The third meeting of the Bratenahl Resident Action Committee, commonly referred to as “BRAC,” was held at John and Mary Anne Ertle’s home on December 12, 1968.\u00a0 A grass-roots movement of concerned Bratenahl residents, BRAC’s initial meetings, was described at the time as “brainstorming sessions” to “find a solution to the school problem.”<\/p>\n
The “school problem” was a decision by the State Board of Education on June 10, 1968, that the Bratenahl School District merge with the Cleveland School District by no later than July 1, 1970.\u00a0 State law required that all “elementary school districts,” that is, districts with schools that taught children only through the eighth grade, merge with a neighboring school district on or before July 1, 1968, unless granted an exemption from the State Board of Education.\u00a0 The Bratenahl School had only eight grades.\u00a0 The village could not build a high school because state law required a minimum enrollment of 240 students.\u00a0 The total enrollment at the Bratenahl School rarely exceeded 160 students.\u00a0 Although Bratenahl school officials tried to persuade the State Board to exempt the Bratenahl school system from the mandatory merger requirement, it only obtained a two-year extension of the merger deadline.<\/p>\n
The initial meetings of BRAC were purely informational so that residents could learn the facts about the State Board’s order and explore possible alternatives to the merger.\u00a0 The third BRAC meeting was to be an organizational meeting, including the election of officers.\u00a0 But Bratenahl resident Eileen Donnelly came to the meeting with startling news.<\/p>\n
Eileen Donnelly was one of the organizers of BRAC.\u00a0 She was also an attorney.\u00a0 Her legal research revealed that state law had recently changed in two significant ways, both beneficial to the future of the Bratenahl school system.\u00a0 First, in December 1967, the Ohio General Assembly eliminated the requirement that new high schools obtain a charter from the Ohio Department of Education.\u00a0 Under the new law, Ohio chartered new school districts, not new high schools within a chartered school district.\u00a0 This meant that if Bratenahl wanted to build a high school, it did not need state approval, only community support.<\/p>\n
Donnelly’s second revelation was even more significant.\u00a0 In July 1968, she discovered that two weeks after Bratenahl’s final hearing in Columbus, the State School Board implemented new educational standards.\u00a0 High schools no longer had to have a minimum enrollment of 240 students. Instead, the new standards required a public high school, organized after July 1, 1968, to offer a minimum of 55 units of credit in separately organized classes, including 30 credit units in subject areas specified in the state standards.\u00a0 If Bratenahl could develop a high school curriculum program that met these new academic standards, Bratenahl could operate a high school with a small student body.\u00a0 Bratenahl would no longer be just an “elementary school system” and, maybe, could get out from under the state law requirement that the Bratenahl School merge with the Cleveland School District.<\/p>\n
The Ohio Board of Education had not informed the Bratenahl School Board of either state law changes.\u00a0 It took Eileen Donnelly to discover the changes and understand their significance.<\/p>\n
Who was Eileen Donnelly?<\/p>\n
Eileen Marie Byrne Donnelly was born on June 8, 1925, to Peter and Daisy Byrne.\u00a0 She earned a Master of Arts degree from Western Reserve University and, initially, had a theater career.\u00a0 As reported in The Plain Dealer in 1955, Eileen’s “background embraces roles in New York shows, New England stock, Popeloff Ballet Company, and Cain Park.” She also co-managed her father’s business, the Peter J. Byrne Roofing Company.<\/p>\n
At the same time, Eileen earned a law degree from Cleveland Marshall Law School.\u00a0She was one of only two women to pass the Ohio bar examination in March 1955.\u00a0 After marrying a fellow Cleveland Marshall Law graduate, John V. Donnelly,<\/a><\/strong> in 1958, Eileen served as assistant Ohio attorney general from 1959 to 1963.\u00a0 After that, she was a partner in the Cleveland law firm of Canning, Cody, Donnelly, Herzog, and McNamara.\u00a0 Her husband was also a partner in the firm.\u00a0 Eileen was admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court in 1969, was a member of the National Association of Women Lawyers, the Cleveland and Ohio State bar associations, and vice dean of the Cleveland Chapter of Kappa Beta Phi, a legal sorority.<\/p>\n Eileen and John Donnelly purchased the property located at 10494 Lake Shore Boulevard in 1966, where they raised their three children.\u00a0 After announcing her legal research results at the December BRAC meeting, Eileen became the first President of the organization. She played an instrumental role in convincing the Bratenahl School Board to build a new high school in the village.\u00a0 At the same time, she served as President of the Bratenahl PTA and as a leader of the local chapter of the girl scouts.<\/p>\nIn February 1970, she joined a contingent of Bratenahl officials and residents who traveled to Columbus to persuade the State Board of Education to extend the July 1, 1970 school merger deadline to enable Bratenahl to implement a new high school program.\u00a0 When the State Board rejected the proposal without a hearing, Eileen personally drove to Columbus on February 20, 1970, to file Bratenahl’s appeal of the State Board’s decision.\u00a0 Eileen was always an advocate for her community. On March 9, 1970, petitioned the Bratenahl School Board to use a classroom for Girl Scout meetings.\u00a0 Two weeks later, on March 22, 1970, Eileen Donnelly died in her home after a sudden illness.\u00a0 She was only 43 years old. “She made a great contribution to the PTA, but her greatest contribution was to Bratenahl.\u00a0 For in its greatest moments, Eileen Donnelly alone gave Bratenahl hope. . . . During the two years of convincing the people that the Bratenahl High School was a sound idea, Eileen never never gave up or became discouraged.\u00a0 She put her heart and soul into her convictions and worked night and day toward this goal.\u00a0 She had to nudge a few ‘influential’ people during this period, but she never made an enemy.\u00a0 They begrudgingly admired her determination and with her Irish wit and twinkling Irish eyes, she charmed them all.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBack to Schools\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSee list\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Schools Fight to Save the Schools Eileen M. Donnelly, Bratenahl School Advocate and Community Leader The third meeting of the Bratenahl Resident Action Committee, commonly referred to as “BRAC,” was held at John and Mary Anne Ertle’s home on December 12, 1968.\u00a0 A grass-roots movement of concerned Bratenahl residents, BRAC’s initial meetings, was described at…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-320","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nMirroring the sentiments of the entire Bratenahl Community, the PTA eulogized Eileen Donnelly in a mailing:\n