Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) CEO Warren Morgan has recommended that the district cut alternative and extended calendars at nearly two dozen schools.
Morgan weighed in at the CMSD Board of Education meeting Tuesday evening, and so did nine teachers, parents and community members.
The board will vote on any calendar changes during its meeting on April 29.
Most teachers and staff who spoke said they need alternative calendars for specialized programs and highlighted other benefits they see from shorter summer breaks and longer school days. Cutting calendars would cut teacher pay, too, driving some to consider leaving the district.
CMSD needs to cut the calendars to save about $9.3 million every year, Morgan said. The district is aiming to save roughly $150 million over the next two years. That figure could grow because lawmakers in both the state and federal governments have proposed school funding cuts that could hurt CMSD.
At the very least, the district needs to cut $96 million to avoid running out of money completely in 2028, Morgan said.
School calendar cuts would mean pay cuts for teachers
If CMSD cuts alternative calendars next school year, teachers at roughly 21 schools will have to take pay cuts because they would be working fewer hours. The exact amount would change from school to school, but Benjamin Chronister, an English teacher at Cleveland High School for Digital Arts, did the math for himself.
“By changing the calendar, I will be taking a nearly 18% pay cut, nearly one-fifth of my total pay,” he said. “That ultimately works out to about $12,000 less per year, $1,000 less per month, $500 less per paycheck. I know I’m not alone in the fact that 500 fewer dollars per check is absolutely the difference between keeping afloat and drowning.”
Watch Chronister’s full comment below.
CMSD students could lose ‘essential’ learning experiences
The school calendar cuts would impact special programs, too, said Drew Ferguson. He founded a nonprofit called Argonaut aimed at bringing more young people into the aerospace and maritime fields. Argonaut teamed up with CMSD to create Davis Aerospace and Maritime High School in 2017.
Davis needs a year-round school calendar, Ferguson said, because its hands-on programs depend on warmer weather.
“The year-round calendar is essential to our experiential learning model,” he said. “Boating, swimming, flying are dependent on seasonal weather conditions. If we are bound by a traditional calendar, we would be forced to cut key components for our program, impacting our students’ success.”
Watch Ferguson’s full comment below.
CMSD’s calendars cause confusion for some families
John Adams College and Career Academy has the same year-round calendar as Davis, but it doesn’t work as well for John Adams students, said Brian Evans, the school’s principal. The different start dates at CMSD schools can cause confusion and barriers for some families, he said. More than half of John Adams students didn’t come to school in the first few weeks of this school year, he said. It harms the school’s overall attendance, he said.
“Students who have working parents and younger school-age siblings have to stay at home with their siblings until their siblings’ school year starts, which not only causes them to miss instruction, but it also harms our overall attendance the first few weeks of school,” Evans said.
Teacher wants extra days to be classroom days
John Adams’ year-round calendar has different breaks compared with a “traditional” school calendar, but it only has three additional classroom days. It does have 16 additional professional development days for teacher training and planning.
Andrea Dockery-Murray, a visual arts teacher at John Adams, said she’d like to spend those professional development days working with students.
“I would rather have those extra days supporting students with what they need,” Dockery-Murray said. “We could have academic boot camps, we could have support rooms for children that are struggling with credit recovery. There are so many other ways to connect academically to help our students.”
Watch Dockery-Murray’s full comment below.
