Lincoln & Roosevelt Schools to Close

[Meg Ostrowski]

Lakewood City Schools Treasurer, Rick Berdine, recently said that the Ohio School Facilities Commission (OSFC) may contact the district as early as this fall to begin Phase III of its Master Facilities Plan. Phase III includes the renovation of Lincoln & Roosevelt Elementary Schools and the east portion of Lakewood High School.

Last year the Board of Education voted 4:1 to remove Grant Elementary from the plan. However according to Superintendent, Dr. Joseph P. Madak and BOE President, Matt Markling, Grant will play a vital role during Phase III construction, providing class space for many displaced elementary students while their buildings are renovated.

I hear so much talk about Grant's eventual closing but little about the transition that will precede it.

[Ellen Cormier]

Will they close Lincoln and Roosevelt this fall to renovate or next fall? Is the kasich budget affecting any of the school building funding?

[Bryan Schwegler]

Wow that was a scary title...at first I thought the Board was closing them permanently as well. ha.

[Jim O'Bryan]

Wow that was a scary title...at first I thought the Board was closing them permanently as well. ha.

Brian

You know you did bring up a couple reports, and I believe this thread was more about some
tricky wording, and tricky playing that has permeated the entire rebuilding process. As a
friend pointed out to me last night, the only thing clean in this is the actual rebuilding of
Lakewood High. The rest is a nightmare.

Will the state of Ohio ever pay their fare share which is a hell of a lot less than the
percentage Lakewood voters were told by those wanting to get this done at all costs.
Should we have concentrated on what we could afford, and then there is that little
problem over people in government needing vision...

FWIW

[Betsy Voinovich]

Wow that was a scary title...at first I thought the Board was closing them permanently as well. ha.

Hi Bryan,

Yeah it is scary, but to parents signing their Kindergarteners up, it's important that they know that if they sign up for Lincoln or Roosevelt, at least with the current plan, it is their child that will have his school closed-- yes for renovation-- but their elementary aged child will be sent off to a transitional space, a church? Grant school most likely, since it did such a good job of helping when Madison Elementary closed for good, and Hayes was rebuilt.

You know, it's so easy for everyone to get to Grant, being right in the center and all. And those modulars on the Grant campus make it easy to accommodate children from other schools.

If you care about your child getting displaced and going to a transitional school, you should know that Lincoln and Roosevelt will be closing for renovation, way before Grant ever closes. Grant will there to help with the transition of both.

The irony here is that parents signing up for Kindergarten are afraid that Grant will close this Fall when in fact it's very likely that a child entering Grant in the Fall will make it all the way through his or her final grade there before the school closes.

If Grant closes at all. The enrollment numbers among our youngest students continue to climb. And there still is the issue of the School Board choosing 4 to 1 to rebuild a school that will cost everyone here 12 million dollars more to rebuild and the fact that no explanation has been given to the community to justify this. The Board could re-evaluate a lot of things in these difficult economic times, just to be responsible to the taxpayers, not to mention the students.

Will they close Lincoln and Roosevelt this fall to renovate or next fall? Is the kasich budget affecting any of the school building funding?

Right now Lakewood's "number" hasn't come up with the OSFC. When the OSFC gets to Lakewood, they will come back and re-evaluate the District's population and makes sure the choices still make sense. After that... we all have to pass a Bond Issue to pay for it.

So it doesn't seem likely that either Roosevelt or Lincoln will be closing this Fall either, it seems like the earliest they could close would be after a bond issue passed, so more likely that would be Fall of 2012-- or 2013--if all goes smoothly with the state of Ohio, which seems not completely likely.

So the appropriate answer to the question, isn't Grant closing, because the school board didn't choose it for renovation? is, well if the current plan goes through, it will close years after both Roosevelt and Lincoln have closed and re-opened.

So the answer for parents signing their kids up now is, "No, Grant's not closing in any time frame that will affect your child, or make it necessary for him to walk to a school that's not in his neighborhood right now."

Or something like that. That's how I'd say it, but that's me.

Betsy Voinovich

[Meg Ostrowski]

Here's the official word from Christine Gordillo of Lakewood City Schools;

Although the Board of Education has indicated Grant School will close at the completion of the Phase III facilities construction in the school district, there is no timetable for that construction to begin at this time. Open enrollment requests should not be based on any school closing as that timetable and transition plan have yet to be fully created.

If parents have any questions regarding the enrollment process, neighborhood school status, or any other item please contact the Division of Teaching and Learning at 216-529-4203.

[Bryan Schwegler]

So the thing I've never understood on this phase III issue is that I understand the board felt the need to close one of the three schools because they assume the state will only pay for two more, not all three. But why couldn't we as a community fund the third school if we felt it was important? Will the state say no to any funding if we decided to pay for the third school ourselves?

[Christine Gordillo]

Betsy Voinovich wrote:

And there still is the issue of the School Board choosing 4 to 1 to rebuild a school that will cost everyone here 12 million dollars more to rebuild and the fact that no explanation has been given to the community to justify this.

According to Lakewood City Schools Treasurer Rick Berdine, who also oversees the Facilities Master Plan for the district, the cost to rebuild/renovate either Grant or Lincoln is estimated between $12-14 million.

Christine Gordillo
Communications & PR Specialist
Lakewood City Schools

[Ellen Cormier]

I am one who thinks grant should stay open over Lincoln and if it costs 12 million less to renovate they have got to reopen the issue. Kasich is slashing everything in sight and I would develop plan b now. I do not have a stake in either grant or Lincoln and I thought closing Lincoln was the logical choice since it is so close to Horace Mann. I do have a stake in Roosevelt and the high school and I am not liking this situation dragged out forever. Are Emerson and Horace Mann at full capacity? If they are not the state is going to be looking at that. They are giant schools and I can't imagine Horace Mann at full capacity since it only really replaced one school.

Thanks for the updates! Keep us posted. I'm going to try to keep appriciating Roosevelt for the old time school it is though the new schools are beautiful and now is kind of the time for me to switch if my daughter is going to have to make a switch anyway. Son goes off to middle school next year. I really want to know the completion schedule soon.

[Bryan Schwegler]

Did they decide on whether Lincoln and Roosevelt are just getting renovations or complete rebuilds? I didn't think that was figured out yet, but I definitely could have missed it.

[Betsy Voinovich]

Betsy Voinovich wrote:

And there still is the issue of the School Board choosing 4 to 1 to rebuild a school that will cost everyone here 12 million dollars more to rebuild and the fact that no explanation has been given to the community to justify this.

According to Lakewood City Schools Treasurer Rick Berdine, who also oversees the Facilities Master Plan for the district, the cost to rebuild/renovate either Grant or Lincoln is estimated between $12-14 million.

Christine Gordillo
Communications & PR Specialist
Lakewood City Schools

Hi Christine,

Just a quick answer because I know we all have to go get our kids.

As you know I was on the Phase 3 Committee. Though we asked, we were never given the amount that it would cost to renovate Grant, though it was part of the official report that the OSFC prepared for our District.

An information request was sent to the OSFC to get that figure, they sent the documents, which said plainly that the cost of renovating Grant is under 5 million dollars.

The cost of rebuilding Grant is higher-- there is no statistic that can be combined in a "renovate/rebuilt" statement. They are too very different numbers. For Grant and for Lincoln.

It would have been nice if we would have had that number to share with the community to give them a chance to weigh in on whether they would like to make the choice that would save the most money.

Thanks for giving me a chance to put this out there in public. I'm tired of people acting like I made this up because my kids go to Grant.

Betsy Voinovich

[Meg Ostrowski]

Did they decide on whether Lincoln and Roosevelt are just getting renovations or complete rebuilds? I didn't think that was figured out yet, but I definitely could have missed it.

Due to the condition of the building, Roosevelt will need to be rebuilt with the exception of the newer gym addition, which can be renovated. Lincoln can be renovated or rebuilt. I don't think the BOE has determined yet how they will proceed there.

According to Lakewood City Schools Treasurer Rick Berdine, who also oversees the Facilities Master Plan for the district, the cost to rebuild/renovate either Grant or Lincoln is estimated between $12-14 million.

It is my understanding that the cost to "rebuild" Grant or Lincoln is about the same. However, the OSFC assessments indicate an estimated cost of $4,648,237.28 to renovate Grant and $12,077,915.27 to renovate Lincoln. During the Phase III process the district brought in an architect to evaluate the building sites. He determined that additional properties would need to be acquired to expand the Lincoln site to provide for adequate parking, playground and safe drop-off/pick-up zone. This was estimated to cost an additional $400,000 - $800,000. Grant is on 3.36 acres, Lincoln on .9 acres.
The other reason it would cost Lakewood taxpayers more to renovate Lincoln is that its size exceeds the template that OSFC will fund, meaning we will have to pay 100% of the cost to renovate the excess square footage, estimated at over $3 million. This was the case with Emerson and Horace Mann that required an additional $4 million each of 100% local funds.

More concerning than cost (at least to me) is the fact that the center of Lakewood has been stripped of four elementary schools since this process began, McKinley, Madison, Garfield & Franklin. I'm not sure you can get more central than Grant, which is probably why the first schools were located in the adjacent BOE property. I believe maintaining a central elementary school is less disruptive to neighborhoods, minimizes dangerous crossings, provides the shortest walks for the most students, allows maximum flexibility to balance class size, increases community access and supports downtown businesses. The larger site size lends itself to greater design/use possibilities and would allow for future expansion, if ever it is needed.

[Charlie Page]

I believe maintaining a central elementary school is less disruptive to neighborhoods, minimizes dangerous crossings, provides the shortest walks for the most students, allows maximum flexibility to balance class size, increases community access and supports downtown businesses. The larger site size lends itself to greater design/use possibilities and would allow for future expansion, if ever it is needed.

I think your idea of an elementary school at Kaufmann Park was the perfect solution to having a central school. There’s another thread talking about politicians needing ‘vision’. This was a truly visionary idea that made a lot of sense, at least to me.

[Ellen Cormier]

The price differences in rebuilding or renovating grant are disturbing. I was at some of the phase 3 meetings and I do remember something about problems regarding remodeling grant but I don't remember what they were. It seems like everyone thinks grant is an eyesore rather than the visionary futuristic school it was supposed to be when it was built. Trends come and go. It is a little out of place in Lakewood but there were times where people considered the Victorian homes an eyesore. Grant could be quite adorable with the right architect that respects what it was supposed to be and could be in the future.

The state is now busy dismantling everything it owns and shutting down the cities by withholding money we paid in sales taxes and everything else. Are we really going to see the rest of this money to finish the schools?

I do think the school district has done a marvelous job reworking budgets to do everything they have done already but grant seems to be Everyones blind spot.

[Mike Zannoni]

From what I understand, Lincoln, because of the architecture of its day, could cost even more to renovate than the figure Meg quoted, in that no one can know what conditions contractors will run into behind the walls, structurally speaking. That is why renovation is seen as not cost-effective and not feasible, and that it would need a total demolition and rebuild to meet current standards. Many supporting the "keeping" of Lincoln seem not to realize that saving that building simply won't happen: updating it for a school requires that it will be demolished and it will be totally rebuilt from scratch, with additional (not owned) properties, for it to exist at all into the future as a school. To renovate, because of the architectural concerns, it would likely cost much more than a rebuild, already priced at well over $12 million, when considering the extra properties necessary.

Grant, on the other hand, was ascertained to be eminently suitable for renovation, since its structure has already been examined thoroughly by engineers, something possible because of the style of construction, which allowed for full examination and evaluation of the structure. It does not NEED to be demolished and rebuilt, because it can be renovated for less than $5 million.

Grant could be quite adorable with the right architect that respects what it was supposed to be and could be in the future.

I agree, though we might envision better than cute. From what I posted on another thread:

Cleveland Institute of Music, pre-renovation

cim old 2.jpg (47.83 KiB) Viewed 3039 times

Cleveland Institute of Music after renovation

CIM NEW 7.jpg (51.98 KiB) Viewed 3039 times