How the closure of West Main Elementary will affect Ravenna students

Ravenna City Schools announced the plan for housing the district's students next school year following the closure of West Main Elementary.

Ravenna City Schools will have its K-12 students in three buildings next year: K-2 at Willyard Elementary, 3-6 at Brown Middle School and 7-12 at Ravenna High School. 

Ben Ribelin, superintendent of Ravenna City Schools, said there has been a steady decline in the district’s enrollment numbers over the last five to 10 years. 

In May 2024, the district was placed in fiscal oversight and began analyzing staffing, enrollment, revenue and expenditures. (The district was released from fiscal oversight in August 2025, after the passage of Issue 12 that May, the first operating levy passed in over 20 years.)  

Kristen Plageman, treasurer of Ravenna City Schools, said the district was looking to increase revenue while reducing expenditures. The main way to reduce costs: closing buildings. 

The first closure under the plan was West Park, an all-kindergarten building. It closed at the end of the 2024-25 school year as it was not at full enrollment. Ribelin said it didn’t make sense to keep the building open, considering they were only using about 60% of it at certain points. 

Plageman said it can cost around $40,000 in utilities per building, on top of more frequent maintenance for older buildings. 

“If you’re minimizing your buildings, you're minimizing all those operational costs, too,” she said. 

This year, the kindergarteners joined the first- and second-graders at Willyard Elementary. Third and fourth grade are at West Main, grades 5-8 are at Brown Middle School and grades 9-12 are at Ravenna High School. 

The next phase of the plan is to close West Main, and those students will attend Brown Middle School. The Ravenna City Schools Board of Education approved the closure of West Main Elementary for the 2026-27 school year at its Nov. 24 meeting. 

Ravenna City Schools announced the changes on their Facebook page Jan. 22, receiving close to 200 comments, some in support of the move and some who were concerned. The most common sentiment among commenters was worry about the combination of seventh-graders and high school seniors in the same building. Ribelin did not respond to a request for a follow-up comment about that concern. 

Although a lot of parents loved the environment of West Park, Ribelin said, the transition was relatively smooth as they kept the teachers and staff, and the plan is the same for the West Main move. 

Plageman said there will be minimal staff cuts because student needs will stay the same. 

Before merging, Ribelin said there were lots of adjustments for students to and from each new building. Now, the structure will be more ideal for not only students and parents, but for administrators and curriculum directors, as they waste less time traveling to multiple different schools.

“I’m really excited that as we consolidate, it’s going to reduce some of these transitions to kids that are moving along,” he said. “We’ll make sure that we do plenty of open houses at the beginning of the year to have everyone prepared.”