After working for roughly four months with three vacancies on the Cleveland Metropolitan School District Board of Education, the board is once again at full capacity, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb announced Tuesday.
The board members replace former Vice Chair Leah Hudnall and longtime board members Denise Link and Robert Heard. According to a Tuesday release from the mayor's office, they are:
- Caroline Peak, who recently retired as a public service manager at Cleveland Public Library. She's volunteered on multiple district-related committees, including the Bond Accountability Commission.
- Jerry Terrell Billups, juvenile detention alternative coordinator at Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court. He has served as a wrestling coach in the distritc. The release says he spends time "connecting youth to the services they need and cultivating relationships with community partners" in his role at the Juvenile Court.
- Ivory Jones III, pastor at Grace Missionary Baptist Church in Cleveland's Mt. Pleasant neighborhood. He's active in several clergy organizations, according to the release, along with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the NAACP.
All three board members either currently have or had children attending CMSD schools.
CMSD is a rarity in Ohio in that it has an unelected school board. Candidates are either nominated or nominate themselves, and their applications are reviewed by a volunteer nominating panel Then, the mayor makes the final determination.
The school board is facing challenging decisions, including the need to cut its budget; the district's latest budget forecast showed it's quickly running out of money despite voters approving a levy this November.
