary schools, but was seemingly dismissed because a large number (but not a majority) of attendees came from the Lincoln and Grant districts. At the board meeting, public comments expressed disappointment, frustration, and as one speaker put it “intellectual bewilderment” at the districts’ commitment to ploughing through with the decision to close an elementary school, which lacks widespread community support.

No one asked for this.

The board should honor the investment made by the community in 2013 when we voted to fund this elementary building. The fatal flaw with the case being presented to consolidate is that it is based on a false premise of inevitability: they have prioritized consolidation over decentralization, period, despite the facts. The district has tried to paint a picture of challenges that can seemingly only be solved by closing an elementary school but this is a false narrative — They are unable to justify it with their own data and made no attempt to do so. The community has researched and rejected this narrative over and over again this past year.

The board will vote on Oct 20 whether to move forward with the plan. Everyone who disagrees should contact all board members and let them know you do not support this.

Read this article at LakewoodObserver.com.

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