Well-Managed Enrollment -- NOT Building Closures -- Will Best Serve Our Students

I have written two prior Observer articles covering the many issues that call the process surrounding, and the data provided to the Elementary Planning Task Force into question. The one issue that has been in the news lately is capacity. The administration claims schools are being under-utilized and has presented capacity numbers to back up that claim. But what do those numbers mean, exactly?

The capacity percentages initially shared by the district are a function of state defined maximum student capacity per square foot. They are NOT a reflection of how the schools are being functionally used. The takeaway: Lakewood Schools have class sizes well below the State Maximum. For example, my daughter’s first grade classroom at Lincoln with 18 students, is – according to the state of Ohio – at 72% capacity. The current overall capacity for Lincoln is listed at 71%. Rather than a problem, this seems to be a really great selling point to prospective parents.

The original capacity numbers that were presented to the task force were artificially deflated – they included the square footage of rooms like STEM and Music that do not have permanent classes attributed to them. They also based the CHAMPS and Rise & Stars classrooms on the state max capacity, rather than the actual capacity of those modified special needs rooms which are actually 8 and 10, respectively. Updated capacity numbers were shared with the task force on February 19 that counted actual classrooms, excluded STEM, Art, Library, Gym and Music rooms as well as administrative space, and assumed a max class size of 22 students per classroom.

The updated capacity numbers paint a much brighter picture – the elementary schools are at an overall capacity of 68%, and none of the schools fall below 60% capacity. The updated enrollment projections are also much more promising, showing an expected decline to only 66% overall capacity in the next 10 years. That’s only one less student per classroom, on average. The fact that enrollment is leveling off, and projections continue to improve makes a strong case for maintaining all seven elementary schools at this time. There is nothing lost by waiting, and if projections are rerun in 3-5 years they may improve further.

Given capacity appears to be leveling off, should we simply redraw the district lines and hope for the best? I believe the answer to our enrollment uncertainty lies in a more dynamic districting process going forward. If we take incoming Kindergarten class sizes into account during enrollment, and redirect students from over-populated schools to less populated ones, we could mitigate some of these class size discrepancies. For example, that same first grade daughter of mine is in a peer group of 56 students across three first grade classes. This is a bit of an anomaly – every other grade has only two classes. Had there been flexibility built into the districts, some of those students could have been directed to Horace Mann which has only 27 first graders in their peer group. Instead, the district tried to encourage families to move AFTER KINDERGARDEN. This was, understandably, met with backlash from Lincoln parents. Getting ahead of these discrepancies before kids are entrenched in a school community is essential. And having the three centrally located elementary schools offers the greatest amount of flexibility to shifting kids between schools, while maintaining the shortest walks to school.

There is currently legislation in the state house that would force public schools to offer a building at less than 60% capacity for charter school use. But is this a justifiable reason for closing a school when no other measures have been taken to address it? If there is a need for “recreation space” why doesn’t the district rent out unused classrooms to the rec, therefore reducing that square footage from capacity and offering rec programming in those spaces? What else can be done to work within these confines? Threats like the state house legislation need to be viewed as opportunities to get creative, rather than the boogeyman scaring the public into reducing the number of elementary schools.

The question we need to ask ourselves is this: as a community, do we value our neighborhood schools as an institution, or do we want to roll over and consolidate like the State House wants us to? If we look to the past, Lakewood has a history of thumbing its nose at outside government intervention and paying more in taxes to preserve our cherished institutions. Look no further than our world class library system, which notably is NOT run by the Cuyahoga County library system. In the early 2000s, the County Library teamed up with the old [corrupt] Cuyahoga County commissioners and attempted a forced takeover of the 8 independent library systems citing cost savings and efficiencies. The independents, led by the Lakewood Public Library director and Board of trustees, as well as concerned Lakewood citizens, gained public support to stop this takeover. Then in 2003 Lakewood passed a new levy to secure additional operating revenue and a building bond that funded the renovation and expansion of the main library branch. Lakewood citizens rejected consolidation and cost savings, and then turned around and raised our own taxes, in order to preserve our independent library system. This is the spirit of Lakewood we now need to harness to preserve and protect our unique neighborhood schools.

The Lakewood City Schools, including all seven elementary schools, are a public institution. Once we lose an elementary school the odds of getting it back are slim to none, there is no going back. It is the public whose opinion matters most in the decision to make any seismic changes to our public institutions. Doing so under the directive of a single administration and without objective benchmarks, nor equally seismic financial or educational benefits, would be a huge mistake.

Katie Slife Rustad is a lifelong Lakewood resident, graduate of the Lakewood City Schools, mother of four Rangers.