Major changes that will transform Cleveland’s public school district — and with it the city’s neighborhoods — are one step closer to happening next school year.
On Tuesday night, school board members unanimously voted for a plan that will substantially shrink the district’s footprint to 59 schools, shuttering 18 buildings in the process. After 39 mergers or moves, the district will have 45 elementary schools and 14 high schools next academic year.
The hope is that the plan will evenly distribute educational opportunities across the district while addressing waning enrollment and pressing financial challenges.
CMSD CEO Warren Morgan first introduced the “Building Brighter Futures” (BBF) plan in early November. Since then parents, teachers, students and community members have voiced concerns about how the plan will be implemented. At a Wednesday morning press conference following Tuesday’s vote, Morgan and Board Chair Sara Elaqad acknowledged that the district needs to closely monitor the execution of the plan over the next few months and years.
“This is just a starting point,” Morgan said. “Just because we’re putting programs in schools will not automatically transform them overnight. We have work to do on the implementation.”
The first steps for that begin this week when the district will start informing some adminstrators and all families about their school assignments for next year. The school choice portal opens Jan. 5. District leaders have also finalized plans for transportation and for what schools will offer pre-K programs. The district also has shared an early draft of next year’s calendar and school start and end times.
Even with those added details, many community members have lingering questions about how the district plans to support its special education students, ensure a smooth roll out of the plan and stem enrollment decline at remaining schools.
The list of school closings is final. Now what happens to administrators and teachers?
Principals for newly merged schools will be named this week, according to Morgan. When Morgan first presented the recommendations last month, principals at merged schools were notified about what might happen to their positions and how seniority would factor into the final decisions about their jobs.
Across the district, 24 principals will be “displaced” from their roles. However, Morgan noted, “a displacement it’s not necessarily a layoff.” Even if a principal is notified they will no longer lead a school next year, there may be a different role available, such as an assistant principal.
After the winter break, assistant principals and other administrators will be named. All other staffing including teachers, paraprofessionals, school nurses, guidance counselors and security will be determined once the district has finalized enrollment at each school for next year. Staff-to-student ratios are outlined in the agreements unions have with the school district.
“Our collective bargaining agreements lay out pretty clearly our staffing models and what takes place with that,” Morgan said at the press conference. “In cases where we need [agreements] to make adjustments, we’re prepared to work with our union partners on that.”
What schools will offer pre-K next year?
CMSD leaders have said they remain committed to offering early childhood education even with the changes to the school district. At the board meeting Tuesday night, Morgan said that next year all but one K-8 school will offer pre-K.
The district’s website shows it will offer 98 preschool classrooms across 44 schools next year. In comparison, in the 2024-2025 school year, it offered 120 pre-K classrooms across 58 schools, according to data shared by PRE4CLE.
CMSD offers three kinds of preschool classrooms: general education classrooms, co-taught classrooms, and pre-K students with disabilities classrooms. Each of these provides a different level of support for students.
While CMSD will offer pre-K at all but one school next year, it will not offer every kind of pre-K classroom at every school next year. Only one school across the district will offer all three classroom types. To view a full list of which schools will offer what kind of preschool classrooms, click here.
How will the district change school schedules to ease the implementation of this plan?
District leaders have acknowledged that the plan includes a lot of change. To promote a smooth transition, they have proposed tweaks to the school calendar next year, including starting a week later and adding an extra professional development day for staff.
The calendar presented at the meeting was a rough draft and could still change before the board votes to finalize it in the coming months.
The district will also adjust the school start and end times at 13 elementary schools and five high schools to accommodate school mergers. To view a full list of proposed start and end time changes, click here.
Who gets transportation next year?
Included in the resolution passed by the board on Tuesday evening was the district’s finalized plan to provide transportation to students impacted by school mergers and closures. Transportation has been a top concern for a lot of families, who worry about traveling farther to get to school next year.
Next year and in the 2027-28 school year, K-8 students will be eligible to take the school bus if they are currently able to take the school bus and if their new school is over a mile from their home. But students who currently, by choice, attend a school that is more than three miles from their home will not receive transportation at their merged school.
Students are also only guaranteed transportation if they choose to go to their assigned new school. If they choose to attend a different school, they won’t receive transportation unless they live within one to three miles from that school.
If students attend a districtwide specialty school, they will receive transportation as long as they live over a mile from the school. The district will also continue to provide transportation to students with transportation-related IEPs.
High school students will still receive transportation via the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority if they live over a mile from their school.
There have been a lot of concerns about special education students. Are there any more details?
Over the last few weeks, educators and parents have voiced concerns about how the district will maintain stability for its most vulnerable students, including English language learners and students with disabilities.
Many of those concerns began to emerge after district leaders confirmed they couldn’t guarantee students with special education needs could join their peers at their assigned welcoming school due to space constraints. For many parents and teachers, that news generated feelings of distrust and frustration, which they repeatedly shared during public comment and at individual school meetings.
“CMSD has long promoted itself as a school of choice, a district where families and educators could select environments that best meet students’ needs.” Kimberly Richardson, teacher at Bolton, who teaches neurologically diverse children, said at the board meeting. “But we must ask ourselves if closures force our students into whatever building has room left. When did families lose that choice?”
The district has not provided a list of what kinds of classrooms can be accommodated at specific schools, but it has said that on Dec. 12 all families — including those with students in single special education classrooms that offer a smaller student-teacher ratio — will receive a letter and email with next year’s school assignments.
During the week of Jan. 12, families of children in single special education classrooms should also expect to receive a phone call from the district about their child’s school choice or placement for next year. To view a full list of next steps the district has laid out, click here.
Will the consolidations mean more students could leave the district?
Beyond special education, how the district plans to stabilize its enrollment over the next few years has been a top-of-mind question for a lot of families and community members. They worry that school closures could lead more families to choose to leave the district entirely. At the board meeting, Morgan acknowledged that birth rates remain low and families have “increased choices” for school. But he said that the district can’t make decisions based on the fear families will leave and he hopes the plan will make the district more competitive in comparison to charter and other schools.
“When we think about all the schools and not enough students, that’s part of the destabilization of our city,” Morgan said. “So the next thing we have to do, in terms of the charge, is not only making sure we have quality schools in every neighborhood, whether you’re a CMSD school or outside of it, but then also making sure we’re managing the choice.”
