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Parents, teachers and community members tell council proposed CMSD calendar cuts would harm students; Newton D. Baker closure criticized
Summary
Parents, a teacher, and community members told Cleveland City Council on March 31 that proposed cuts to Cleveland Metropolitan School District instructional time and the planned closure of Newton D. Baker School would harm student attendance and outcomes.
Parents, teachers and community members used the March 31 public-comment period to press Cleveland City Council and Mayor Justin Bibb to oppose proposed cuts to instructional time in Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) and to challenge the district's plan to close Newton D. Baker School at the end of the year.
Dr. Stacy Stegard, a Collinwood resident and education-policy researcher, told council members she and her wife have three children in CMSD and that extended-school-year and extended-school-day calendars correlate with better attendance and student outcomes. She cited the district's own study and said the district's stated savings from standardizing calendars across schools would amount to roughly $4 million in a $1.9 billion budget — about 0.02% of the district budget — a figure she used to argue that instructional cuts would be a false economy. "Our district is entirely too administratively top heavy," Stegard said, and she urged city leaders to ask the CMSD CEO and the school board to consider alternatives to cutting instructional time.
Christopher Cereal, a CMSD teacher, echoed Stegard's point and referenced House Bill 525 and the Cleveland Transformation Alliance (North Star) framework, arguing that policies meant to allow schools to differentiate should not be undercut by a one-size-fits-all building calendar. "If you ask me to differentiate in my classroom, but then you won't do that for our buildings, is it that differentiation doesn't work?" he said.
A separate public commenter, Chris Malinowski, spoke on behalf of Newton D. Baker parents and staff, saying the school was told two weeks earlier it would be closed "unceremoniously" because of building disrepair and that the district could not find space for the school's 300-plus students and staff. Malinowski criticized what he described as fiscal priorities he sees in city and district spending, noting the district currently spends about $2 million yearly to rent two floors at 1111 Superior and that previous downtown transactions left the board without an asset he labeled prime real estate. "What are our children worth?" he asked the council.
No ordinance, referral, or formal vote on CMSD calendars or on Newton D. Baker was recorded during the March 31 meeting. Councilmembers acknowledged the comments; several members said they would continue to press the administration and the district for answers during the budget process and future meetings.
Speakers on this topic requested that council and the mayor urge CMSD leadership to preserve extended-time programming and to provide clearer plans for displaced students if closures proceed.
