Cleveland school merger FAQ — from layoffs to class sizes for next year

It’s been five months since the Cleveland Metropolitan School District approved a plan to consolidate 39 schools, with 18 buildings closing for good. 

The plan has kicked off a series of sweeping changes including a steep cut of nearly 400 educators and staff. It also includes some big promises such as additional college credit and enrichment classes in schools that didn’t have them. 

There have been questions and skepticism about the plan and how it would be carried out. As the district works on putting the plan in place, officials have tried to provide updates and address the questions that come up. 

Here is a guide and some updates and frequently asked questions. Lots more questions are sure to bubble up — if you’ve got one, feel free to email me at franziska@signalcleveland.org.

Why were some teachers laid off even when CMSD wants to expand the kinds of classes they teach? 

The layoffs of teachers, classroom aides, school nurses and other staff who belong to the Cleveland Teachers Union are governed by the agreement between the union and CMSD as well as state law. While it is up to the district to decide how many employees are laid off, the district does not decide who gets laid off—that’s mostly up to the union contract. 

That contract helps to explain some of the cuts that seem to be counterintuitive to the district’s goals around things like college readiness and Algebra. 

For example, eliminating all college and career coordinators was not something CMSD was planning on doing, but the union contract required CMSD to lay off all college and career coordinators before it laid off any teachers. 

The contract also outlines a process where the union and district put together a list of positions to be cut based on seniority, how a teacher has scored on evaluations and what subject areas or grade levels they are licensed to teach. 

While the district may not have wanted to lay off Algebra teachers, for example, it could have been that those teachers had less seniority or were given lower evaluation scores and therefore CMSD had to lay them off per the union contract. 

Could some teachers, aides, counselors or nurses get their jobs back? How does that process work? 

Whenever the district lays off teaching staff, there is always a possibility for some teachers or other school staff to be recalled if a position opens that they are qualified for. Positions could open up if additional staff members retire or resign or if CMSD needs teachers to keep up with increased enrollment. 

When a teacher or other CMSD employee gets recalled, they must take the position offered to them—if it is full-time—or be removed from the recall list. The recall list is based on the type of license a teacher holds as well as seniority and evaluation score similar to the layoff list, specialized training is also supposed to be taken into account. 

The district hasn’t done any recalls yet, but it did come to an agreement with the union to bring 60 teachers back as long-term substitutes. 

What will class sizes look like next year?

Next year, with the mergers, CMSD expects each school to have more students, but officials say classes won’t be overcrowded because the district is committed to sticking to the class sizes laid out in the union contract. Those are: 20 students in a pre-K classroom, 25 students for kindergarten to third grade, 28 students for fourth to eighth grade and 30 students at the high school level. 

To be considered a high-quality preschool, schools must also have one adult per every 10 preschoolers in a classroom. The union contract requires every pre-K classroom to have a teacher and an educational aide to hit this standard. 

Currently, CMSD’s class sizes are already, in general, at or below what the contract lays out, according to data analyzed by Signal Cleveland. The average high school class size now is around 17.7 students , and, out of 1,117 K-8 classes district wide, fewer than 10% or 107 classes total exceed the limits. 

CEO Warren Morgan has also said that currently some schools have larger class sizes because there is one teacher per grade. Next year CMSD’s goal is to have a minimum of two teachers per grade at every K-8 school, allowing them to more evenly split up students between classes. That promise is dependent on enrollment at individual schools. 

If the district doesn’t hit its class size goals, the union contract states that they have to reassign students or teachers or provide an educational aide to the class or pay extra to teachers with larger classes. 

Known as an “overage,” the district pays classroom teachers $5 dollars per extra student, per day. So, if a second grade teacher had an extra five students in their class, they would receive $125  a week.

In subjects where students rotate through the classroom like a high school science or math class, CMSD pays teachers an additional dollar per student, per class period, per day. 

District officials are in the process of finalizing class rosters. They told Signal Cleveland they’re confident that they can stick to the contractual ratios. 

There’s also a big unknown: if students will show up to their new schools. Typically, CMSD readjusts staffing every October after it has a complete enrollment picture. This year, with the closures, there’s more uncertainty about what enrollment will look like next year. 

CMSD asked the nearly 4,000 students at closing schools to choose a school for next year, but only around 66% filled out the online portal. The remaining 34% of students were automatically given spots at their merging schools, but the district has no way of predicting whether or not they’ll actually show up in August. 

What about cuts to district administrators? And criticism about high salaries? 

The district employs around 400 administrators who don’t work in school buildings and mostly work in the district’s central office. That includes people who work in departments like special  education or transportation helping to dispatch and route school buses and implement individualized education plans. 

On average, people working in these administrative roles made around $81,000 in the 2025-2026 academic year, according to records requested by Signal Cleveland. There are, however, 86 administrators who make more than $100,000 and seven administrators who make more than $200,000, including the CEO, Warren Morgan, whose salary was nearly $300,000 in the 2025-2026 academic year. 

For comparison, the CTU payroll for the 2025-2026 academic year shows the average salary for union members including teachers, classroom aides, school nurses and psychologists and other staff is around $77,000. There are close to 900 teachers district wide who make around $100,000 because they’ve been working in the district a long time or have advanced degrees.   

In November of 2025, a state auditor found that the CMSD employed more administrators than peer districts—officials have highlighted that their recent layoff of 86 administrators should bring CMSD in line with other districts. 

It’s not clear exactly who from the central office was laid off. The district has denied requests to release some of that information. Of the 86 administrators cut, 35 are principals, assistant principals and deans. The layoffs also included 18 administrators who work in the district’s central office, mainly at lower-level positions paid on average $62,000 a year. 

What is the deal with college credit classes at every high school? 

Right now, not all CMSD high schools offer college-level classes on their campuses—among the biggest goals of the merger plan is to change that. 

Next year, all Cleveland high schools will offer at least one college-level class on campus — mostly through what are known as Advanced Placement (AP) classes. Those classes have a specific curriculum set by a national organization called the College Board. The classes are  geared toward preparing students for AP exams, which are accepted as credit by many colleges and universities if students score well enough on the tests. 

Students can also still take college-level courses online or at Tri-C, Cleveland State University or other partner institutions. 

Even with this change, half of district high schools will only offer a single AP class, and a few schools, like John Hay, will offer eight or more AP classes. There are also some schools, like John Adams College & Career Academy, that are losing an AP class. 

In order to run an AP class, CMSD requires that at least 15 students enroll in the course.  CMSD Chief of Academics Selena Florence told Signal Cleveland CMSD has been preemptively identifying students for AP classes this year to try and hit those enrollment goals. 

Will CMSD still offer honors classes to high schoolers next year? 

At a recent City Club forum, a student raised concerns about  the district no longer offering honors classes next year. That’s because CMSD plans to transition from offering honors classes to some students to offering all students classes intended to prepare them to take college-level or AP classes. 

Next year, CMSD will offer what are known as “pre-AP” classes for three subjects: science, social studies and fine arts. 

There isn’t much of a difference between these classes and honors classes in terms of academic rigor. But unlike honors classes, which don’t have a strict curriculum, pre-AP classes have clear standards that line up with what students will need to know to take AP classes and score well on AP tests. 

Will it offer Algebra to every 8th grader? 

Morgan has underscored that not enough eighth graders are taking Algebra—taking Algebra in the eighth grade puts students on the path to taking calculus in high school, which increases college readiness, he has said.

Next year, the district plans to offer Algebra I at 40% of schools compared to around 11% this year. It will also offer accelerated math to seventh graders at around a third of district schools. The goal with this class is to help students get ready for Algebra. CMSD is also offering summer programming to rising seventh and eighth graders targeted at Algebra readiness. 

Parents and some teachers have questioned whether CMSD can deliver on this goal, considering the layoffs include math teachers – six at the high school or middle school level, according to public documents voted on by the board.

A CMSD spokesperson told Signal Cleveland that the district is firm in its commitment to expand Algebra and plans to give teachers additional training as necessary to transfer teachers as necessary. 

What is the update on added electives at K-8 schools? 

One of the promises made when the merger plan was first presented was that all K-8 schools would have an elective class in addition to the standard set of Art, Music and PE classes offered right now. 

At a board meeting in late March, the district presented their progress on adding electives to K-8, which included the update that next year 49% of K-8 schools plan to offer band, 22% plan to offer choir and 22% will offer ceramics. Next year, some schools could also offer electives beyond these courses such as dance, Spanish or theater.

As the staffing updates have rolled out, some teachers have noted electives cut at their schools.  Schedules and rosters aren’t finalized for next year, so things could still shift, a district spokesperson said. 

Will there still be IB classes next year? 

Students and teachers raised concerns about the future of the International Baccalaureate program at Campus International High School. That’s in part because a number of teachers trained on the specialized curriculum weren’t transferred to the John Hay campus. 

That includes teachers like Patrick Moorman, who teaches English language arts at Campus. He questioned whether John Hay would be able to teach the first two years of the IB program as well as the last two given what staffing looks like right now. 

District officials have said they’re committed to offering both parts of the IB program at John Hay next year and that they have begun offering training to the school’s teachers—many of whom are very enthusiastic about learning IB. 

Still, for some students that guarantee still makes them uneasy. They’ve come to know and appreciate their current teachers and worry about being able to prepare for the final exams that cap off the IB program without them. Moorman estimates it took him around three years to fully feel comfortable teaching IB. 

Who was laid off? Were they all teachers or other positions? 

The bulk of the layoffs—278 out of 410 total positions cut—were CMSD employees represented by the Cleveland Teachers Union. Those positions include 143 teachers in addition to people who work at schools serving children in different ways such as classroom aides, school nurses, counselors and librarians.

College and career coordinators also made up the largest categories in the layoffs because of a line in the union contract that required those positions to be cut first. 

CMSD also laid off 86 administrators — around 35 worked in school buildings as principals, assistant principals and deans. The rest worked in the district’s upper administration. 

The final category includes people who work in positions represented by other unions or who work at will. Those positions include lunch aides, custodians, secretaries and other non-teaching school-based employees. 

In addition to layoffs, many teachers are also being shuffled between schools right now as CMSD tries to figure out staffing. 

What’s happening with libraries next year? 

Currently, CMSD librarians travel between schools because there are not enough for each school to have a full-time library media specialist. Next year, there will be fewer – only 12 for close to 60 schools. 

Even with these constraints, circulation for books and ebooks was going up in part because college and career coordinators staffed school libraries on days where librarians weren’t present. 

In the recent round of layoffs, CMSD laid off all college and career coordinators as well as a number of librarians. That means next year, each school library will only have a librarian once a week. The district is still figuring out what libraries will be used for the remaining four days a week. 

Virginia Weedon, a librarian at four East Side schools, who received a layoff notice, told Signal Cleveland she worries that without consistent staffing kids won’t be able to reap the literacy benefits of library access. 

“We do story time, we read a book, we sing songs, and I incorporate a lot of things that they’re doing in the classroom in my lessons,” Weedon said. “It is like putting vegetables in ice cream, because it’s very fun for the kids.” 

How many guidance counselors will CMSD have? What does a higher case load mean for counselors? 

Next year, CMSD will have 31 guidance counselors total, down from 39 at the beginning of the current school year. In the recent job cuts, five counselors were either reassigned to classroom positions or laid off from the district entirely. That means each counselor could serve up to around 400 students next year compared to the 250 students recommended by the American School Counselor Association. 

School counselors help students with a variety of things, including making sure they have their graduation requirements, sharing transcripts and other paperwork with colleges and offering emotional and mental health support and check-ins.  

Higher caseloads can be overwhelming for counselors because of the breadth of things they’re helping students with, said Lisa Ellis, a guidance counselor at John Marshall High School. CMSD also partners with outside organizations that provide mental health counseling, but those groups can only work with students who have Medicaid plans. 

In the past, college and career coordinators could step up and help with some of those responsibilities, Ellis said, but next year those staff won’t be around to help either. That means less one-on-one time with students and leaves fewer opportunities to work on things like mental health and social and emotional learning. 

Then there’s the added layer that with the cuts counselors are also being shuffled around in the ongoing staffing process. Ellis, for example, is being transferred for the third time in two years. Frequent transfers make it harder to build relationships with students, teachers and administrators all of which isn’t easy to do and essential to their work.