This legal action seeks accountability on behalf of the children, citizens, and taxpayers of Lakewood against a school board that has shown itself to be willfully negligent in managing the city’s most precious public resources. No government agency enforces the Open Meetings Act. When public bodies engage in conduct as severe as the Lakewood School Board has over the past year, it takes community action to hold them accountable and restore transparency. 

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Without engaging in any strategic planning process for the future of the district, without establishing a long-term facilities master plan, without making any attempt to conduct basic financial analysis or to develop any sort of business plan for a centralized preschool, four of five (4/5) members of the Lakewood School Board voted to close a recently built elementary school based on two slideshow presentations and a few hours of public discussion.  

This decision was made in the face of nearly a year’s worth of public outcry by thousands of Lakewood residents over the lack of planning and transparency throughout the process.  Even more concerning, the decision was forced through to a vote despite one School Board member appealing to her colleagues to pause and allow for proper evaluation before a decision of this magnitude.  

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Responding to the Superintendent’s preschool pitch deck on Monday October 20th, School Board Member Colleen Clark-Sutton stated:  

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“When people ask me what are the specific areas we are saving money, I cannot give them a clear answer.” […] “I guess some of my struggles, and why I am voting no, and that I hope some of my colleagues will too is that on the one hand we have been considering options for realigning our real estate and expanding our pre-K offerings for over a year […] But my struggle has been with the timing of some information. Tonight’s information was super important and very useful. But I’m aggravated that it came tonight.” 

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Hundreds of concerned Lakewood residents stood aghast as School Board President Nora Katzenberger and Vice President Betsy Shaugnessy cut off questions from their colleague to force a vote on their resolution, which was proposed for the first time to the public just two weeks prior. Their plan, which was revealed on October 6, 2025 for the first time (at a bullet-point conceptual level), mandates extensive changes to the districts’ special education programs, kicks off a variety of playground renovations, shutters current neighborhood pre-K services around the district (including those serving low-income neighborhoods), and closes recently built Lincoln Elementary School. At the meeting on October 20, 2025, a second reading of the plan was held where the Superintendent proposed for the first time (again, at a bullet-point conceptual level, without any financial information) her plan for a centralized preschool that would require closing Lincoln Elementary and all current neighborhood Pre-K programs.  

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What transpired during the October 20, 2025 and October 6, 2025 meetings makes clear that the Lakewood School Board is either willfully negligent in failing to properly plan for a facilities overhaul of this magnitude, that they have conducted extensive planning efforts and deliberations outside of public meetings — and in violation of Ohio law —  that led to the rushed vote, or both. After spending the past several months reviewing with counsel certain public records obtained from the district, Friends of Lakewood Schools has determined that the Lakewood School Board has demonstrated both a pattern of willful negligence in its conduct and has engaged in multiple violations of Ohio’s open meetings act while attempting to shield itself from public accountability.  

Ohio law mandates that elected bodies, like school boards, hold all discussions about public business in the open for the public to observe. These laws are a cornerstone to good government and to democracy itself. They enhance public trust in government by ensuring transparency and the ability to hold leaders accountable. By holding many deliberations and planning sessions illegally behind closed doors that led to the October 20, 2025 vote, the School Board kept the public in the dark about the nature of these conversations and extent (or lack thereof) of planning being conducted. 

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Lakewood is a vibrant, diverse community of intelligent and open-minded people who choose to live in Ohio’s most densely populated city. Lakewood’s crown jewel asset is its high-quality, modern, walkable neighborhood-based school system. While many great local nonprofit organizations exist to support our parks, public health, sports, arts & music and many other important community assets, no comprehensive organization exists to support and ensure the long-term success of our public school system. Over the past year the publicly elected School Board has demonstrated that it is not interested in thinking strategically about both the challenges and opportunities presented; crafting long term plans; or cultivating community support for a thriving and sustainable public-school model, regardless of changes in state or federal funding streams.  

Friends of Lakewood Schools is an Ohio nonprofit entity based in Lakewood.  It was formed in May of 2025 by Lakewood residents and parents of public-school students to support and advocate for the long-term success of the Lakewood City School District.  It has been entirely volunteer-supported by Lakewood parents since inception and to date has not raised or spent a penny.  A key function of Friends of Lakewood Schools is to promote and advocate for strategic planning, good governance, community engagement and, where necessary, accountability within the Lakewood City Schools’ Leadership. 

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After witnessing the callous indifference by the Lakewood School Board and its administration to legitimate questions raised by their own appointed task force, as well as by hundreds of Lakewood residents, many community stakeholders realized action was necessary to protect Lakewood’s schools from collapse under gross mismanagement. Our stakeholders recognized that the School Board’s improper handling of this school consolidation process was not the first time the community had endured similar frustrations with School Board leadership and administration.   

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Yet, the decision to commence litigation today did not come easily. Nor was it made hastily.  Every stone was turned and every olive branch extended to avoid this outcome. Prior to filing this complaint, Friends of Lakewood Schools repeatedly pleaded with the School Board to pause and reevaluate these “repurposing” efforts to mitigate damage to the schools and our beloved city. These appeals were made directly, respectfully, and quietly. We sent a demand letter to the School Board in May 2025 with two simple requests: 

 

1. Don’t move forward with closing a recently built school based on the insufficient data and analysis contained in the task force report, which was not guided by a strategic or facilities master plan for the district; and 

2. Launch a strategic planning process that sets forth a clear vision, mission, guiding principles, priorities, and strategies for addressing stakeholder needs, especially those of students. ​

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We note that the district does not have any sort of strategic plan or master facilities plan in place to guide its work on school and facilities consolidation. These items are best practice and an Ohio Board of Education requirement of public schools. This is a weakness in governance and falls below the standard of care for a school district the size of Lakewood’s.    

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Our hope in sending the demand letter was that, by getting counsel involved, the School Board would better understand the gravity of its actions, reflect, and move into a good-faith strategic and master facilities planning process before taking action. Given the fact that no emergency ever existed during this process, a typical school board would have conducted these basic steps long before spending time convening a task force to pick among a limited set of pre-determined closure scenarios.  

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The Lakewood School Board, instead, chose to abandon over a year’s worth of task force work immediately upon receipt of the demand letter. After that, the School Board simply refused to meet, engage, negotiate, or make any effort at conducting a strategic plan.  Friends of Lakewood Schools requested meetings to discuss alternatives to litigation with the School Board at least three times between May and September. Sadly the School Board refused every meeting.  Then, just prior to school starting in August 2025, the Superintendent rolled out a “new” process, allegedly independent of the task force work that counsel had instructed the School Board not to use.  This new process led to a series of emails sent to the entire district in short sequence with conflicting descriptions of how the Superintendent would go about attempting to finish the job the School Board started in August 2024, all without needing to enter a strategic planning process.   

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Those series of conflicting emails, which first indicated that no community input would be sought, ultimately led to a “community tabletop forum” being held on September 29, 2025.  At the School Board Meeting on October 20, 2025, Colleen Clark-Sutton captured perfectly the absurdity of the tabletop feedback when juxtaposed to the woefully inadequate “recommendation” to close a school exactly one week later:  

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“In a Cleveland.com article, Superintendent Niedzwiecki, you were quoted saying ‘We had a great response, about 175 people attended. The tabletop reassured me that our instincts were right. The two buildings being considered for potential repurposing (Grant and Lincoln) are not ready to move forward. Hearing directly from parents helped confirm that reality, and I am grateful for their honesty.’  […] I’ve read this quote a couple of different ways. You acknowledge that people are not ready for a building repurposing. The community event shared a very strong consensus with you in favor of redistricting and against repurposing. But this is not what was presented at the October 6th Board Meeting. I am surprised by the leap between your tabletop event Cleveland.com quote and your recommendation to the board.’”    

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Only one Board member, Colleen Clark-Sutton, has displayed any interest in transparency and genuine public input during this process. At the October 20th School Board Meeting, she was the one board member to finally ask the questions the public had been pleading to be considered. These questions should have been asked long ago by all board members.  But at every turn, the other four board members decided to double down, bulldoze their constituents, and force through a non-sensical, reckless proposal backed by little to no planning or financial analysis.  

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Public education is a partnership between the school district and its citizens, built on trust, engagement, and data-driven but human-centered decisions. In Lakewood, unfortunately, that partnership has been broken. No community should tolerate the behavior Lakewood has endured for the past year within its school board.  

It is important for residents to understand that no government agency enforces the Open Meetings Act, it is a “self help” statute that requires citizen enforcement. As such, and after the School Board refused multiple attempts to avoid this end by implementing standard practices, filing a lawsuit was the only path left to prevent further legal violations and restore transparency on the School Board. 

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Friends of Lakewood Schools is stepping into that void. We are picking up the torch and shining a light on the dishonest culture plaguing Lakewood’s school board.  The public needs to know what happened here and our community needs accountability.  From here, we can work together as Lakewoodites to build back a partnership far better than the one we found.  One fitting of our children and this great community we all call home.

  

We support the long-term success of Lakewood’s most precious public asset – its public schools.  We believe that Lakewood’s public schools belong to the community, and major decisions should be made transparently, with kindness and respect for the voices of students, families, educators, residents, and taxpayers.  Strong schools that produce thriving children require responsible planning along with leadership that listens, empowers, and is not afraid to admit mistakes or correct missteps.  

 

Today, we turn the page to a brighter future.