Cleveland proposes consolidating, closing schools to address ‘dire financial state’

The Cleveland school board will vote next month on a plan to merge 39 schools and close 18 buildings – affecting an estimated 16,000 students, Signal Cleveland reported.

“Every dollar that we spend to heat, clean and maintain some (of) these buildings is a dollar we’re not using to educate our kids,” Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) Board Chair Sara Elaqad told the outlet.

District CEO Warren Morgan unveiled more details of the plan, including which schools would be merged, in a Nov. 5 meeting at the Arnold Pinkney East Professional Center. 

“He presented CMSD’s historical enrollment numbers, which show that, in the past 20 years, enrollment has fallen by half, and the district’s dire financial state, which requires cutting around $150 million over the next three years,” the outlet noted. 

“Morgan also said that the proposal would save the district about $30 million a year and put it on a path to stability, even with a daunting financial forecast and shaky state and federal funding for education.” 

The plan has been at least “a year in the making,” with Mayor Justin Bibb previously urging the district to streamline operations after “decades of enrollment decline,” journalists observed. 

“Right now we got not enough kids and empty buildings. Not enough kids and empty buildings,” Bibb said at a town hall meeting in February. “So what does that mean? We have to spread peanut butter, which undermines the level of high-quality options and education we can offer our young people, especially on the East Side.”  

The district currently enrolls more than 35,000 students across 100 buildings. 

Its board has expanded “opportunities for public comment” to three remaining meetings this year – Nov. 19, Dec. 2 and Dec. 9, according to the article. 

Educational alternatives ‘just skyrocketed this year’ 

Other districts in Ohio are also facing lower state and federal funding projections, budget shortfalls and falling student enrollment. In one example, Akron Public Schools estimated it would exhaust all cash reserves by 2028 without substantial operational changes. 

“It costs about $114 per day to educate a student — with 77% of that money coming from a variety of non-resident tax revenue streams,” wrote Andrew Keiper for Signal Akron. “In 2021, it cost less than $90 per day to educate a student.” 

The rising expenses coincide with an estimated 1% of the overall student population – about 200 individuals – withdrawing each year, according to Keiper. 

“Some students leave for voucher schools; others attend other public school districts through open enrollment; some families move out of the district.” 

Homeschooling is another popular educational alternative, with the number of state homeschool students reaching 53,051 in the 2023-24 academic year. 

This surpassed the previous COVID-19 pandemic high of 51,502 students. 

“Homeschooling was already on a slightly slower upward trajectory, and had been for a number of years,” said Douglas J. Pietersma, research associate at the National Home Education Research Institute. “What COVID did, from our perspective, is just infused it.”