Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) leaders have to thread a needle as they weigh budget cuts against district-wide academic improvements.
To District CEO Warren Morgan, those two goals aren’t necessarily in opposition.
That’s the jist of CMSD’s Building Brighter Futures initiative. Aiming to save $30 million through the initiative, district leaders have to make “tough decisions” about potential school building closures, Morgan said in an interview. When the dust settles, Morgan believes those tough decisions will help whittle down huge gaps in school quality between the district’s highest- and lowest-rated schools.
Does enrollment-based school funding create competition in CMSD?
Morgan’s thinking behind Building Brighter Futures comes from recognizing some shortcomings in the way CMSD funds schools, he said. Similar to the way state funding works, the district has given money to schools based on enrollment, so schools that are already doing well get more while schools that need help get less.
Many school districts across the country fund schools in the same way, Morgan said, but school district leaders are starting to rethink this model.
“What we set up, not only here in Cleveland, but also across the country, is competition,” he said. “Schools that are thriving, schools that have all the different programs, the enrollment is going to go there, and the dollars go there. So you have these other schools that are really on life support. And for the past several years, as a district, we’ve been footing the bill just for them to make the bottom line.”
Morgan wants to take programs that only some schools have, and make them available to students across the district. Starting next year, all schools will get a standard “high quality” math curriculum, he said. He wants schools to offer more career-focused programs with computer science courses and opportunities for internships. He also wants middle school students to be able to earn high school credit by taking Algebra I and foreign language classes.
“We want to preserve programs,” Morgan said. “We want to build more of the programs across the system at-scale, and you can do that without needing to say, ‘How do you create a new high school that does this?’”
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When was the last time CMSD closed school buildings?
CMSD leaders are still figuring out if they’ll have to close school buildings or lay off staff to stave off a looming budget shortfall, Morgan said. Building Brighter Futures is only one part of the district’s overall goal to save at least $150 million over three years. If the district doesn’t make cuts, it will run out of money completely by 2028.
Any potential school building closures would, at the earliest, take effect in the 2026-2027 school year, Morgan said.
CMSD, like many public school districts in Ohio, has seen a decline in enrollment in recent decades. Last school year, the district had about 3,300 fewer students than it did 10 years ago, according to state data. Lower birthrates play a big role in that decline, Morgan said. The share of Cleveland students going to CMSD versus private and charter schools has stayed pretty steady over the last five years.
In a school with low enrollment, CMSD still has to pay wages for a principal and an assistant principal, as well as costs associated with physical education, music and art programs, Morgan said. CMSD put those staff and program minimums in place before he began leading the district. This year, wages and benefits for staff take up about 75% of CMSD’s budget.
“Those things cost even when there’s not enough teachers in the building,” he said. “There are a lot of inefficiencies there in really small buildings.”
CMSD closed more than 20 school buildings from 2009 to 2011, according to reporting at the time. Again in 2019, the district closed four buildings.
“The district, over the past several years, has done its share of closures and consolidations,” Morgan said. “It’s been over a decade, though, since there’s been large-scale either consolidations or footprint-rethinking.”
In April, CMSD will host seven community input sessions at schools across Cleveland and three online sessions. Since so much of CMSD’s planning is underway now, community feedback could change timelines for potential school building closures and inform what programs the district will prioritize in the next few years, Morgan said.
More information about the Building Brighter Futures initiative, including the dates and times for the input sessions, is available on the district’s website.