Lakewood superintendent outlines data-driven elementary facility review, schedules Sept. 29 community tabletop

Superintendent Nizwicki told the Lakewood Board of Education on Sept. 15 that she will present a recommendation about elementary facility use after reviewing enrollment trends, birth rates, building capacity, classroom assignments, safety and security, walking distance, and before- and after-care availability. The district will host a facilitated tabletop conversation for community input from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Sept. 29 at Lakewood High School; participants are asked to RSVP and results will be compiled and published.

Why this matters: the district is weighing how to align facilities with declining enrollment and uneven elementary class sizes. Community members at the meeting repeatedly urged alternatives to school closures, including marketing to attract families and municipal action to make walking safe — factors speakers said affect neighborhood-school enrollment.

Nizwicki said the district will use “enrollment trend data, current enrollment and live birth rates, building capacity data, classrooms based on current enrollment,” and safety metrics in forming her recommendation. She added, “clarity is a form of kindness and I continue to be committed to transparency that informs rather than unsettles.” Nizwicki also said the tabletop event will not be a board meeting; board members will not attend, public comment will not be opened during the event, and facilitators will collect both individual written responses and group chart-paper notes.

Public commenters framed the facility question as part of a broader community strategy. Melissa Herr, president of the Lakewood Teachers Association, said the teachers’ union “supports the Lakewood Board of Education’s process as it examines the district’s facilities usage” and praised what she described as a multi-year, multi-method engagement process. Resident Dan Kirk urged the district to “first ask how to keep every school open” and to partner with the city and foundations on marketing that highlights Lakewood’s walkability.

Parents at the meeting said preserving neighborhood schools is a reason they moved to Lakewood. Austin Rhodes, a parent who recently moved to Virginia Avenue, said closing his neighborhood elementary would undermine his ability to walk his children to school and “would erode enrollment over time.” Chelsea Dottavio noted that Grant and Lincoln were reported on the 2025 Ohio report card as the district’s five-star schools and said those ratings attract families.

Speakers pressed the district and the city for coordinated work on safety and active-transportation infrastructure. Emily Lindberg, a Lauderdale Avenue parent, urged parents to bring their advocacy to city hall and to apply for the city’s new Complete and Active Streets Education (CASE) advisory board, saying, “For our schools to be walkable, our streets must be truly safe.”

Discussion, direction and next steps: the superintendent described the data sets that will inform her recommendation and scheduled the Sept. 29 facilitated tabletop; she said the district will compile and publish participants’ written and table-level input. There was no formal board vote on facilities at the Sept. 15 meeting. Several public commenters asked the board to delay irreversible action until the community engagement and additional marketing efforts are completed.

The district said the tabletop will include charting and a share-out led by table facilitators; the facilitator will assemble a final document of results to be shared publicly. Nizwicki emphasized the event’s structure: participants will answer 4–5 structured questions individually, discuss them at tables with facilitators, and provide written and charted feedback for compilation.

Less-critical details: the superintendent said the district has previously held seven community events (one at each elementary school) and has collected public comment over the last year. She noted the district will consider “opportunities to realign specialized classrooms” and to limit unnecessary teacher movement. The exact timetable for the superintendent’s formal recommendation to the board was described as “coming soon” and not specified at the Sept. 15 meeting.

Ending: The district plans to publish the compiled tabletop results after the Sept. 29 event and to use the listed data elements before issuing a formal recommendation to the board. Community speakers asked the board and city to pursue marketing and safer street policies as parallel strategies to any facilities decisions.