CLEVELAND — From the get-go, city leaders warned that Building Brighter Futures, their bold plan to right-size the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, would come with a price.
"I know change is very hard in Cleveland," said Mayor Justin Bibb in rolling out the plan last year. "But our children are suffering as a result of us not having the political courage to make hard decisions about the future of this district."
Kicking the can down the road, he said, resulted in the district facing a $150 million deficit, so the decision was made late last year to close 18 buildings by merging 13 high schools and 16 elementary schools. Last week, though, the other shoe dropped when layoff notices went out to teachers like Laura Stewart.
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"Eight of us got layoff notices, and that's half of our teaching staff," she said.
Stewart works at Hannah Gibbons Elementary in Collinwood, one of the schools being merged. Saying goodbye to a building is one thing; saying goodbye to her students is another.
"I mean, I'm a 4-5 teacher at Hannah Gibbons for ELA and Science, but I did my student teaching in that building, so the current second graders was my first class."
A pain acknowledged Monday by CMSD CEO Dr. Warren Morgan.
"Definitely a grim moment right now," he said, sharing the personal conversations he's had with some of those impacted and their commitment to helping them land on their feet, possibly in other jobs.
"There will be positions that may be in different classifications that people are eligible to return back into the system, so whether that is working with CMSD or working elsewhere. We're navigating through this together," he said.
But Cleveland Teachers Union President Errol Savage told News 5 after the notices went out that there may be 18 fewer buildings, but "there aren't 18 fewer buildings' worth of students. So when these students go to the new buildings, the receiving buildings we would want staff there to greet them," he said.
Morgan said that while enrollment is down 50% over the last 20 years, staffing is only down 31%, and that personnel costs are nearly 80% of the budget. He also says Cleveland schools are behind in key areas that this consolidation will address.
Only 78% of Cleveland high schools currently offer college credit in school, only 59% of high schools offer career pathways, only 38% of elementary schools offer enrichment programs beyond Art, Music and Physical Education, and only 70% of students are in upgraded buildings.
"These are not luxuries; these are things that in many systems, they're the norm," Morgan said. "The promise of Building Brighter Futures is will be able to turn these numbers around (to 100%), and for many of these, it will be turned around in the fall."
Meanwhile, at Hannah Gibbons Elementary, on Monday, folks like Robert Huff were disappointed that his grandson has to move to a new school and may not have a familiar face to greet him there.
"And they gotta get and meet new teachers, yeah, that's going to be real bad and tough on the kids. They're going to miss their teachers and stuff," Huff said.
The board will vote on some of these cuts at Tuesday's 6:30 p.m. board meeting at the Arnold Pinkney East Professional Center.
