A trip to Greece is back on for a small group of Cleveland Metropolitan School District students at John F. Kennedy and John Adams high schools after an anonymous supporter donated the almost $35,000 they needed to make the trip.
Andrea Dockery-Murray, a teacher at John Adams High School who has been coordinating the trip, confirmed the news Tuesday night during CMSD's Board of Education meeting, thanking the anonymous donor.
"I hate that you're anonymous," she said. "We really want to thank you, but thank you. This is my public thank you to the anonymous donor."
She and Susan Roebuck, a teacher at John F. Kennedy High School, had come to several board meetings recently to seek support for the trip.
"We are so elated that we are leaving and that the financial burden and the stress is now off of the families and that they can participate now on just, 'what should we pack, what do we need? How many euros should we take?'" she said. "So we're so very excited that our journeys across the city, from board meeting to board meeting to this board meeting, did pay off and that the persistence paid off."
Students, families and teachers had sought to crowd fund the trip for a group of 10 CMSD families through a GoFundMe called "Who Says Inner City Students Can’t Travel Abroad," and had raised about $10,000 so far out of a $30,000 goal. They said they had to do that after they did not receive money from the Get More Opportunities fund, a donor-funded program the district cancelled last year amid ongoing budget troubles. That program provided things like professional development for teachers and additional resources for students (like trips abroad) that the district couldn't normally afford.
CMSD has said it will restart that program sometime this year after receiving backlash from city council and others, who argued the district was going back on a promise. The Get More Opportunities program was funded by a $20 million grant from billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. The district said that the money was placed in its general fund from the onset of the grant, and removing it to keep the Get More Opportunities program running would make its budget deficit worse.
Dockery-Murray thanked CMSD CEO Warren Morgan and his administrative team for their help as they navigated ways to find money for the trip. She said the students, joined by some family members and chaperones, will leave for Greece this weekend.
