School Construction meetings start tonight - Lincoln - 7pm

[Betsy Voinovich]

Here's a message from Superintendent Jeff Patterson, which you already received yesterday and today if you are part of the Automatic Alert system.


We are beginning to conduct community engagement sessions this week regarding our new school buildings. Our architects will be on hand to present information and ask for your input. The meetings all begin at 7 pm and are on the following dates: April 8th in the Lincoln Gym, April 10th in the Grant Gym, April 16th in the Roosevelt Gym and April 22nd at LHS in the East Cafeteria.

Hope to see you there,
Jeff Patterson
Superintendent

If you have kids in any of these schools you'll definitely want to go to find out what their new schools will be like if they are in Kindergarten, first or second grade. Our third and fourth graders will say goodbye to their home schools, hello to their transition schools and go off to their respective middle schools without setting foot in the new buildings. If your kids are in Middle School, actually everybody, should go to the HS meeting since everyone will end up there.

In my families case, it's good that my daughter won't be going to school in a new elementary building. I think seeing Lincoln OR Grant go down would make her cry. She is very attached to her schools, and the memories she has in the individual spaces and playgrounds, no matter how nice the new ones are. She's gone to school in and loved the late 60's open school experiment that is Grant, and is now at the Hogwarts-like Lincoln (left the Grant along with the gifted program and followed it to Lincoln.)

If you have ideas for what kind of architecture you would like, NOW'S YOUR CHANCE.

If you have radical ideas that are probably already out the window like NOT tearing down Grant but stripping it to its steel, sealing the asbestos and renovating it which costs LESS than rebuilding it, and could still be beautiful and using the extra money to actually renovate Lincoln, in all its multi-chimneyed splendor (which costs MORE than rebuilding) but would preserve what is actually an amazing old building with many memories-- tonight would be your chance to voice them.

Along with questions about how the new Lincoln Elementary school will fit the template the State of Ohio insists on in order to give us a third of the money to rebuild it. Will houses be torn down on both Lakeland and Summit? How many floors will it be? How will the somewhat odd shape the new building will have affect what is inside of it?

These should be interesting meetings and with Jeff Patterson's real and verifiable commitment to transparency and accountability to the community, your questions will be addressed.

Tonight at 7 in the Lincoln Gym, Thursday at Grant. Next Wednesday at Roosevelt, and the meeting at the high school, Tuesday April 22nd to discuss where those kids will go, where they will eat, etc.

See you there! If you are one of the many professionals in Lakewood-- developer, architect, educator, along with all of the rest of us professional parents, BE THERE!

Betsy Voinovich