We’ve updated this explainer with additional details about the merger plans that were presented at the Nov. 19 and Dec. 2 school board meetings, including information about career pathways at the high school level, what might happen to class rank and how the district is planning for transportation and special education students.
The Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) announced its recommendations for school mergers at its Nov. 5 school board meeting.
The district’s plan will impact nearly half of all students and reshape Cleveland’s public school district. It proposes merging a total of 39 schools, reducing the number of schools by 29. If the board approves the plan, 18 school buildings would close entirely. The district would go from having 61 elementary schools to 45 elementary schools. It would consolidate its 27 high schools, which are currently in 23 separate buildings, into 14 total high schools.
District leaders and the school board say the changes are necessary as enrollment in Cleveland’s public schools has fallen steadily in the last two decades. They also say that right now CMSD can only offer some students a high quality education. With the proposed changes, all students would have access to college credit, career pathways and enrichment classes.
In his presentation, district CEO Warren Morgan said repeatedly that 97% of students impacted would attend a school that has an equal or higher academic rating than their current school and 95% would attend a school with a building in better physical condition.
Signal Cleveland is answering common questions about the district’s plan to consolidate schools. Click on a question to find the answer.
Why is CMSD consolidating schools?
How did CMSD create the proposed plan?
Where do the district’s enrollment goals come from?
How do CMSD’s budget troubles factor into the decisions to merge schools and close school buildings?
CMSD said it wants to merge schools instead of closing them. What’s the difference?
What will happen to students whose schools are merging?
The district said it is adding more academic programs. What are they?
How are career training options at high school changing under the proposed plan?
What happens to teachers and staff? Could there be layoffs?
Will CMSD still offer non-traditional school options?
What will happen to high schools with speciality tracks that are merging?
Some students might have to travel farther to school. How will transportation work?
Why is CMSD consolidating schools?
In the past, district leaders have said closing and consolidating schools is needed to save $150 million by 2028 and rid the district of older, half-empty buildings so the district can focus on better academic and extracurricular options for all students.
Twenty years ago, in 2005, over 70,000 students attended Cleveland’s public schools. Now that number has fallen below 34,000 students. CMSD leaders say that with students spread out in so many big buildings, they can’t offer academic opportunities such as AP classes or career training nor can they offer extracurriculars like afterschool sports or band to everyone. Right now, many of those offerings are uneven across the district. For example, some specialty schools offer a rigorous AP curriculum while some underenrolled schools are unable to offer any college preparatory classes at all.
The district’s hope is that by merging schools and redistributing students and resources, all students will have access to electives, college credit and career pathways while allowing the district to cut spending on older buildings in disrepair.
How did CMSD create the proposed plan?
The district is using enrollment data and building condition data to help make its decisions. At community meetings, CMSD leaders shared whether each school gained or lost students since 2019 and scored every school building’s maintenance needs.
Other factors will also play into the final decisions, including: academic performance and special offerings such as a Montessori curriculum or single-gender schools. CMSD leaders have also underscored that they are paying attention to transportation and school location because they don’t want kids to be stranded with no way to get to school.
Where do the district’s enrollment goals come from?
Morgan has said the district is aiming for every elementary school to have at least 450 students and every high school to have at least 500 students. Currently, 11 out of 61 elementary schools and three out of 27 high schools meet those goals.
Morgan told Signal Cleveland that CMSD hired consultants to help create these goals. At the elementary school level, they’re based on a student-to-teacher ratio of one teacher for 25 students, which is what the district and the Cleveland Teachers Union have agreed on. On the high school side, Morgan said the 500 number is what is necessary to offer college credit and career pathways at every high school.
How do CMSD’s budget troubles factor into the decisions to merge schools and close school buildings?
About two years ago, CMSD leaders started to raise the alarm about the district’s looming budget deficit. At the time, CMSD expected the budget to begin to go negative this year and for that deficit to balloon to $514 million in 2028.
District officials have since pared down administrative staff and cut funding for after-school and summer learning programs. Last year, voters approved a property tax increase for CMSD that brings the district an additional $49 million each year. That helped push the deficit back until 2028.
The district’s precarious finances still require reducing spending by at least $150 million over the next few years to avoid getting into a situation where the state could take control of the district. CMSD estimates that the merger plan will save $30 million a year over the next three years by taking old buildings “offline” and laying off administrative staff.
Morgan and Cleveland Teachers Union officials have said they expect most teacher and staff savings to come from closing unfilled positions as well as an increase in retirements.
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Mayor Justin Bibb and a group of pastors argued their case at a news conference for CMSD’s plans to merge 39 schools.
CMSD said it wants to merge schools instead of closing them. What’s the difference?
Ahead of the announcement, it was widely expected that the district would close some schools and merge others. At his presentation, Morgan explained that CMSD listened to feedback in deciding to opt for mergers. But, for some families, particularly those at schools where the building will close, it doesn’t feel as though there’s a difference between a “merger” and a “closure.”
“They’re trying to make it sound like we’re not closing schools, because, to me, merging is just like we’re going to have our own operations within the same campus. But that’s not what’s happening,” Brandi Baggerman, a parent at Louisa May Alcott, told Signal Cleveland.
CMSD has designed the merging process so that there are two categories: schools that will receive students and staff, which the district is calling “welcoming” schools, and schools that will discontinue instruction after students and staff move to “welcoming” schools. The district is calling those schools where students will have to move “transitioning” schools. The plan calls for 18 school buildings across the city to shutter.
The difference between merger and closure boils down to CMSD’s plan to direct students and staff to a designated school instead of having students and staff scatter across the district. Merged schools will not operate separately within the same building; rather, students and staff will be integrated into the community of the “welcoming” school.
What will happen to students whose schools are merging?
The 5,000 students whose school buildings are closing will be guaranteed spots at the “welcoming” school assigned to them by the district. But they will also have the option to choose a different school using the school choice enrollment portal that will open Jan. 5 and close Feb. 27. [Correction: A previous version of this FAQ listed an incorrect date for the portals opening.] The district will give the students whose buildings are closing priority in the school choice process.
However, in order to receive their guaranteed spot or priority in the school choice process, students must make their decision by the Feb. 27 deadline, CMSD leaders have said.
Will current 9th, 10th, and 11th graders have the chance to finish out their academic or career pathways?
Over the last couple of weeks, students in specialized programs like the International Baccalaureate program at Campus International have asked questions about whether they will be able to finish out their current programs at their merged high school.
CMSD has said that current 10th and 11th graders (or rising 11th and 12th graders) can be assured that they will have all the necessary core classes to graduate and the ability to continue to pursue their current pathways without losing credits.
“Our commitment is to help students finish out,” Morgan said. But since current freshmen aren’t yet committed to a particular track, their high school experience might look different. They would have more options to choose from than the students who came before them.
The district said it is adding more academic programs. What are they?
Throughout his presentation Wednesday night, Morgan said over and over again that the hope is that, with mergers, all students would be able to access more academic and extracurricular opportunities.
At the high school level, all of the remaining 14 high schools would now offer career pathways and college credit under the proposed plan. College credit offerings won’t be entirely even across the district. Some high schools will offer only one or two AP or dual enrollment classes while others, such as the merged John Hay and Campus International school, will offer seven or more college credit classes plus an IB curriculum.
The district also wants to add new types of career training such as training on how to be a teacher to schools on both the East and West Sides of the city. CMSD is also proposing to merge Collinwood and Glenville high schools. For next year, those schools would combine into one school at the Glenville building before moving into a new building set to open in 2031. That school would offer a wide range of trade programs, and Morgan described it as “the Max Hayes” of the East Side. (Max S. Hayes High School on West 65th Street offers training in building and construction trades and manufacturing and automotive technology.)
Schools that aren’t merging would also offer more options for students. For example, the district is proposing to add training in software development and cosmetology to John Adams High School. After the mergers, all schools will offer some extracurricular sports.
At the elementary school level, all 45 schools would have enrichment programs beyond art, music and physical education. They would also have career and technical education courses for the middle grades at every single K-8 school — allowing middle schoolers to explore their interests before they decide on a high school.
How are career training options at high school changing under the proposed plan?
Currently, according to the state, 35.7% of Cleveland students who graduated in 2024 were considered college and career ready. A big focus of the merger plan is adding college courses to every high school and increasing the career pathway options for students.
That also means amending the current offerings at a number of high schools because certain pathways don’t give students a full set of skills or are not recognized by the state as career pathways.
“Currently, right now we don’t offer college and career readiness at scale. We don’t offer complete pathways. We’re calling things pathways that are not complete pathways,” Morgan said.
This means that some programs, like the criminal justice pathway at Glenville High School, may be switched out for other programs. Some teachers have raised concerns about this.
“Rather than eliminate the criminal justice pathway, I ask that you invest in it, support its continued improvement and honor the convictions and promises that were made to the community after the 2020 merger,” Belinda Coats, who leads the program at Glenville, said at public comment at the Dec. 2 board meeting. In 2019, Martin Luther King High School merged with Glenville, bringing the criminal justice program with it.
What happens to teachers and staff? Could there be layoffs?
CMSD leaders have said they’re trying to maintain as many employees as possible, but some administrators will be laid off.
Right now, the staffing for teaching positions is unclear because the district doesn’t know what enrollment will look like at individual school buildings until students have finished choosing their schools for next year.
“The sooner we know the enrollment in a building, the sooner we know the budget, the sooner we can determine staff,” Morgan explained. Between attrition and not filling vacant job openings the district hopes it won’t have to lay off staff, but it won’t know for sure until enrollment is settled.
Will CMSD still offer non-traditional school options?
All of the district’s non-traditional options will remain next school year. Those include schools like Natividad Pagan International Newcomers Academy, the remote schools and the School of One.
Morgan has hinted at potential changes to some of these programs further down the road. He said the district might explore how they could save money on these programs in their annual budgeting process and wants CMSD to “study the programs a bit more” to understand their impact and why families are choosing them.
What will happen to high schools with speciality tracks that are merging?
Currently, there are six high school buildings that hold 14 different career-themed schools. Many have distinctly different themes, including the Cleveland School of Science and Medicine, the Cleveland School of Architecture and Design and Cleveland Early College High School.
Next year, with the proposed plan, all of those schools would be merged into six high schools. Students at those schools would have the option to enroll in any of the college classes or electives offered.
What happens to class rank?
Another common question that has bubbled up from students in the past few weeks is what happens to their class rank at merged high schools.
“John Hay students have had honors and AP classes provided to them in all years of high school, which adds to their cumulative GPA. Campus International students only have recognized honors courses in the last two years of high school,” Marilia Tsirikos Karapanos, a junior at Campus International, said at the Dec. 2 board meeting. With the merger would class rank from all three John Hay and Campus combine? It wouldn’t be fair to rank students this way.”
Morgan said that CMSD hasn’t yet figured out how class rank will work but they want to try to acknowledge where students were ranked before the merger as well as after the merger. The state also has an approval process for class rank that is used for things like guaranteed admission at public universities and scholarships.
Some students might have to travel farther to school. How will transportation work?
Since the plan was announced parents and students have shared concerns about traveling further to school. CMSD leaders have said that even with the school mergers most elementary students would still live, on average, 0.78 miles from the nearest school.
CMSD will continue to provide transportation for K-8 students for the next two school years as long as they currently qualify for transportation and live over a mile from their welcoming school.
After 2028, the district will resume its regular transportation policy, where K-8 students can take the school bus only if they live over a one to three miles from their school or attend a specialty school.
In order to qualify for transportation, students must accept their spot at their welcoming school otherwise the district’s standard transportation policy applies.
What happens to pre-K?
Right now, CMSD offers pre-K at all but four elementary schools, Morgan said. Next year, the district hopes to offer preschool at all but two elementary schools, but the number of seats available will vary based on enrollment.
“We’re looking at the class size and space, and also the enrollment, so it’s nuanced, ” Morgan told Signal Cleveland. “The number of classrooms will be determined based on enrollment.”
Lots of parents and teachers have voiced concerns about the plan for special education students. What has the district shared so far?
District officials have said they can’t guarantee that students who receive special education services will be able to join their classmates at their assigned welcoming schools next year.
The idea that special education students might have to make alternative school choices for next year was first communicated to families in a Nov. 12 form letter which sparked concern among parents and teachers.
At the Dec. 2 meeting, Morgan explained that, right now, CMSD serves special education students in a variety of different educational settings. Some students are in general education classrooms but receive support from an aid in class. Other students might be in a smaller classroom setting with one-on-one support from a teacher or paraprofessional.
These different classrooms need different amounts of space, so while CMSD would offer them at multiple schools next year it would be unable to offer them at all schools. Morgan also said that the merger plan is intended to limit the number of times a student has to transition schools. Right now, students sometimes have to change schools to access certain kinds of special education services. CMSD’s goal is that mergers limit those transitions in the future.
There won’t be a meeting for special education families before the board votes on Dec. 9 but families should expect to receive information about their school options for next year in December.
What will happen to the 18 empty schools?
People throughout Cleveland are also already thinking about the impacts of an empty school building in their neighborhood. As of last year, CMSD had 21 properties that were once schools, some of which are in the process of redevelopment and others that are currently vacant lots.
If CMSD wants to sell any of the 18 buildings, it will have to follow the guidelines set out in Ohio law — including offering the building to a charter school before other potential buyers. If after 60 days no charter schools want to buy or lease the building, then the district can hold a public auction or, in a few cases, sell the building privately.
Mayor Justin Bibb said the city is working on a broader community development strategy for the 18 buildings. They didn’t touch on the possibility that charter schools could pop up in empty buildings and attract CMSD students.
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What are the next steps?
The district said it would start having in-person family and staff meetings at every school that is transferring or receiving students and staff. Under the contract CMSD has with the Cleveland Teachers Union, district leadership also has to meet with a CTU representative for each impacted school.
Appointed members of the board of education will vote on Morgan’s recommendations. That vote is expected to happen at the Dec. 9 meeting, according to Board Chair Sara Elaqad. The board can also ask the district to change the plan before voting on it. Elaqad previously said she does not expect major changes.
At all three of the school board meetings scheduled before the end of the year – on Nov. 19, Dec. 2 and Dec. 9 – the board has added extended opportunities for public comment. To give public comment at a board of education meeting, you must sign up ahead of time online or call 216-838-0032.
If the board approves the district’s recommendations, preparation will begin for the full plan to go into effect in the 2026-2027 school year. The district will name principals and assistant principals as soon as possible and work on teacher staffing after student enrollment is set.