The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
TRANSFORMATION GETS GOOD REVIEWS
Ridge Elementary, a former middle school, welcomes students on first day of classes
On the first day of the 2018-19 academic year in the Mentor School District, maybe it was a bit too soon to start thinking about report cards.
But at least some teachers at Ridge Elementary School in Mentor were giving high marks Aug. 16 to their building — a former middle school that received extensive renovations over the summer.
“Oh we just love it,” Ridge third-grade teacher Kathy Kelly said of the building. “It’s very organized and nice, with all new stuff. The classrooms have nice furniture. It’s perfect for an elementary school.”
Kelly, Kathy Ricketti and Justin Rapp collaboratively teach about 75 thirdgraders in one large classroom at Ridge.
Ricketti also said she’s impressed with the renovated version of Ridge.
“So far, I love it,” Ricketti said.“A lot of hard work was put in to this building to transform it into an elementary school.”
Over the summer, extensive renovations were done inside of Ridge to convert a variety of former middle-school rooms into additional classrooms for elementary students.
“Oh we just love it. It’s very organized and nice, with all new stuff." — Kathy Kelly, third-grade teacher at Ridge
The middle school’s media center became classrooms, and locker rooms were developed into classrooms for special-needs students.
In addition, a band room was converted into a Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, or STEM, room, and a band practice/storage room became a media center. A different room in the building will be used for elementary school music classes and activities.
Just inside the main entrance to Ridge, a new “security spot” has been constructed. School employees will staff the booth at the busiest times of the day to monitor who is seeking to enter the building.
On the outside, the front parking lot was repaved and work was done behind the building to create more space for vehicle traffic and a playground for elementary students.
The school was designated for a new purpose in January, when the Mentor School Board approved a district reconfiguration plan that included the closing of Brentmoor and Garfield elementary schools at the end of the 2017-18 academic year. With the conversion of Ridge into an elementary school, Mentor went from operating three middle schools to two — Shore and Memorial.
The plan called for all students from Brentmoor and some students from Garfield to attend the new Ridge Elementary. In addition, the boundaries for Hopkins Elementary School were rezoned, sending some of its students to Ridge.
Blending together students from three former elementary schools into one new location was going well on the first day of school, Ricketti said.
“The kids seem to love it,” she said. “They’re seeing friends who used to attend other schools, so that’s kind of cool, too.”
As of late afternoon on opening day, things were going well, according to the co-principals of Ridge.
“I think we were all apprehensive, for it being a larger building, but the arrival (of students) was pretty smooth, and going around the classrooms, it was smooth like butter,” said Pam Hutto, co-principal.
Jodi Poremba, Ridge’s other co-principal, liked what she saw, as well.
“The students and parents, I think, what stands out to me, have been so positive and polite,” she said. “We’ve shared lots of guidelines of start times and end times, and they’re following everything we shared, which is amazing and helpful to the whole process.”
A total of 777 elementary students attend Ridge, and 116 preschool students also are enrolled there. However, with the Ohio Department of Education’s method of calculating student enrollment, the preschoolers technically don’t count toward Ridge’s total number of students.
Ridge is one of 11 schools in Mentor district, which enrolls a total of about 7,600 students.