ELYRIA — George Frazier remembers the sinking feeling in his gut that he felt more than 13 years ago when officials from the Elyria Schools announced they were closing Elyria West High School.

“To put it mildly, it really wasn’t too good,” he said Tuesday thinking back on that day in 1996. “We couldn’t believe they would do that in spite of the protests. The room was packed with all of us waiting for them to give us an answer …

“It was a terrible day for the city as far as I was concerned. It became an east side, west side, south side and north side thing that really split the city up.”

Elyria West, built in 1973 as a smaller, more spacious high school to accommodate students from the north and west sides of town, was seen as the crowning achievement of the district at a time when Elyria High School was filled to capacity.

However, 22 years later Elyria officials told residents they needed to close the school on Griswold Road because they were once again looking at a big deficit for the upcoming school year.

Taxpayers were not passing levies to give the district additional operating revenue, so closing the school was seen as the district’s only choice.

Still, the board’s vote was not unanimous. Faced with an angry crowd of more than 300 parents and students who flooded the meeting, the board ultimately voted 3-2 to close the school along with two elementary schools.

“It hurt a lot of people,” said Frazier, who served as the past co-president of Parent Advocates for West Students. “A lot of people never got past it. I still sometimes think about how bad it was.”

At that time, Frazier said his son was a student at Elyria West and wanted so desperately to graduate from the same school as his siblings that he took night classes at Admiral King High School so he could come out a year early with the final Elyria West class.

“Elyria West — the students who attended that school and their parents — were like a family,” he said. “When they voted to close that school, everyone’s focus just shifted to trying to keep it open.”

It started an era of protests, petition drives and court cases.

And, when all else failed, Frazier said parents took out their anger in the only way they knew how: Every time the district asked for new money to build a high school, the answer was no.

“It took all these years to vote for the new money to get the new high school. That was a shame, because we knew back then that we needed a new school,” Frazier said. “But that was the only protest left after we went to court with it. I’m sure the board saw that.”

It wasn’t until May 2007 that the district, under Superintendent Paul Rigda who was principal at Elyria West when it closed, was able to convince voters to pass a bond issue. Regaining the public’s trust in order to garner the support and tax dollars needed to build the new $71 million high school was not easy, Rigda said.

But it happened once the focus was taken off the budget.

“Even when you do a nice job, it’s rough because there are a lot of memories that go into high schools,” he said. “You go to high school and get together for a reunion, but you go to college and never see those people again. There are so many emotions that come with a high school. So when someone makes a financial decision to close your place, it doesn’t go over very well.”

With the Lorain Schools considering a plan to close a high school, Rigda said the best way to make a closure work is to make it more a community decision than a board directive.

“You have to get the community to understand you don’t like what you are doing and you hate it yourself, but you have to stay firm in letting residents know that while the school did not do anything wrong to deserve to be closed, a district just can’t afford to keep it open any longer,” he said.

Rigda said in an effort to show Elyria West graduates that they have not been forgotten, there is a large Elyria West memorabilia showcase honoring past memories still in the building, which serves as Kindergarten Village and office space.

“It’s a small thing, but we felt it was necessary,” he said. “It’s not a dollar and cents thing that makes them angry, it’s the emotion.”

The lessons learned when Elyria West was closed carried over to recent years when the district completed another consolidation plan that resulted in the closures of four elementary buildings. When that happened, Rigda said spokeswoman Amy Higgins was pegged with the responsibility of easing the pain by developing several events to aid in transition.

It was the little details that made the difference, Rigda said.

“The money is the least concern of anyone you talk to,” he said. “The money is the biggest concern of just the superintendent and the board. What people want to know is how it will affect them. How will their lives be different?”

Read more

• High schools on the chopping block in Lorain.
• Levy needed, but it won’t be enough, school board says.
• Anger remains from 1996 closing of Elyria West.

Contact Lisa Roberson at 329-7121 or lroberson@chroniclet.com.

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