The Toledo Board of Education has passed a resolution to temporarily close the Edgewater and Mayfair Early Childhood Center elementary schools.
“It's not easy,” Chris Varwig, board vice president, said before the unanimous vote Tuesday. “[But] we have a budget that we have to fall in line with, and sometimes things are tough. … It’s also hard decision making, because we also live in this community.”
The district will save about $2 million a year by closing the two facilities, about $1 million from each, in maintenance, transportation, support staff, and other expenses, according to TPS staff.
“It’s not always the fun stuff that we get to do,” Ms. Varwig said. “It’s [also] the hard, hard decisions. We ask questions, we lose sleep.”
Bob Vasquez, board president, agreed.
“Ms. Varwig is absolutely correct,” he said. “We have to make some hard decisions.”
Mayfair currently has 200 students, of whom 120 will be going into kindergarten next year while the other 80 students will be served in other K-8 buildings, according to district staff.
As for Edgewater, it serves just 100 students in K-5. Students in the seventh and eighth grades were moved in the 2023-24 school year to Ottawa River Elementary School. Students in the sixth grade were moved this school year. Those 100 students will be going to Ottawa River.
The closures were necessitated by an anticipated funding shortage because of funding changes that are likely to result in a $2 million loss to the district’s early childhood education program, James Gault, TPS chief of educational development, previously said.
The program was funded by Head Start and state money, so it would not benefit from the latest tax levy, which voters passed in November.
The district is planning to repurpose the two buildings, but nothing has been finalized yet, Mr. Gault said.
When asked after the meeting how the school district had come to the decision to close Edgewater and Mayfair and not any other educational facility, James Gant, deputy superintendent, said he could only answer “in general.”
“In general, you take a look at the funds that are provided for us and the cuts that are being made by the government,” Mr. Gant said. “Then you look at the services that we’re providing and at the educators that are in those buildings. Are they licensed educators or are they substitutes? Then we make decisions based upon that.”
About 60 people attended the regular board meeting Tuesday, but there were no public comments on the matter.
In other business, the board unanimously passed a resolution authorizing a $7 million contract to hire Rudolph Libbe Inc. as construction manager for the district’s proposed $100-million renovation and redevelopment of the University of Toledo’s former Scott Park campus.
Additionally, the board passed a resolution opposing the proposed Ohio Senate Bill 127, also unanimously. If passed, the bill would revise Ohio’s public school closure law and create new criteria for the closure or restructuring of a “poorly performing” public school.
Specifically, the bill redefines a “poorly performing” public school as one serving grades three and above that is in the lowest 5 percent for performance, based on its performance index score for three consecutive years, and is in the bottom 10 percent in its value-added progress for three consecutive years.
“This expanded criteria for labeling a school as “poorly performing” represents a legislative overreach that, if enacted, will threaten public education by (1) forcing more districts to take drastic actions such as closing schools, (2) undermining voters’ choice by transferring control to private operators, and/or (3) compelling schools to replace staff, which overrides collective bargaining agreements,” the resolution reads.
First Published March 26, 2025, 12:00 p.m.
