After nearly a year of planning, the Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) unveiled a sweeping proposal to consolidate schools and close older buildings across the city. It was widely expected that the district would shutter between 20 and 30 schools, but CEO Warren Morgan said leaders listened to community feedback and prioritized mergers.
The plan would reshape the public school district by merging a total of 39 schools and reducing the number of schools by 29. If the board approves the recommendations made Wednesday night, 18 district-owned buildings would close. Between schools that will merge, move or receive students from a closed building, nearly 16,000 students across the district will be impacted. [Updated: An earlier version of this story gave a different number for total students impacted by the plan.]
The board will vote on the plan at its Dec. 9 meeting. It will expand opportunities for public comment at that meeting and two others, scheduled for Nov. 19 and Dec. 2, Board Chair Sara Elaqad said.
The changes will be difficult, Elaqad said. But “every dollar that we spend to heat, clean and maintain some these buildings is a dollar we’re not using to educate our kids,” she said.
Morgan presented the plan in the auditorium of the Arnold Pinkney East Professional Center to an audience of teachers and staff with a smattering of parents, students and community members. [Editor’s note: Documenter Annie Maglicic documented the live stream of the meeting.] One surprise that elicited an audible gasp from audience members was that the district plans to merge Collinwood and Glenville high schools and construct a new building, which is expected to open in 2031.
Before he launched into the detailed list of mergers, Morgan made the case for why they were necessary. He presented CMSD’s historical enrollment numbers, which show that, in the past 20 years, enrollment has fallen by half, and the distict’s dire financial state, which requires cutting around $150 million over the next three years.
Still, Morgan took an optimistic tone, celebrating that changes would allow all high school students to access college credit classes and career pathways and all elementary school students to access enrichment classes such as Algebra 1 or foreign language. Right now, he said, the district has “pockets of excellence,” but access to a high quality education isn’t even for students across the city. The plan also preserves single-gender and Montessori options.
Morgan also said that the proposal would save the district about $30 million a year and put it on a path to stability, even with a daunting financial forecast and shaky state and federal funding for education. The recommendations are aimed at avoiding budget troubles that can lead to state control, he said.
Most of the savings will come from taking “offline” buildings that are in bad condition. The rest will come from layoffs of administrative staff, though Morgan said the district is exploring ways to keep as many employees as possible.
Cleveland Teachers Union President Shari Obrenski said after the meeting she felt “somewhat comforted” that there are more mergers than closures. “It is just far more traumatic for students and staff when it’s a straight up closure and everybody is just scattered,” she said.
How would the plan change CMSD?
The plan presented would merge schools across the district, creating 45 elementary schools and 14 high schools.
Morgan said some students and staff would leave their current buildings and merge with other schools he called “welcoming schools.” He also said that four specialty schools would have their entire program moved into newer buildings and that 95% of students would be in buildings that are in better condition than their current one. Parents would still have the option to enroll their child in a different school from the one their building merged with.
High school changes
Fourteen high schools currently co-located in buildings would merge into six new high schools. Five other high schools would merge into existing school buildings.
Those include high schools on the current John Hay campus, John Marshall campus, Lincoln-West campus, Lakeside campus, James Ford Rhodes campus and Garrett Morgan campus.
- Collinwood and Glenville high schools would merge into a new high school that will open in 2031 and will have vocational programs similar to Max Hayes on the Near West Side.
- Campus International High School would merge into the John Hay campus and retain its IB program.
- Facing History and New Tech West would roll into James Ford Rhodes High School.
- MC2STEM’s multiple locations would merge into East Tech.
K-8 school changes
Sixteen K-8 schools will merge into other schools. Four schools would move to new buildings.
- Hannah Gibbons would merge into Memorial.
- Euclid Park would merge into East Clark
- Valley View Boys’ Leadership Academy would merge into Kenneth Clement Boys’ Leadership Academy and move to the Mary M. Bethune building.
- Charles A. Mooney would merge into Denison
- Miles would merge into Robert H. Jamison
- Mary Church Terrell would merge into Wilbur Wright and be renamed Wilbur Wright School of the Arts
- Mound would merge into Albert Bushnell Hart, but the Mound building would remain open and house a new specialty school
- Stephanie Tubbs Jones would merge into Franklin D. Roosevelt. The new building will be renamed Stephanie Tubbs Jones
- Mary B. Martin would merge into Wade Park
- Alfred A. Benesch would merge into George Washington Carver
- Bolton would merge into Harvey Rice
- Charles Dickens would merge into Andrew J. Rickoff
- Adlai E. Stevenson would merge into Whitney M. Young Leadership Academy
- Mary M. Bethune would merge into Daniel E. Morgan
- Waverly and Louisa May Alcott would be combined and moved into Joseph M. Gallagher
CMSD schools that will move to new buildings
- The merged Kenneth Clement Boys’ Leadership and Valley View Boys’ Leadership would move into Mary M. Bethune and be renamed Kenneth Clement Boys’ Leadership
- Stonebrook-White Montessori would move into the Stephanie Tubbs Jones building and be renamed Michael R. White Montessori
- Tremont Montessori would move into the Waverly School building and be renamed Waverly Montessori
- Dike School of the Arts would merge into Mound and be renamed Dike School of the Arts
Pre-K
Morgan didn’t go into detail about whether or not pre-K programs will move with existing schools, but he said the district will still offer preschool and is committed to pre-K. He also said that currently preschool is offered at 57 out of 61 elementary schools throughout the district and, under the plan, it would be offered at all but two elementary schools.
Mergers would increase electives and career pathways
Beyond mergers and school moves, the plan will also add academic and vocational programs across the board, including to schools that won’t be touched by mergers. For example, JFK High School will add career pathways in teaching professions and manufacturing operations.
Morgan said school nurses, safety and security officers and guidance counselors will still be available at all schools. At some schools, the district plans to add security.
Morgan also tried to address student and family worries about transportation, which has been inconsistent at times at CMSD. He reiterated the district is “committed to providing safe, reliable transportation” even if many students may now have to travel farther to get to school.
What happens next?
By the end of the week, the district plans to send an email to families about meetings at every school that is transferring or receiving students and staff. It will also begin in-person staff meetings at merging schools.
CMSD’s leadership will also begin meeting with a Cleveland Teachers Union representative for each school that will be impacted. That includes around 3,000 employees, not including administration and central office staff.
The school board has three more scheduled meetings this year – on Nov. 19, Dec. 2 and Dec. 9. To give public comment at a board of education meeting, you must sign up ahead of time online or call 216-838-0032.
An ‘overdue’ plan to reshape the district
Throughout the presentation, Morgan and board members underscored that the plan was a year in the making but that the need for these changes arose after decades of enrollment decline.
Mayor Justin Bibb began hinting more than a year ago that school closures could be coming. In his State of the City speech in March 2024, Bibb said the district was “overdue” for an adjustment and that money should be spent on teachers and programs rather than on aging buildings.
Almost a year later, at a February 2025 town hall on the Southeast Side, the mayor argued that underused school buildings were hampering the district’s educational offerings.
“Right now we got not enough kids and empty buildings. Not enough kids and empty buildings,” Bibb said. “So what does that mean? We have to spread peanut butter, which undermines the level of high-quality options and education we can offer our young people, especially on the East Side.”
He reiterated that message in a brief interview with Signal Cleveland after his election win Tuesday night, saying that CMSD had put off hard choices “for far too long.”
After the meeting started, Bibb put out a video statement online.
