"Shattering neighborhood schools?" School closing next Fall

[Corey Rossen]

So, actually, your statement should read: “Roosevelt, Lincoln, and Grant did not even show up on the chopping block as the original planners did not see the value or need in closing Roosevelt, Lincoln, and/or Grant at all. Roosevelt, Lincoln, and Grant have only recently been added as one of the options to close.”

Matt

This should come as no surprise. Look no farther than the closing of Lincoln. Right or
wrong, which is still up for debate, the school was slated to be closed, then the BOE had
meetings to decide what to do. The residents wanted it open, it mattered not.

.

Same but different?

[marklingm]

Corey,

You asked me the following question and then I answered you:

This should come as no surprise. Look no farther than the closing of Lincoln. Right or
wrong, which is still up for debate, the school was slated to be closed, then the BOE had
meetings to decide what to do. The residents wanted it open, it mattered not.

.

Matt Markling - Can you help with this comment? According to your correction of my statement, should this be inaccurate as well?

Thanks.
Corey

Corey,

Your initial statement was factually inaccurate. But that was corrected above.

I cannot speak for Jim. I'm guessing that Jim meant "Grant" and not "Lincoln" as he seems to be discussing the Board's prior Phase III decision. I'm not commenting on the rest of Jim's quote other than to refer to my prior correction to you in this thread.

Matt

Then, you jump in and reply with the following quote:

So, actually, your statement should read: “Roosevelt, Lincoln, and Grant did not even show up on the chopping block as the original planners did not see the value or need in closing Roosevelt, Lincoln, and/or Grant at all. Roosevelt, Lincoln, and Grant have only recently been added as one of the options to close.”

Matt

This should come as no surprise. Look no farther than the closing of Lincoln. Right or
wrong, which is still up for debate, the school was slated to be closed, then the BOE had
meetings to decide what to do. The residents wanted it open, it mattered not.

.

Same but different?

I guess I'm missing your wit.

What clever point are you trying to make?

Are you calling me a liar?

It looks like you are playing the same "shenanigans" you have been accusing Jim of engaging in over the past few weeks.

Matt

[Katie Stallbaum]

Wow. I was away for three days and without access to the internet and there is quite a bit to read on this thread!

Thank you all for your responses because it has been incredibly helpful to our family to read and learn. For us, your discussion is answering many questions that we have had and that we knew had been addressed previously, but about which we were struggling to find answers. The amount of information that exists because of and since the Phase III "panel discussions" is a bit overwhelming.

[Corey Rossen]

My bad. No wit intended on this one.

I'll try better in bold below.

This should come as no surprise. Look no farther than the closing of Lincoln. Right or
wrong, which is still up for debate, the school was slated to be closed, then the BOE had
meetings to decide what to do. The residents wanted it open, it mattered not.

.

Matt Markling - Can you help with this comment? According to your correction of my statement, should this be inaccurate as well?

Thanks.
Corey

Corey,

Your initial statement was factually inaccurate. But that was corrected above.
I understand that my statement was inaccurate and corrected. I was thinking, then, that Jim's comment about Lincoln being slated for closing would also have been inaccurate because your correction did not have any school slated for closing. Jim states that the BOE then changed its mind. So, harmlessly, I am wondering now if a change of mind did occur within the BOE that had schools changing status from chopping block to untouchable and vice versa? From my interpretation of your correction, all schools in Lakewood were intended to remain open (which you state in my post and understandably leave Jim's to his own interpretation). No harm intended.

I cannot speak for Jim. I'm guessing that Jim meant "Grant" and not "Lincoln" as he seems to be discussing the Board's prior Phase III decision.
So would this makes Jim's assessment inaccurate, since neither school was intended for closing according to your correction of my statement?

I'm not commenting on the rest of Jim's quote other than to refer to my prior correction to you in this thread.


Matt

No aggression here, just wondering.

Corey

[Corey Rossen]

What clever point are you trying to make?

Are you calling me a liar?

It looks like you are playing the same "shenanigans" you have been accusing Jim of engaging in over the past few weeks.

Matt

Wow, defensive. Hugs all around.

Corey

[Mike Zannoni]

The BOE is faced with a decision that involves possibly closing one of the two highest ranking schools along with another great elementary school - with all of this in mind, why do you think that Lakewood BOE should keep open the school with one of the lowest attendance figures? Logically speaking, wouldn't closing a school with one of the lowest attendance figures affect the least students and parents? Why do you think the school with the most dense population is not the largest attended school, as logic would dictate?

I too would like you to expand on this please, what statistics on what years? "Attendance" as distinct from "enrollment"? Before, during, or after the Phase III decision and the exodus of families to open enrollment elsewhere, especially with parents being told at the BOE when enrolling their children not to go to Grant but to Lincoln by open enrollment, especially as Grant's personnel is being dismantled or attempted to be dismantled, especially with the Grant modulars being kept clean, heated but unoccupied, thus overcrowding the remaining space, and thereby helping the exodus along?

A remaining central school is geographically and demographically sound, and will by necessity involve significant realignment and an influx of new students from this realignment, resulting in a different and larger mix of students, such that current enrollment is a non-issue: New boundaries can and will be drawn in any way necessary so that enrollment is balanced.

If generally lower attendance figures, adjusted for enrollment, are valid, they are a reflection of the challenges of the students and families in the central area, and so what will be the attendance of this group spread out all over the city with far less walkable walks and therefore even greater challenges put before them and their families?

Am I calling the Phase III faux? - Yes I am.

Sham is a better word. The Phase II decision was a sham. Citizen committees were disallowed by overseers from presenting their own work and their own conclusions directly to the public at the forum or to answer questions from the community. Density maps showing where families with children live thoughout the area were marginalized (Grant area = highly dense, Lincoln area = far less dense), and an Architect’s report showing the feasibility (Lincoln = Poor, Grant = Good) of rebuilding a school at the different locations was suppressed.

These moves were made to a huge (and I think purposeful) disadvantage to the idea of keeping Grant and decommissioning Lincoln, something both student/family density and site feasibility point to strongly.

At the very end of the Phase III forum presentation, A NEW CRITERION (never previously considered, studied or agreed upon by the community), i.e. the potential for a given building’s reuse ("Best Reuse," as it was flashed on the screen), was offered for only a few seconds by the presenters, not the citizen committees, with no analysis, as a relevant criterion for our consideration. This mystery criterion was never studied by any of the citizen committees over their months of research, because it was never publicly cited as important by anyone, and certainly not by the community. Then went the voting.

Later, at MOST of the tables who voted by majority to keep Lincoln, this ONE NEW CRITERION was cited publicly as the primary consideration at these tables, sweeping away, apparently, student access, proximity, safety (hundreds of train crossing per day vs. zero), building/site feasibility, and least disruptiveness and detriment to students and families, i.e. the original criteria agreed upon by the entire community as the important ones for consideration.

One Lincoln parent who was at the forum has said that this very criterion was discussed at a previous PTA meeting, this criterion brought to them from the outside, before anyone else in the public knew of its consideration, let alone relevance to the Phase III decision, presumably by someone who knew that it would be "presented" at the 11th hour at the forum.

Unrelated to any of this, I asked Rick Berdine, then Treasurer, who was present at that forum, about the relative costs of keeping Lincoln vs. Grant at that forum before the voting took place. He said they were essentially equal. Later I found out that Lincoln is structurally unsound, in addition to needing additional properties to make the grade, and needing to be 3 - 4 storeys tall, all of which together has about a $14 million or more price tag. It needs a total demolition (and there is NO QUESTION ABOUT THIS, as much as some people seem not to want to hear this), four residential properties to be bought and a brand new facility to be built on an enlarged site that will still be so small as to require it to be a taller building to have the needed capacity.

Grant is structurally sound and on an already larger site, and therefore really needs only renovation to be modernized and attain the needed capacity, something that could cost as little as about $4 million. How this can be construed as "equal", I don't really understand.

So it seems that Grant is in a better location to serve students, in a building far more cheaply developed, on a property that needs no expansion whatsoever. Then why did the Phase III "vote" go the other way, in these times where every dime (let alone $10+ million) counts? Because it was a sham.

It was a sham, and quite a shamefully insulting one at that.

(All this was going on while the value of the Grant property together with the contiguous BOE property was being explored, as evidenced in that aforementioned Architect Report, which also studied the value of the two lots together, unrelated to the rebuilding of any school.)

[Mike Zannoni]

So when I read from Shawn about a plan, and the mayor, though the news source which is basically controlled by city hall has edited it out. Mentions that the payoff and proof of this 8 year plan is in the traffic problems.

Glad to see someone else noticed this. It was there in black and white, then seemingly after it started being discussed here, it has now since "disappeared".

And not by way of detraction or correction. I mean, like it never existed, like an "8 year plan" was never mentioned by anyone. Disturbing, to say the least.

[Jim O'Bryan]

Now this is funny.

This is what I mean, as Steve Davis often says, to quote Ezra Pound, "This is not rocket surgery."

I MEANT FRANKLIN SCHOOL.

Really, everyone needs to just relax a bit.

Good neighbors talking over a digital fence about life in and around Lakewood, Ohio.

Corey to clarify. I believe the volunteers of the Phase III Committee were Lakewood
Heroes. Giving up night after so much time away from home. But I believe God, himself,
could not have had an impact on the final decision. Which was the decision going in, nearly
a decade ago.

peace

[Mike Zannoni]

Sham is a better word. The Phase II decision was a sham.

Damned typo!! I meant Phase III. I don't know enough about any past shams, travesties, mockeries, etc. to say.

(Fielding Mellish: "I object, your honor! This trial is a travesty. It's a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham. I move for a mistrial." From Woody Allen's Bananas (1971). Fielding was bound and gagged in the courtroom not long after this outburst.)

[Corey Rossen]

This may be a good time to preface with my ultimate respect for all teachers, principals, staff and students at all schools in the Lakewood City School System.

I am not, nor do I wish to be viewed as a "Grant Elementary School Basher" as I am a huge fan of what they have done throughout the years. In fact, my charity has donated $1000 to Grant Elementary School in the past two years for their amazing support of Recess ROCKS! The support definitely has come from the strong and supportive teachers, principal and staff - their students are benefitting from Grant Elementary School's staff through their dedication and commitment. I have no ill will against the staff or school, I am just using what was presented to me in the Phase III process to help figure out what may be best for the students now and in the future - and continuing the conversation over the digital fence.

The BOE is faced with a decision that involves possibly closing one of the two highest ranking schools along with another great elementary school - with all of this in mind, why do you think that Lakewood BOE should keep open the school with one of the lowest attendance figures? Logically speaking, wouldn't closing a school with one of the lowest attendance figures affect the least students and parents? Why do you think the school with the most dense population is not the largest attended school, as logic would dictate?

I too would like you to expand on this please, what statistics on what years?
Stats provided to the Phase III Committee.

"Attendance" as distinct from "enrollment"?
You are correct, please substitute my usage of attendance for enrollment. I am only referring to school enrollment numbers, not tardiness, absences, etc. Sorry.

Before, during, or after the Phase III decision and the exodus of families to open enrollment elsewhere,

Why the exodus, in your opinion? Why before the decision? During? After (this seems to be stated below)?

especially with parents being told at the BOE when enrolling their children not to go to Grant but to Lincoln by open enrollment,

This really happened? Let me guess, unnamed sources.

especially as Grant's personnel is being dismantled or attempted to be dismantled, especially with the Grant modulars being kept clean, heated but unoccupied, thus overcrowding the remaining space, and thereby helping the exodus along?

A remaining central school is geographically and demographically sound
Your opinion and not proven by the Phase III Committee or any other statistic I have seen.
, and will by necessity involve significant realignment and an influx of new students from this realignment, resulting in a different and larger mix of students, such that current enrollment is a non-issue: New boundaries can and will be drawn in any way necessary so that enrollment is balanced.
New boundaries regardless of the school that closes. Enrollment balance was never a factor in the discussion of Phase III, as far as I am aware Factors included safety, budget and boundaries of walkability amongst other things. I do not recall a single mention of balance.

If generally lower attendance figures, adjusted for enrollment, are valid, they are a reflection of the challenges of the students and families in the central area,
and so what will be the attendance of this group spread out all over the city with far less walkable walks and therefore even greater challenges put before them and their families?
I'm guessing this is a response to my use of the word attendance rather than enrollment.

Am I calling the Phase III faux? - Yes I am.

Sham is a better word. The Phase II decision was a sham. Citizen committees were disallowed by overseers from presenting their own work and their own conclusions directly to the public at the forum or to answer questions from the community. Density maps showing where families with children live thoughout the area were marginalized (Grant area = highly dense, Lincoln area = far less dense), and an Architect’s report showing the feasibility (Lincoln = Poor, Grant = Good) of rebuilding a school at the different locations was suppressed.

These moves were made to a huge (and I think purposeful) disadvantage to the idea of keeping Grant and decommissioning Lincoln, something both student/family density and site feasibility point to strongly.

At the very end of the Phase III forum presentation, A NEW CRITERION (never previously considered, studied or agreed upon by the community), i.e. the potential for a given building’s reuse ("Best Reuse," as it was flashed on the screen), was offered for only a few seconds by the presenters, not the citizen committees, with no analysis, as a relevant criterion for our consideration. This mystery criterion was never studied by any of the citizen committees over their months of research, because it was never publicly cited as important by anyone, and certainly not by the community. Then went the voting.
False. False. False. The term Reuse was used throughout. No mystery. Reuse was discussed throughout, though it was never a pleasant topic to discuss. There was even discussion of how to prevent (if legal) Charter Schools from taking over existing buildings - that to me is a huge flag for reuse. The discussion of the land value for a school near the business district was also discussed as reuse and how much money the School System could recoup from the sale. Rumblings were everywhere about this.

Later, at MOST of the tables who voted by majority to keep Lincoln, this ONE NEW CRITERION was cited publicly as the primary consideration at these tables, sweeping away, apparently, student access, proximity, safety (hundreds of train crossing per day vs. zero), building/site feasibility, and least disruptiveness and detriment to students and families, i.e. the original criteria agreed upon by the entire community as the important ones for consideration.
Democracy votes and you are saying they are still wrong? I was a mediator at a table and paid close attention to the entire gymnasium when results were being made - your statements are new to me.
"Sweeping away" - come on, everyone was concerned for the kids. Everyone. ow many times a day does a train cross one track through Lakewood? Hundreds? Come on. This just shows the exaggeration.

One Lincoln parent who was at the forum has said that this very criterion was discussed at a previous PTA meeting, this criterion brought to them from the outside, before anyone else in the public knew of its consideration, let alone relevance to the Phase III decision, presumably by someone who knew that it would be "presented" at the 11th hour at the forum.
Not a mystery criterion. I also heard of this Lincoln School rumor. I also heard all of the Grant parents outrage and media blitz.

Unrelated to any of this, I asked Rick Berdine, then Treasurer, who was present at that forum, about the relative costs of keeping Lincoln vs. Grant at that forum before the voting took place. He said they were essentially equal. Later I found out that Lincoln is structurally unsound, in addition to needing additional properties to make the grade, and needing to be 3 - 4 storeys tall, all of which together has about a $14 million or more price tag. It needs a total demolition (and there is NO QUESTION ABOUT THIS, as much as some people seem not to want to hear this), four residential properties to be bought and a brand new facility to be built on an enlarged site that will still be so small as to require it to be a taller building to have the needed capacity.

Grant is structurally sound and on an already larger site, and therefore really needs only renovation to be modernized and attain the needed capacity, something that could cost as little as about $4 million. How this can be construed as "equal", I don't really understand.

So it seems that Grant is in a better location to serve students,
I saw many maps and figures on redrawing boundary lines for walkability, so I take this as your opinion because mine varies from yours. I saw equal positives and negatives about all the reconfigurations - there was not a clear cut winner.

in a building far more cheaply developed, on a property that needs no expansion whatsoever. Then why did the Phase III "vote" go the other way, in these times where every dime (let alone $10+ million) counts? Because it was a sham.

It was a sham, and quite a shamefully insulting one at that.
If in fact it was, and this is all wasted breath and type, then I will be very disappointed that I did not see it sooner. As of now, until a decision is made and everybody realizes that not everyone will be happy, I am content with the process.

(All this was going on while the value of the Grant property together with the contiguous BOE property was being explored, as evidenced in that aforementioned Architect Report, which also studied the value of the two lots together, unrelated to the rebuilding of any school.)

[Corey Rossen]

Now this is funny.

I MEANT FRANKLIN SCHOOL.

Really, everyone needs to just relax a bit.

This is a great example of making a wrong statement. I refer back to a previous post regarding Betsy and her sense to undervalue Jim's wrong statements. It matters.

I understand if it is a simple slip or mistake (and I'm sure it was), but you see what can happen from these slips.

I think it is funny (with a wink and a nudge) that you are the one telling people to "relax."

Peace

[Jim O'Bryan]

Now this is funny.

I MEANT FRANKLIN SCHOOL.

Really, everyone needs to just relax a bit.

This is a great example of making a wrong statement. I refer back to a previous post regarding Betsy and her sense to undervalue Jim's wrong statements. It matters.

I understand if it is a simple slip or mistake (and I'm sure it was), but you see what can happen from these slips.

I think it is funny (with a wink and a nudge) that you are the one telling people to "relax."

Peace

Corey

Ask the people around me, I often slip when trying to remember the Charade called
"Closing Franklin" actually I just did it again and changed it. The extent of the charade
is quite amusing. Months after the closing, and things had settled down, and the neighbors
forgot they had been played, I was asked by some that could do it, "Do you think we
should have another public meeting to decide reuse?" I asked if it would change anything
and he said, "No." My response, and it is true today, stop the charades, if you know
what you want, and you are going to do it anyway, stop wasting people's time, and stop
trying to trick the city into thinking they came up with the terrible idea.

Let's not forget I was the person, saying, "Close Grant, it is a hideous school and the
property is worth a fortune." It was only while going over the things brought forward
through Dr. Estrop's Phase III meeting that I learned the value of a school near the
center of town, how good Grant was, and how badly some people wanted to close for
$$$ mostly that they would benefit from in some perverse abstract way. Corey I have
no kids in the school system, the only dog I have in this fight is tax dollars and a desire
for public officials to be truthful and honest.

As for Franklin, instead of Grant or Lincoln, We all make mistakes, that is what makes
some other threads on this site so funny, and sad. It is what happens after you make that
mistake, that becomes the true measure of the person.

Let he who has not made the mistake cast the first stone.

Let those that then lie and cover up or disappear, be judged by their actions.

Corey, volunteering is not a waste of time. The people that gave their time should all be
thanked but, and I stand by this, the committee never had a chance to do anything but
close Grant. The cards were shuffled and reshuffled time and time again. Game/reasons
were changed time and time again, and many of the cards were left out of the Deck. Which
really doesn't matter, as if you read the BOE's comments on this was to paraphrase, "The
results of the Committee will be used by the BOE in their consideration of what to do." The
decision of the Committee was never binding. The ace up their sleeve.

Let's be honest, as we have talked about here. Even the premise of why we needed the
Committee was a lie. We never really had to close a single school, and now we find out
that the prediction of larger classes were correct, we find out that Matt Markling was right
on the mark saying it would be insane to sell off school property, the cost to reacquire
would be too high. We find out that the some are desperate to finish their 8-year-plan
with a hotel in the center of the city? Lakewood Center North!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah there's a hotel
that makes the Day's Inn look good. But something new, Botiquey where the BOE and
Grant is?? Or maybe that park that gets no use??

I mean you do see the connection between and 8 year plan to develop Downtown, with
closing the only park in Downtown, and the school in downtown, and selling off the last
historic building in Lakewood the BOE? What we have become, Lakewood where
Commercial Development is more important than education, recreation, or neighborhoods.
Our goal used to be, the city of trees and homes and the best place to raise a family.

.

[Kristine Pagsuyoin]

This may be a good time to preface with my ultimate respect for all teachers, principals, staff and students at all schools in the Lakewood City School System.

I am not, nor do I wish to be viewed as a "Grant Elementary School Basher" as I am a huge fan of what they have done throughout the years. In fact, my charity has donated $1000 to Grant Elementary School in the past two years for their amazing support of Recess ROCKS! The support definitely has come from the strong and supportive teachers, principal and staff - their students are benefitting from Grant Elementary School's staff through their dedication and commitment. I have no ill will against the staff or school, I am just using what was presented to me in the Phase III process to help figure out what may be best for the students now and in the future - and continuing the conversation over the digital fence.

The BOE is faced with a decision that involves possibly closing one of the two highest ranking schools along with another great elementary school - with all of this in mind, why do you think that Lakewood BOE should keep open the school with one of the lowest attendance figures? Logically speaking, wouldn't closing a school with one of the lowest attendance figures affect the least students and parents? Why do you think the school with the most dense population is not the largest attended school, as logic would dictate?

I too would like you to expand on this please, what statistics on what years?
Stats provided to the Phase III Committee.

Grant Elementary is an “open concept” school. At the time of its building in 1969 this was the trend; however, this is no longer the case. The structure of the classrooms is a challenge for some students. Over the last several years, enrollment has been high at Grant which led to the need to place modulars in the parking lot. When enrollment stabilized, the school board, with pressure from parents and previous school board member Matt Markling, decided to keep the modulars open so that the difficulty of learning for some kids in an ‘open” environment would be minimized. They also moved the gifted classes and CHAMPS kids to other schools so that there would be room for everyone to have the best learning environment possible.
As you will remember from Phase III, Grant is not the largest elementary school. It was never intended to hold 350-400 students and so enrollment must be managed to offer the best learning environment possible. Lincoln Elementary has a large school and large enrollment in which about 25% (at last check) of the students are open enrolled. In other words, kids who could be attending other elementary schools in their neighborhoods are attending Lincoln instead. Roosevelt Elementary (again, the last time I checked) has a large school, but less kids enrolled than Grant Elementary.

The OSFC (Ohio State Facilities Commission) has stated that a school servicing about 350 students is the right size for an elementary school. Lincoln has a large school; however, the property is too small and will not meet OSFC requirements. Houses would need to be purchased and demolished around Lincoln to make room, or the district would have to build a 3-story building which OSFC probably would not approve since that style, according to the OSFC, does not provide the best learning environment possible.
Grant Elementary can be renovated to accommodate more students, and would not look “hideous” after renovated with an up-to-date style. The property does fit the footprint needed to build an elementary school, and it does sit behind the board building.
Roosevelt’s building must be rebuilt for us to retain (keep the gym) and the property does fit the footprint for a school the OSFC would approve.
The cost, according the initial report/evaluation of the OSFC, is not equal. It would cost substantially more to renovate/rebuild Lincoln as compared to Grant. This is consistent with the architect’s report (hired by our district). This evaluation, as well as other some other documents were obtained after the Phase III decision when the process was questioned. There were members of the committee who consulted the OSFC directly which confirmed that some of the information that the committee was given by district employees was not correct.


"Attendance" as distinct from "enrollment"?
You are correct, please substitute my usage of attendance for enrollment. I am only referring to school enrollment numbers, not tardiness, absences, etc. Sorry.

Before, during, or after the Phase III decision and the exodus of families to open enrollment elsewhere,

Why the exodus, in your opinion? Why before the decision? During? After (this seems to be stated below)?

especially with parents being told at the BOE when enrolling their children not to go to Grant but to Lincoln by open enrollment,

This really happened? Let me guess, unnamed sources.

especially as Grant's personnel is being dismantled or attempted to be dismantled, especially with the Grant modulars being kept clean, heated but unoccupied, thus overcrowding the remaining space, and thereby helping the exodus along?

Parents enrolling their children were often told that Grant was scheduled to close. It is not a matter of “unnamed sources”, but a matter of protecting the privacy issues of those families involved. If they would like to comment publically they may do so. I personally addressed this issue at school board meetings and with the office of the Assistant Superintendent at the time. It was told me to me that they repeatedly spoke to employees about reassuring incoming families that Grant Elementary was open. The school board, Dr. Madak, and Rick Berdine did close the modulars for a year (or 2 can’t remember). When we pressured them to open the mods (yes they were being heated and cooled—and we know that because we were told so and because we could hear the heat/air go on while standing at the entrance of the school) we were given an ultimatum. Did we want an additional teacher to reduce the class size of a certain grade at the time, or the mods? They claimed it cost $18,000 to clean them. I would invite you to drop by Grant and take a look at the mod and let us know if you think it would cost that much to clean.

A remaining central school is geographically and demographically sound
Your opinion and not proven by the Phase III Committee or any other statistic I have seen.
, and will by necessity involve significant realignment and an influx of new students from this realignment, resulting in a different and larger mix of students, such that current enrollment is a non-issue: New boundaries can and will be drawn in any way necessary so that enrollment is balanced.
New boundaries regardless of the school that closes. Enrollment balance was never a factor in the discussion of Phase III, as far as I am aware Factors included safety, budget and boundaries of walkability amongst other things. I do not recall a single mention of balance.

I am not sure how to address this statement. Of course we talked about enrollment and balance. There was an entire committee dedicated to this issue, District Configuration. We even addressed this issue on the Transition Committee. A centrally located school is good public policy and good common sense. Economically speaking it is good for our city because it keeps families living downtown--keeping our downtown booming.

If generally lower attendance figures, adjusted for enrollment, are valid, they are a reflection of the challenges of the students and families in the central area,
and so what will be the attendance of this group spread out all over the city with far less walkable walks and therefore even greater challenges put before them and their families?
I'm guessing this is a response to my use of the word attendance rather than enrollment.

Am I calling the Phase III faux? - Yes I am.

Sham is a better word. The Phase II decision was a sham. Citizen committees were disallowed by overseers from presenting their own work and their own conclusions directly to the public at the forum or to answer questions from the community. Density maps showing where families with children live thoughout the area were marginalized (Grant area = highly dense, Lincoln area = far less dense), and an Architect’s report showing the feasibility (Lincoln = Poor, Grant = Good) of rebuilding a school at the different locations was suppressed.

These moves were made to a huge (and I think purposeful) disadvantage to the idea of keeping Grant and decommissioning Lincoln, something both student/family density and site feasibility point to strongly.

At the very end of the Phase III forum presentation, A NEW CRITERION (never previously considered, studied or agreed upon by the community), i.e. the potential for a given building’s reuse ("Best Reuse," as it was flashed on the screen), was offered for only a few seconds by the presenters, not the citizen committees, with no analysis, as a relevant criterion for our consideration. This mystery criterion was never studied by any of the citizen committees over their months of research, because it was never publicly cited as important by anyone, and certainly not by the community. Then went the voting.
False. False. False. The term Reuse was used throughout. No mystery. Reuse was discussed throughout, though it was never a pleasant topic to discuss. There was even discussion of how to prevent (if legal) Charter Schools from taking over existing buildings - that to me is a huge flag for reuse. The discussion of the land value for a school near the business district was also discussed as reuse and how much money the School System could recoup from the sale. Rumblings were everywhere about this.

The intention of the Phase III Committee, the task at-hand, was to make a recommendation of facilities that would provide the best education for our kids. Period. Best re-use was never supposed to be part of the discussion. This question was addressed early-on, but some would not let it go. Rick Berdine told us that the Jacobs group was interested in the property, but that they lost interest. The Committee was charged to look at all the facts and make a sound determination of the best facilities plan possible for the education of students. There were some participants in the process who pushed for best re-use to be the ultimate deciding factor; however, if you look at the records this was NEVER the task of the Phase III Committee. In fact, the decision not to make a recommendation to the school board was because the “best re-use” card was inserted into the presentation to the community at the last minute by someone who wanted to push the decision of the Phase III Committee to their biased view. Facts and information were intentionally withheld out of fear that the “wrong” school would be chosen to close. I had to fight just to get all of the sub-committees work represented in the presentation. The person in charge of the presentation, backed by the Don Dyck firm, refused to share the architect report. The presentation that I signed-off on as a member of the Coordination Council was radically different than what was given to the public. I will be happy to share that presentation with you—I am sure I have a copy of it somewhere. I know this because I was there and I did come out against the final presentation. Unfortunately, our school board paid thousands of dollars for a firm (outside of Lakewood) to facilitate this process who, in the opinion of many, was not competent. So much so, that one member of the coordination council resigned, and two stopped fully participating by the time the presentation to the community was being created (personal reasons).

Later, at MOST of the tables who voted by majority to keep Lincoln, this ONE NEW CRITERION was cited publicly as the primary consideration at these tables, sweeping away, apparently, student access, proximity, safety (hundreds of train crossing per day vs. zero), building/site feasibility, and least disruptiveness and detriment to students and families, i.e. the original criteria agreed upon by the entire community as the important ones for consideration.
Democracy votes and you are saying they are still wrong? I was a mediator at a table and paid close attention to the entire gymnasium when results were being made - your statements are new to me.
"Sweeping away" - come on, everyone was concerned for the kids. Everyone. ow many times a day does a train cross one track through Lakewood? Hundreds? Come on. This just shows the exaggeration.

[color=#0000FF]Again, I will put some blame on the firm that was hired to facilitate this process. The process of the Community Forum was to reach consensus. Consensus is not a democratic vote with the “most votes wins” process. Each table had to reach consensus, unanimously favor one plan over another, in order to “vote” for that plan. If a table was split, the vote was to be tabulated under the “undecided” column. However, that did not happen. Most tables were split, but if a majority wanted one plan over another they went with majority rule anyway. This is not consensus building, and unfortunately, the problem was not reported (not to me anyway) in time for us to stop and straighten out the issue. Yet, another reason the decision was made to not make a recommendation to the school board. We knew the process and the results were flawed. The school board really jumped when they release supposed results from that meeting to the public. We didn’t even review the surveys before information was released. This mistake was brought up to Dr. Madak who “apologized”. What can you do? The flawed information was already out there.
[/color]
One Lincoln parent who was at the forum has said that this very criterion was discussed at a previous PTA meeting, this criterion brought to them from the outside, before anyone else in the public knew of its consideration, let alone relevance to the Phase III decision, presumably by someone who knew that it would be "presented" at the 11th hour at the forum.
Not a mystery criterion. I also heard of this Lincoln School rumor. I also heard all of the Grant parents outrage and media blitz.

Unrelated to any of this, I asked Rick Berdine, then Treasurer, who was present at that forum, about the relative costs of keeping Lincoln vs. Grant at that forum before the voting took place. He said they were essentially equal. Later I found out that Lincoln is structurally unsound, in addition to needing additional properties to make the grade, and needing to be 3 - 4 storeys tall, all of which together has about a $14 million or more price tag. It needs a total demolition (and there is NO QUESTION ABOUT THIS, as much as some people seem not to want to hear this), four residential properties to be bought and a brand new facility to be built on an enlarged site that will still be so small as to require it to be a taller building to have the needed capacity.

Grant is structurally sound and on an already larger site, and therefore really needs only renovation to be modernized and attain the needed capacity, something that could cost as little as about $4 million. How this can be construed as "equal", I don't really understand.

So it seems that Grant is in a better location to serve students,
I saw many maps and figures on redrawing boundary lines for walkability, so I take this as your opinion because mine varies from yours. I saw equal positives and negatives about all the reconfigurations - there was not a clear cut winner.

in a building far more cheaply developed, on a property that needs no expansion whatsoever. Then why did the Phase III "vote" go the other way, in these times where every dime (let alone $10+ million) counts? Because it was a sham.

It was a sham, and quite a shamefully insulting one at that.
If in fact it was, and this is all wasted breath and type, then I will be very disappointed that I did not see it sooner. As of now, until a decision is made and everybody realizes that not everyone will be happy, I am content with the process.

All I have to say is that I would not support a process like this again. The process and the facilitation of the committee by the Don Dyck firm was not sound. I don’t really want to get into all of the dynamics, but the groundwork that should have been laid to support an objective productive committee didn’t exist. Two decisions were made. The first was to decide if we should close a school, and if so, which one. The first decision to close a school only slightly reached consensus, and the forum was poorly attended by the public. This decision was “pushed through” by a few. The second phase of the committee never got passed personal bias and agendas—from either side of the issue.

(All this was going on while the value of the Grant property together with the contiguous BOE property was being explored, as evidenced in that aforementioned Architect Report, which also studied the value of the two lots together, unrelated to the rebuilding of any school.)

Let me add that often the issue of an unfinished high school is left out of the discussion. To me, this issue is as important as which school will be closed. It is unacceptable that the high school has been left half done for so many years with no plan to discuss (at least publicly) its completion. There are solutions and actions we can take to get this done. However, waiting on money from the State of Ohio that may or may not come, to me, is not a choice.

[Mike Zannoni]

especially with parents being told at the BOE when enrolling their children not to go to Grant but to Lincoln by open enrollment

This really happened? Let me guess, unnamed sources.

Parents enrolling their children were often told that Grant was scheduled to close. It is not a matter of “unnamed sources”, but a matter of protecting the privacy issues of those families involved. If they would like to comment publicly they may do so. I personally addressed this issue at school board meetings and with the office of the Assistant Superintendent at the time.

I will inquire to see if any of the parents who have said that this is what they were told at the BOE would like to make public statements about it, since there is doubt and their fears of "rocking the Lakewood boat" are looked upon with suspicion.

Lincoln. . . property is too small and will not meet OSFC requirements. Houses would need to be purchased and demolished around Lincoln to make room, or the district would have to build a 3-story building which OSFC probably would not approve since that style, according to the OSFC, does not provide the best learning environment possible.

Italics mine. I didn’t even think it was "or". It was my impression that even with a larger site that the building would need to be 3 – 4 storeys. I could be wrong.

A remaining central school is geographically and demographically sound

Your opinion and not proven by the Phase III Committee or any other statistic I have seen.

The information from the Configuration Subcommittee concerning walking distances have more than demonstrated this to my satisfaction, together with the density maps that were not provided by the presenters, such that at the last minute this Subcommittee had to make their own copies and run around to all the tables to let them be seen. If you saw them, it was in spite of their being disincluded from the "official" handouts set.

Enrollment balance was never a factor in the discussion of Phase III, as far as I am aware Factors included safety, budget and boundaries of walkability amongst other things. I do not recall a single mention of balance.

I am not sure how to address this statement. Of course we talked about enrollment and balance. There was an entire committee dedicated to this issue, District Configuration.

I would have to agree, as the boundaries for each possible configuration were based largely on the expected enrollment for each district, together with the other factors that you mention. But the lines needed to be drawn such that a certain balanced number, I think target 450, would be at each of the 6 remaining schools.

At the very end of the Phase III forum presentation, A NEW CRITERION (never previously considered, studied or agreed upon by the community), i.e. the potential for a given building’s reuse ("Best Reuse," as it was flashed on the screen), was offered for only a few seconds by the presenters, not the citizen committees, with no analysis, as a relevant criterion for our consideration. This mystery criterion was never studied by any of the citizen committees over their months of research, because it was never publicly cited as important by anyone, and certainly not by the community. Then went the voting.

False. False. False. The term Reuse was used throughout. No mystery. Reuse was discussed throughout, though it was never a pleasant topic to discuss. There was even discussion of how to prevent (if legal) Charter Schools from taking over existing buildings - that to me is a huge flag for reuse. The discussion of the land value for a school near the business district was also discussed as reuse and how much money the School System could recoup from the sale. Rumblings were everywhere about this.

Which Subcommittee was asked to study reuse by the community? Building Site Subcommittee had these as their sub-criteria: 1. Will it work for 50 years? 2. Will it have negative impact on families? 3. Will it enhance teaching and learning? 4. Does it account for the entire community? What consensus was reached on the subject of reuse and where did that fit among the four mentioned? Was reuse one of the criteria chosen by the community at the earlier forum? If it was discussed, who brought that into the discussion? And why did it get so little discussion in the presentation?

District Configuration Subcommittee looked at the walking distances, safety, resultant boundaries and least negative impact on students and families. I don’t think reuse came up among them.

It was a true mystery to many of us who had been following the process and who attended the Phase III forum how re-use could become the number one issue in determining which elementary school to close, if the rationale used by the majority of tables voting to keep Lincoln open can be taken seriously.

this ONE NEW CRITERION was cited publicly as the primary consideration at these tables, sweeping away, apparently, student access, proximity, safety (hundreds of train crossing per day vs. zero), building/site feasibility, and least disruptiveness and detriment to students and families, i.e. the original criteria agreed upon by the entire community as the important ones for consideration.

Democracy votes and you are saying they are still wrong? I was a mediator at a table and paid close attention to the entire gymnasium when results were being made - your statements are new to me.

Democracy can and was hijacked in this case by a strong "interest group" in this case. I’ve said all of this in earlier threads, so I don’t really think anything I’m saying is new.

"Sweeping away" - come on, everyone was concerned for the kids. Everyone. ow many times a day does a train cross one track through Lakewood? Hundreds? Come on. This just shows the exaggeration.

I will recalculate the estimated number of students needing to cross the tracks twice per day in the Keep Lincoln configuration. I do know that it’s a whole lot more than ONE student who will need to cross the train tracks every day, compared to none in the Keep Grant/Close Lincoln configuration. I believe it's close to accurate to say that the Keep Lincoln configuration required hundres of student track crossings per week, vs. zero for the Keep Grant configuration. There was a time that this issue was considered extremely important to people.

Generally, you don’t want lots of kids crossing the tracks every day if it can be avoided. It might be hundreds of train track crossings per week; like I said, this will need to be recalculated. I do know that it’s an awful lot of kids, not a few, so many kids in fact that Mr. Favre felt the need to speak directly on this subject of train crossing safety at the Board meeting immediately after the Board's "decision".

For more on this, please see my LO article from July of last year. http://lakewoodobserver.com/members/mai ... y&id=18482

One Lincoln parent who was at the forum has said that this very criterion was discussed at a previous PTA meeting, this criterion brought to them from the outside, before anyone else in the public knew of its consideration, let alone relevance to the Phase III decision, presumably by someone who knew that it would be "presented" at the 11th hour at the forum.

Not a mystery criterion. I also heard of this Lincoln School rumor. I also heard all of the Grant parents outrage and media blitz.

Again, I will try to see if those Lincoln people who claim this will come forward and be put on record, despite the awkwardness or worse. I believe it to be credible, or I wouldn’t have said it, but I can see that others might need more.

So it seems that Grant is in a better location to serve students,

I saw many maps and figures on redrawing boundary lines for walkability, so I take this as your opinion because mine varies from yours. I saw equal positives and negatives about all the reconfigurations - there was not a clear cut winner.

As I live and breathe, YES, this is very much my opinion, using the best of my ability to consider ALL of what I’ve seen in the Phase III process and forum, including the work product made available and Architect Report that was not.

I believe that if an outside party were given all the community-chosen criteria, work product of the Subcommittees and the Architect Report to make an independent judgment, that judgment would match my own.

It is also my opinion that only non-Education-related influence and purposeful manipulation of the process could result in the judgment of the Board or that “vote”.

The cost, according the initial report/evaluation of the OSFC, is not equal. It would cost substantially more to renovate/rebuild Lincoln as compared to Grant. This is consistent with the architect’s report (hired by our district). This evaluation, as well as other some other documents were obtained after the Phase III decision when the process was questioned. There were members of the committee who consulted the OSFC directly which confirmed that some of the information that the committee was given by district employees was not correct.

Depending on how you slice it, as much as $10 - $12 million more to rebuild Lincoln (confirmed as necessary) vs. renovate Grant (confirmed as feasible). . .

It was a sham, and quite a shamefully insulting one at that.

If in fact it was, and this is all wasted breath and type, then I will be very disappointed that I did not see it sooner. As of now, until a decision is made and everybody realizes that not everyone will be happy, I am content with the process.

Not wasted, as many earnest people put in many good faith hours and brain cells, and I’d like to think that ultimately things come to light that need to and we all can be proud of the things we did in good faith, regardless of forces at work against that.