For the first time, Cleveland students have participated in documenting local government meetings. Cleveland Documenters teamed up with Cleveland Metropolitan School District’s Civics 2.0 program to train and support students who virtually attended several Cleveland City Council Public Safety Committee meetings.

The students, Aaliyah Abdul-Basit, Kayden Ferris, Henry Hodge, Elijah McWilliams, Owen Pennington and Chardon Black, followed up on questions they had from the meetings to write stories for the students’ Unsilenced Voices blog. 

CMSD’s Civics 2.0 program was launched by Gayle Gadison, the social studies manager for the district, as a way to create pathways to civic involvement for students. Students participants have worked on public policy and public health issues related to gun violence, learned about systems of government and contributed to Unsilenced Voices with the help of volunteer adviser Conor Morris, Ideastream Public Media’s education reporter. 

Cleveland Documenters trains and pays residents to attend and take notes at public meetings. Documenters have covered nearly 1,000 meetings since the effort launched in 2020 and more than 600 Cleveland area residents have participated. 

Students learned about their rights to attend public meetings and how to summarize the legislation and topics discussed. They covered meetings when City Council members discussed and voted on steeper fines for parents whose children violated curfew, police department staffing, a new county jail, Mayor Justin Bibb’s public safety initiatives and the use of surveillance technology such as license plate readers. Students then followed up to ask public officials questions and each wrote stories. 

Read the students’ latest work:

County officials want to build a new, bigger jail; why?

Recently, there has been talk about building a new Cuyahoga County jail, along with a new location for it.

Councilman Polensek stakes out his position on police staffing and crime

Cleveland City Council’s safety committee has discussed police staffing levels frequently in recent months.

Councilman Michael Polensek, chair of the safety committee, has voiced concerns about the city having fewer police officers than its budgeted. I was curious about the topic.

How city officials say Cleveland Mayor Bibb’s RISE initiative will bolster safety in Cleveland

The Raising Investment in Safety for Everyone Initiative, or RISE, is a policy approach from Mayor Bibb and Cleveland lawmakers, meant to try to suit the safety needs of our community better as the city deals with problems like gun violence.

How Cleveland is trying to fix its police staffing troubles

Recently, Cleveland City Council members have spent a lot of time discussing the number of police officers in the city, and its impact on public safety. As an Unsilenced Voices of CMSD blogger, I was curious about this topic after covering a recent Cleveland City Council safety committee meeting for the Cleveland Documenters.

What does Cleveland use license plate readers for?

During a recent Cleveland City Council safety committee meeting, officials mentioned the city uses license plate reader technology. I reached out to Cleveland’s spokesperson for the Department of Public Safety, Jorge Ramos Pantoja, to ask him about this topic.

What do Clevelanders need to know about the (vacant) public safety inspector general role?

Cleveland City Council’s safety committee has discussed the need to hire an inspector general over police, a position which currently isn’t filled.

While covering those meetings for the Cleveland Documenters, I was curious about this job and what the inspector general will do. Cleveland reportedly hasn’t had a person in that role since 2021.