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Parents press board to pause school‑repurposing process, cite data gaps and community engagement concerns
Summary
Multiple residents urged the Lakewood Board to halt plans to repurpose neighborhood elementary schools until updated enrollment data, traffic and walkability studies, and fuller teacher and community engagement are available; speakers said the process felt rushed and warned of academic and social effects on children.
Several parents and residents used the public‑comment period at the Feb. 3 Lakewood Board of Education meeting to urge the board to pause or slow the district’s task‑force work on potential elementary school repurposing and boundary changes.
Katie Solomon, who said she lives on Clifton Boulevard and is a fourth‑generation Lakewood resident, told the board the task force was asked to review seven scenarios provided by an outside consultant rather than generate community‑driven solutions. She asked the board to “halt the process of repurposing” and instead focus on passing the upcoming levy.
Kelly Moyer, a parent and president of the Lakewood Early Childhood PTA who lives on Lakeland Avenue, said the district had relied on enrollment data through 2022 (and birth data through 2020) and that updated projections should have been available before community conversations. Moyer warned that a decision to close an elementary school could force families to travel beyond the district’s commonly cited walkable radius and could lead to longer commute times, pickup congestion and educational disruption for young children.
Dan Kirk, a parent of a Grant Elementary kindergartner, criticized the wording of the district’s community survey and said questions about centralized preschool and before‑and‑after care omitted the crucial tradeoff that creating a centralized preschool would require closing a neighborhood elementary and removing existing neighborhood preschool offerings.
Katie Slife Rustad, who said she lives on Lake Avenue and has four children in Lakewood schools, said she pays for outside childcare and would not enroll her child in a centralized preschool if it was less convenient. She described the projected budget savings—quoted at roughly 0.6%–1.2%—as insufficient given the potential impact of closing a school and urged the board to “lean into our unique culture of neighborhood schools.”
Other public speakers urged inclusion of grassroots groups in the task‑force process, questioned survey safeguards and called for traffic and urban‑planning input. Several speakers said the process felt rushed given public statements that decisions wouldn’t be needed until 2026 or 2027.
Superintendent Netzwicki told the board she had met with most elementary building staffs and said task‑force materials and updated data from the consultant (FutureThink) would be shared with the task force and posted on the district website. Netzwicki reiterated that no immediate closures were planned and that the district had projected timing to allow community discussion; she said staffing reductions to date had been handled through attrition and that the district would continue to seek staff‑sensitive options.
Board members acknowledged parents’ concerns and said the task force will continue to review updated information; the district said it will archive documents and post consultant updates for public review.
