North Olmsted City Schools

North Olmsted Families,

I wanted to provide an update to our families regarding the regular board meeting that took place this evening. During the meeting the Board of Education unanimously voted to move forward with the closure of Spruce and Forest, reconfigure our primary and intermediate grade levels, and retrofit the remaining four elementary school buildings to accommodate students. These changes will go into effect for the 2022-2023 school year.

This plan is one that has been considered previously and was postponed due to Covid. We know this decision impacts many areas, including students and their education, teachers and staff, support services, transportation, and finances. This plan provides educational benefits for our students such as having an English language learner teacher at each building, a dedicated school counselor at each building as well as help balance class sizes across all grade levels.

We are committed to transparency and communication, and will provide regular updates and additional details as we move forward with this plan. We have a page dedicated to the building consolidation located on our district website. I encourage our families to reference this page for the most up to date information.

Also during this evening’s meeting, our Treasurer, Katie Henes presented the five-year forecast. The five-year forecast shows our financial picture over the next five years. The forecast shows that the district has stretched its last operating levy for 11 years, but with flat funding and costs continuing to rise over that period, we are quickly spending down reserves. By 2023-2024, we will be completely out of funds unless action is taken very soon. The full presentation of the five-year forecast can be found on the treasurer’s page.