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CLEVELAND (WJW) The Cleveland Metropolitan School District kicked off the first in a series of eight public meetings, called community conversations, to address what the district calls a “perfect storm” created by the rising cost of education, reduced state and federal funding and a steep decline in enrollment.
“Over the past 20 years, we’ve lost over 50% of our enrollment and our data shows us that it’s not because students are choosing to go elsewhere,” CMSD CEO Dr. Warren Morgan said. “They’re choosing charter or they’re choosing private. It’s birth rates and birth rates are impacting not only our city, it’s impacting the state and also the nation and the world.”
The CEO told the audience at Joseph M. Gallagher School on Wednesday night that the district must make tough decisions on which of Cleveland’s 65 pre-K through grade 8 schools, and 30 grade 9 through 12 buildings will be closed or combined at the end of this school year.
“We must address it to right size. We have many buildings that are new like the one we’re standing in now and it’s great. This is one of our newest buildings, but we also have several buildings that are older and need a lot of work and we may not have the resources to upgrade all of those,” said Morgan.
After gathering input from teachers and parents, the district will come up with a list of schools to close or merge and the school board will then vote on those recommendations.
“One of the reasons why we set it up in this format is so that we can hear as many as voices as possible,” Morgan told attendees.
Parents told us they attended the meeting to make sure the process is fair and takes in account the needs of their children.
“Just making everything more equitable so the same services that we receive as parents on the west side, we also receive as parents on the east side,” said Latisha O’Neal, who is a parent ambassador for Wilbur Wright School.
Teachers attending the meeting are attempting to make a case for their schools to remain open and reminding the district about its obligations to Cleveland taxpayers.
“We’re just concerned. We have our staff here because we really want to stay doing what we’re doing, so we want to make our faces known that we want to continue,” said school intervention specialist Debbie Gregory.
“I do see that there is a decline in enrollment. However, we did also pass a couple of levies and is the money that is being spent from the levies being spent in the correct order?” math teacher Bryan Camp added.
We asked Morgan about the worst case scenario that teachers and parents have heard, as the district tries to save $30 million.
“Is it true that as many as 30 buildings may have to be closed?” we asked.
“We haven’t put a number to it. The one thing I have said is that this can be significant and our numbers show us that. Every single school has a data snapshot because every single school, we’re looking at enrollment, enrollment trends, building condition, the programs in the school,” Morgan responded.
The public meetings will continue over the next weeks.
If the closings are approved by the school board, they will take effect next fall.
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Jack Shea
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