The Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) is expected to announce its recommendations for around 20 to 30 school closures and consolidations on Wednesday night at the Board of Education meeting, according to multiple sources.
The meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. and will be held in person at the Arnold Pinkney East Professional Center at 1349 E. 79th Street. The district also has an online livestream where anyone can watch the meeting virtually. The meeting will not include an opportunity for public comment, according to board chair Sara Elaqad.
The announcement comes after a year of planning that included around a dozen community meetings. The district also surveyed families and community members and scrutinized enrollment numbers and academic outcomes and assessed the buildings that houses its schools. At the community meetings and school open houses this fall, CMSD officials made the financial case for the massive reshaping of the district. They also presented data and explained additional factors it was considering, including school locations or special program offerings.
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What happens after the CMSD announcement?
Shari Obrenski, president of the Cleveland Teachers Union (CTU), told Signal Cleveland she sent union members an email on Friday letting them know she believes the list of school closings will be announced at the Wednesday board meeting. Right now, Obrenski doesn’t expect that she or other teachers will be told the recommendations before they are given to the board.
“I believe that when the recommendations are given to the board, that’s when pretty much everyone will find out about them.” Obrenski said. “I have been advocating for transparency in this process from the very beginning. However they choose to communicate is something that’s outside my control.”
Following the announcement, CMSD’s leadership will begin meeting with a Cleveland Teachers Union representative for each school that would be closed or consolidated. The district, according to the union’s contract, also has to meet with schools that will be assigned new students or staff from schools that will be closed. Based on the scale of the closures these meetings are expected to take a number of weeks, Obrenski told Signal Cleveland.
Once those meetings are finished, the Board of Education will vote on the recommendations made by CMSD. The board could also, in theory, ask the district to amend or change the plan before voting on it though Elaqad said she does not expect there will be major changes. The school board has three more scheduled meetings this year after Wednesday – one on Nov. 19 and two early next month on Dec. 2 and Dec. 9.
Of these three remaining meetings, one is a work session for the board where there isn’t typically time for public comments. The other two are meetings where the board votes on business. Those meetings generally have public comment periods. Elaqad told Signal Cleveland the board plans to add additional chances for public comment at existing meetings between when the recommendations are made and the vote is taken.
To give public comment at a board meeting you must sign-up ahead of time online. If you can’t sign up online, call 216-838-0032 for assistance in submitting a request to speak. Currently, the sign up form to give public comment at the next meeting Nov. 19 is set to open Nov. 6 and close at noon on the day of the meeting.
Families and teachers are ‘uneasy’ ahead of Wednesday
Even with the outreach the district did ahead of time, families, teachers and community members have a lot of lingering questions and worries about what Wednesday’s announcement might bring. Last week, Signal Cleveland ask families, students, teachers and community members about the upcoming changes and the district’s process so far. Some teachers and parents wrote that they felt the process was “ambiguous at best” or that it was making them “uneasy and nervous.” A few said they felt good about it or that it was “well done.”
Most people who responded still had questions, including:
- “Once these closures and mergers are complete, what will the district do to retain students, stabilize school populations and limit student mobility?”
- “School name changes? What options will students have if they want to graduate from a family member’s alma mater that’s closing?”
- “Regarding enrollment decline, it would be instructive to know whether the decline is due to an overall reduction in birthrates/demographics of Cleveland or whether it is due to the siphoning of students (and dollars) by charter schools?”
- “Nervous about what that means for children who are currently able to walk to a nearby school in their community. Will there be more bussing?”
- “What will happen to unused buildings?”
Joseph Mack, a teacher at Mary Church Terrell—a school a number of parents, teachers and community members suspect may close because of the building’s age—feels as though the process has left out important factors like the school’s culture or the benefits of a smaller school.
“Honestly, they have not been transparent whatsoever about the process,” Mack said. “The only things we’re hearing is that if you don’t have air conditioning, you have a boiler, and you don’t have at least 450 kids in the building, you’re probably going to be closed. Other than that, we haven’t heard anything.”
He also believes CMSD didn’t really take community input into account in its decision making process and put together its plan a while ago.
“The teachers, now, we talk and from the vibes we’re getting, we feel the board has already made their decision,” Mack said. “They just don’t want to announce it yet, because elections are Tuesday.”
