Cleveland schools leader Warren Morgan pushed back on criticism of the district’s school merger plan and touted new opportunities for students at his annual State of the Schools address.
“To the people who said things were better before Building Brighter Futures, I have to ask, better for whom?” Morgan said Thursday from the podium at the Huntington Convention Center. “Are you saying you want to go back to a system where students had less opportunity?”
Last school year, the leadership of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District closed 18 schools across the district as part of an effort to address a $150 million budget gap and falling enrollment. At the time, Morgan said, the district “was spending money it didn’t have on buildings it didn’t need,” keeping it from offering rigorous academic and extracurricular programs at all schools.
In his address, Morgan outlined the new opportunities available to students this year and said they were a result of the district’s Building Brighter Futures plan.
‘The hard part is behind us’
At the high school level, all schools now offer college credit, career training courses and extracurricular sports programs, Morgan said, citing the importance of exposing students to advanced classes.
At the elementary level, all K-8 schools offer enrichment classes beyond the standard set of gym, music and art, according to Morgan. The district is also working to make algebra available to every eighth grader. Double the number of elementary schools have the class this year compared to last, he said.
He used the speech to directly push back on some of the common criticisms of the school closures, including the fear that students would leave the district. He said from last school year to this year, CMSD retained around 86% of its students, on par with a typical year. He also touched on parent and teacher criticism that the district was leaving behind kids with disabilities, saying the district “intentionally protected” services for its “most vulnerable scholars.”
“I’m not going to pretend the changes we made through Building Brighter Futures weren’t painful at times,” he said. “But today is about what we do now that the hard part is behind us and the better part is ahead of us.”
Highest ‘recorded’ graduation rate in CMSD history
Morgan also used the address to celebrate academic gains made by the district, including what he said was the “highest recorded graduation rate in CMSD’s history.” Students in the class of 2026 had an 83.1% graduation rate. That new high will be included on the district’s state report card next year.
Graduation rates had been steadily climbing in Cleveland since 2011 under former CEO Eric Gordon. By 2020, the graduation rate had risen to 81%, up from around 56% in 2011. But after the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to lots of disruption for Cleveland families and significant learning loss for students nationwide, CMSD graduation rates dipped below 80%.
New plans to uplift parent and student voices
Looking ahead, Morgan said, the district has plans to elevate student and parent voices in the coming year.
In his address, Morgan announced the formation of a new “student impact council” with two students from every high school represented. He asked chosen students to stand during the speech to receive blue sashes marking their participation.
The goal of that group is to make sure that student voices are heard at the district level and — hopefully — to enact change based on student feedback. It’s also a leadership development opportunity for the students involved, Morgan said.
“That is a skill that is going to serve them well because leadership is really tough,” Morgan told Signal Cleveland after the speech. “The other thing that’s great about having such a small council is that there’s just things as adults that we just have not thought of.”
Bahati Plamedie, a 10th grader at John F. Kennedy High School, said he learned “out of nowhere” from his principal that he was picked for the committee, and he’s very excited to advocate for his peers.
He told Signal Cleveland that he plans to raise the issue of teachers being transferred away from his school. The district is currently in the process of what is called “fall adjustment” — when it rearranges its teaching staff based on need and student enrollment — and students across the district have been feeling the impact of those changes acutely this year, he said. Students at East Technical High School held a walkout over the issue and Bahati said one teacher who “made JFK, JFK” was recently transferred.
“That can probably ruin somebody’s mental too,” Bahati said about the bonds that get broken when a teacher students rely on leaves. “It’s bigger — those relationships, those social bonds.”
Starting this year, the district also plans to establish parent organizations at every school. Some of those have already started meeting, Morgan told Signal Cleveland, shouting out a recent meeting at East Clark elementary that 18 parents attended.
“Not only do we anticipate that parent organization being an advocacy arm, a parent voice within the school,” Morgan said to reporters after the speech. “It’s also a way that we can share resources, share learning.”
