Franklin School: A Century of Learning Comes to A Close

The final group of students and staff at the Franklin School, June 2, 2025.

As the 2024-2025 school year winds down, Lakewood City Schools is preparing to say a heartfelt goodbye to a building that has stood for more than a century as a symbol of education, resilience, and community — Franklin School.

Built in 1907 as a four-room school, Franklin has seen Lakewood grow and evolve around it. It began as Franklin Elementary, serving grades K-6. Over the decades, the building was reimagined and repurposed, reflecting the District’s commitment to meeting changing needs.

Franklin served as a K-6 elementary school from its opening in 1907 through the 1969-1970 school year. The following year, the District shifted the sixth grade to middle school. It would remain a K-5 school through the 2006-2007 school year. In February 2007, the Board of Education voted to close the building as a K-5 school as part of its 50-Year Master Facilities Plan that would eventually reduce the number of elementary buildings in the district from 10 to seven.

Beginning in the 2007-2008 school year, the building served as the home to Lakewood City Academy, then a community school sponsored by the Lakewood City Schools that served students in grades 7-12 both online and in person. LCA remained at Franklin until the 2014-2015 school year when it moved to the former Taft Elementary School to make room for students displaced from Roosevelt Elementary while the new Roosevelt building was constructed. When the new Roosevelt opened in August 2016, LCA returned to Franklin. The building also served as the brief home of the Board of Education office when pigeons infested its building on Warren Road in 2013.

At the end of the 2019-2020 school year, LCA was dissolved and a new alternative education program, Franklin School of Opportunity, occupied the building beginning with the 2020-2021 school year until present day.

Franklin has always been more than just a building. It has been a second home to countless students, a place where teachers sparked curiosity, where friendships were built, and where futures were shaped. Franklin’s legacy will be one of transformation, resilience, and family. From its start as a traditional elementary school to its use as a home for alternative education programs, the small size of Franklin has always helped nurture a sense of community and family among those who worked and learned there.

Now, nearly 120 years since its doors first opened, Franklin School’s service to the District is coming to an end. The Lakewood Board of Education has officially placed the building up for public auction, which will take place June 23, 2025.

Although we don’t know what the future holds for Franklin School, its legacy will remain in the minds and hearts of the teachers and support staff who worked there and the students who able to learn and grow there. We are grateful for its service.