LAKEWOOD, Ohio — Lakewood City Schools Board of Education has decided, once again, to close Lincoln Elementary, despite public outcry.
Does it feel like déjà vu? If so, that's because the school district already voted on, discussed, and approved the closure of Lincoln Elementary in October 2025.
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Then came a lawsuit alleging the board had violated Ohio's Open Meetings Act, which put the plan in limbo.
RELATED: Lakewood residents urge school board to pause Lincoln Elementary repurposing vote
The lawsuit was filed by a community group called Friends of Lakewood.
"We filed essentially because of the governance issues. The school board had made this decision behind closed doors and decided to move forward with that, despite a lot of legitimate public questions," Friends of Lakewood board member Jeff McCourt previously said.
Following the settlement, the board released a statement in early August saying it did not settle because of any wrongdoing.
"While the Board is unable at this juncture to comment in a more robust manner on the terms of the settlement, it is important to the Board that the community knows that the Board did not resolve the litigation because it felt it did anything wrong in the events that led to the Board's approval of the superintendent's recommendation to repurpose Lincoln Elementary School. Rather, the Board approved the settlement because it is mindful of its obligations to be a careful steward of the taxpayer money that largely funds the District and its educational programming, and resolving the case now avoids the significant time and expense that comes along with protracted litigation," the statement read.
As part of the settlement, the board had to hold at least two public meetings about the school's repurposing, complete Open Meetings Act training and hold a new vote, which cannot take place before Sept. 4.
Four days after that timeline constraint, and a vote was had.
There is a major difference between Tuesday's and October's vote though: no public comment was on the agenda.
"It's disappointing, but at the same time, I think it almost sends a stronger signal to them to say even though we can't make our public comment heard and can't speak to you directly and respond, we're still here to support you. We're still here whenever you're ready to meet with us and showing them that we are ready," Friends of Lakewood spokesperson, Kaitlin McCready told me prior to the meeting.
McCready, along with dozens of other Lincoln Elementary families and supporters, showed up outside of Taft Center for Innovation an hour before the meeting to rally in opposition to the potential closure of the school.
"We were hopeful that with such an outcry of taxpayers being concerned about what the school was proposing and moving forward with, that we would be heard and have a real review of the data and information. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem like it's happening," McCready said. "It feels like it was a missed opportunity by the school district, but we continue to be here because we love our schools and we want to see our school board and our school district succeed, and that's why we're here."
After an hour of the school board publicly discussing in front of a room full of frustrated families, a unanimous decision to repurpose the school was made.
The district said the fundamental reason as to why Lincoln Elementary was chosen is declining K-5 enrollment.
Lakewood City Schools Board of Education President Betsy Shaughnessy said, "For the last two years, we have considered the decline in enrollment and the impact that, that has on educational processes on inequality of class size year to year on having to move teachers back and forth into other grades. That impact on education caused us to start considering what we could do in the light of the enrollment decline."
The board addressed some concerns involving walkability and financial savings.
Five of the six remaining elementary schools will have no walkability change, per the presentation given on Tuesday to the board.
Additionally, it was reported that the largest change in walking distance for students would be an eighth of a mile or 18 seconds of driving.
Financial data presented on Tuesday claims that the district would save $1.07M in the first year of repurposing Lincoln Elementary.
By year five, the district is projecting $1.3M will be saved in general funding.
"We still have neighborhood schools. We'll have six schools and all our schools are great. They're all walkable. It's a decision that's made for the good of all the children and all the parents and families in schools in Lakewood, so we sympathize 100% with people having their school closed," Shaughnessy said. "We have had countless meetings. We've had public comment at meetings; 30 people having a public comment. We listened to them. I can't tell you the number of emails that I've gotten with good ideas, good questions."
I asked Shaughnessy: "Was there any version of reality where Lincoln could have stayed as is?"
She told me, "Then another school would have closed. We had, for years, talked about expanding preschool with wraparound services, year round services. That could be a whole conversation about how much better that would be for our preschool kids and families, but when we talked about closing a school because our schools have all been rebuilt, you don't want to lose that great community asset and so the thought came into our minds: We want to have a centralized preschool."
Shaughnessy said there's a parent led group forming, trying to figure out the easiest transition for Lincoln Elementary families.
"The superintendent is already talking to people about resources to make sure the kids get what they need," she said. "We're taking good care of your tax money because if I had a choice personally of do I keep a school open that we don't have the enrollment for and spending a million dollars a year on that, that we need for programming for all our students in all our schools, I would take the using our tax money to maintain program and the educational experience. Always. 100%."
McCready said she wants to see a plan in place now that a final decision has been made.
"Put an actual plan in place. I think that's really the origin of why we're here in the first place is that there is no plan, there is no problem to solve," McCready said. "It's not a long-term decision for the school district, which is fundamentally the problem, and it's not a good long-term decision for Lakewood. Lakewood, as a city, has invested in an active transportation plan. It's invested in a safety plan for students and those are policies that the city holds, and this would fundamentally undermine those. What's the point of all the work that we've had to date if we're just going to undermine what we've put into place in policy and in law?"
The district confirms new school boundaries will go into effect for the 2027-2028 school year.
