With building consolidation and budget challenges looming, Cleveland Metropolitan School District CEO Warren Morgan said the district faces a "perfect storm of challenges" in his third annual State of the Schools address Tuesday at the City Club of Cleveland.
Morgan said state and federal funds are declining, with district expenses far outpacing revenue. But he said the district's "Building Brighter Futures" plan is the solution. That plan calls for taking a "significant number of buildings offline" in order to consolidate resources and improve learning conditions at the buildings that remain.
After roughly a year of gathering input, he said decisions on how many and which buildings will be closed or combined will be presented to the board sometime next month.
Morgan said these will be "difficult choices."
"This will raise many emotions at every step of the process," Morgan said. "The easier path would be to do nothing, pacify adult interests over enhancing the experience of our scholars and not accept our financial realities."
But Morgan, now in his third year with the district, argued they will produce what the district and previous leaders have long been chasing; higher quality schools in every neighborhood.
Students missing opportunities at many schools
Morgan teared up as he spoke about a recent graduate named Arreon, who told him she wished her school had more electives, along with college-level and Advanced Placement courses
"Doesn't she and all our scholars deserve a high-quality education and opportunities?" Morgan said. "We have an opportunity to act and make bold decisions on behalf of generations to come."
Morgan said the consolidation plan will allow the district to "level up" its offerings at all buildings.
- Currently, Morgan said 78% of CMSD high schools offer College Credit Plus courses, where students can obtain college credit. He promised 100% of high schools next year will have that access.
- Almost 60% of high schools offer "career pathways" where students can explore future careers. He promised all schools would have those opportunities after consolidation.
- Only 38% of K-8 grade schools offer non-core curriculum options beyond art, music and physical education. He said all of those schools will offer at least one additional offering starting next year, whether that's foreign languages or Algebra 1 in eighth grade.
- 70% of students are in recently renovated or new buildings. He said this metric will take "a few years" to improve.
Finally, Morgan said the district's enrollment has dropped by half over the last two decades. He said that means very few schools have "healthy enrollment," defined as 450 students are more in elementary schools and 500 or more in high schools. Just 11 of 61 elementary schools and three of 27 high schools have the district's preferred enrollment ratios. He said schools with healthy enrollment will have higher quality programs, with at least two teachers per grade level who can collaborate with each other.
"For students, enrollment is so low in some of our schools that there are not enough students to offer extracurricular programs or enrichment," Morgan said. "Imagine if you're a student in a school with a graduating class of 20. That's not enough students to form a competitive sports team or enough students to offer many rich electives."
How will consolidation impact students, staff?
Maurez Pames, a sophomore at the Cleveland School of Architecture and Design, asked Morgan what will happen to staff at his school if it were to be merged with the other two schools on the John Hay High School campus.
“I don’t want anybody getting laid off, especially if they’ve been working there for years,” Pames said.
Morgan said he couldn't guarantee how many staff could be cut if buildings are closed or merged. He said some losses could be done by attrition, people retiring or leaving the system and not being replaced.
"I don't want to make promises," Morgan said. "Actually, through the plan, it won't be making any promises that there won't be people that are impacted. We've been very transparent with school leaders over the last year that this would be impacting them."
Still, he said the majority of the savings in the plan, about $30 million at least annually, will come from cutting back on staffing, one of the district's largest expenses. He said some of that process will be guided by bargaining agreements with staff.
Morgan said facility changes through the plan will go into effect in the 2026-2027 school year.
