During a press conference Tuesday, Cleveland Metropolitan School District CEO Warren Morgan said a new long-term facilities plan would result in more extracurricular opportunities and high-quality course offerings at all district schools.
But Morgan's announcement of the "Building Brighter Futures" plan came during the same press conference where he said the district needs to make major cuts over the next three years, $150 million or higher depending on state and federal budget cuts.
Morgan said the improvements coming from the facilities plan would be funded by "scaling our operations."
Does that mean closing schools?
"It could be," Morgan responded. "It could be school closures, it could be school consolidations, it could be programs moving, all of the above."
Morgan said the main way to increase funding for schools is for enrollment to increase. And the district's enrollment has declined significantly over the last four decades.
"Scaling schools means increasing the enrollment in order to offer more, and so the only way you can increase the enrollment, and based on the enrollment data we've seen, is through that (consolidations), because our enrollment data has shown birth rates are significantly down," he said. "And I say that because I think the immediate thing people will want to say when enrollment is down is that, 'let's put a ton of money into marketing and go get kids back.' Our data has shown that our market share, the kids that are choosing CMSD, has been consistent over the past five years. And yes, there are students that are leaving the system, some that are going into private or charters.
"But that is not the main thing we're seeing as a driver in the decrease of enrollment. The main driver is birth rates are down. It's not only in our city, it's across the country. And so we need to have the right operations to manage that," he added."
For years, CMSD has budgeted money on a per-student basis through a financial model called "school-based budgeting," Morgan said. He said that perpetuates a cycle where schools with higher enrollment receive more resources that improve academic conditions, while lower-enrolled schools receive less.
"There were some commitments we made to schools, that every school would have a principal, every school would have an AP (assistant principal) every school would offer PE (physical education), music, and art," Morgan said. "So this was something, even prior to me, there was a commitment that was made. And when you have a building, some that are under 200 that are enrolled, that's a really expensive operation. You're not able to offer anything above that. And you're not even able to give teachers their appropriate planning time, just because you don't have enough staff."
The ultimate goal remains
Morgan cautioned that the specifics of the "Building Brighter Futures" plan are not set in stone yet. The district is hosting meetings throughout the month of April to gather public input on how it should approach the future of its school buildings.
The ultimate goal will remain the same though, Morgan said: high-quality academic, extracurricular and job-training offerings at every school building across the city. He's called for the following improvements as part of the plan:
- Putting "high-quality" math and English curricula in every school building. The school district already has what it argues is a high-quality English curriculum in place at all school buildings, the first time it's ever had a universal English curriculum, although some have challenged its effectiveness.
- Adding access to Algebra 1 as well as foreign language and "physical science" classes in every kindergarten-through-eighth grade building. Those would count toward high-school credits.
- Increasing the number of art, music and computer science classes at each school, as well as additional athletics and extracurricular opportunities.
- Increasing access to job-training programs and internships.
Morgan said he hopes people will help the district come up with ways to achieve those positive things for schools.
"It's a matter of moving the resources around," he said. "And so we'll learn a lot about ways that we could do that. People may have creative ideas of how we can still offer that same experience with many different models, and we're open to hearing that."
The district administration will present the plan to the board of education for approval after the public input is gathered. The plan would not go into effect until the 2026-2027 school year, Morgan said.
What about layoffs, neighborhood vitality?
The main expense at any school district is people, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, a government agency that compiles school data. What will happen to staff who work at a school building that will be closed or combined with another school building?
Morgan said that remains to be seen. He said the district isn't calling for any layoffs, currently.
"The idea is that if you create a school that actually has more kids, you're gonna need the staff to follow it. These programs where we're talking about kids getting more, we need the teachers to teach these programs or the expansions of pathways," he said.
The district is facing steep budget challenges, however. The district's last five-year forecast, approved by the board shortly after voters approved a levy in November 2024, shows the district deeply in the red by the end of the 2027-2028 school year. The district also has a significant amount of deferred maintenance needed in buildings, even after dozens of renovations and new construction that spanned the last two decades.
On the flip side, some residents argue there's serious harm caused when the only school building in a neighborhood is closed. Collinwood High School was almost closed by the previous CMSD administration, but public outcry saved it, at least temporarily. Still, the building only had 260 students enrolled as of the end of the 2023-2024 school year, just 13% of its 2,000 seats available. The district has almost 30 schools that are at 60% capacity or less, according to data analyzed by Ideastream Public Media.
Morgan said the district's data shows families are sending their children across the city, even far distances, to allow them to attend the school they feel is the best fit, hearkening back to the Cleveland Plan model, which calls for a mix of different school options throughout the city. But he said that also means improvements need to be made at schools that remain after consolidation to ensure students want to attend.
"I believe that if a family wants to send their kid across town to a school, great. But I also don't want it to be that that is the only opportunity that they have, that they can actually get that program in their neighborhood," he said.
The location and times of the public meetings on CMSD's Building Brighter Futures plan can be found on the district's website.
