CMSD's Three Rs
revelry, rapaciousness, ridiculousness
The levy passed with numbers that exceeded Issue 68’s success. Mazel tov to the teachers who get to keep their jobs for a wee bit longer! The mayor, his education chief, his hand-picked CEO, and the CTU president all have reason for joyful celebration, let’s just hope they aren’t going to pay the invoices out of the IDEA Part B funds.
Unfortunately, the celebrations turned sour in the days immediately after the election. You see, the rapaciousness of the CMSD CEO and his Executive Leadership Team knows no limits. There are always more bonuses, COLAs, PD retreats, offices to refurnish, and enrichment opportunities for administrators. Heck, the day before the election, CMSD posted a job opening for a new administrative position at 1111 Superior.
They posted this job opening before the levy passed. They came up with the idea for this job opening in the weeks before the election, when they were telling voters that without the levy, 700 teachers would be laid off. Teachers are not important to Dr. Morgan and the ELT. Having another administrator to put together the slide decks for the CEO presentations at board meetings is really what matters in running a school district. This CEO and his entire team are ridiculous. It’s like someone is secretly making a spoof movie, like Airplane, but about how to run a school district.
Trying on parachutes
Last week I visited two potential schools for my sons. One felt like the perfect fit for us and if I somehow discover a large bucket of money, I will do a mid-year transfer. My wife told me to slow my roll. Sitting in the office and talking to the head of school and the enrollment director gave me the opportunity to talk to people who share so many of my thoughts about education, especially education for boys. I felt at home there. They don’t have a music program at all. They don’t have a lot of things I take for granted in my public school (lunch is included for $600). But they do have intervention specialists and they asked for copies of our IEPs so they could go over them as a team and tell me how they would or would not be able to meet our needs.
The second school has so many things that our amazing public school has and a few things that it does not. It didn’t seem like a perfect fit, but it did offer sports and activities that our amazing public school does not. It also seemed to have a focus on the needs of boys better than public school. I didn’t see any computers during my visit. I really like the idea of that. But I do have a son with Dyslexia and a need for text-to-speech. This is hard.
Once you start talking to other parents about your search for parachutes, they open up about their searches too. Lots of us are looking and what’s crazy is we are all looking for different things. We thought we had found all of those things right there in the public school we had chosen and been lucky to win the lottery for. If the curriculum wasn’t changing, would we stay? If the instructional minutes weren’t being taken away, would we stay? If the bullies were properly dealt with, would we say? If the district leadership had not changed, would we stay? Many of us will stay anyway. Inertia is real.
Anyhoo, the parachute is important, no matter how much we love our teachers and building admin.
Tuition Reimbursement
It struck me while I was reading through all of the grant proposals that had won funding through the original Get More Opportunities fund, that so many of the requests from teachers were for tuition. They wanted tuition to gain more skills for the students in their classrooms. They wanted tuition for credentials. One teacher wanted tuition for sign language classes because the district was failing to provide an interpreter for a Deaf student in her class. Fortunately for them and for their students, Mackenzie Scott donated a bunch of money to CMSD.
Lisa Farmer Cole didn’t need Mackenzie Scott’s money to get her tuition paid. Not real tuition from a school or anything. Tuition for a Cleveland Leadership Center’s program that “empowers senior-level positional leaders with knowledge, skills, and relationships to advance and deepen their community impact.’
Yes, this sounds ridiculous. No, our school district should not be paying for it. And yet…
Look at that date, people who say I never criticize Eric Gordon. It was billed to Lisa at the district while Eric Gordon was still in charge. We got him!
I mean, technically, Eric Gordon’s last day at CMSD CEO was June 30, 2023 and this invoice didn’t get paid out until July 1, 2023, so someone would have to ask Eric Gordon if he signed off on this payment or not. I do not know him, so I can’t ask.
Other CMSD luminaries, such as Stephen Christian, were also in this program and I’ll ask public records if CMSD paid his tuition. Currently, Dr. Morgan is getting himself empowered through this program and I’m sure that a man making over $200,000 in a school district so deeply in the red would be covering his own tuition expenses. Right?
Some Notes
There are still slots available for public comment at the next board meeting. I got a slot to talk about IDEA Part B funds and my wife got a slot to explain more about her instructional minutes research. I encourage all readers of this blog to sign up and show up. Obviously, the CEO and the school board are just going to continue to do the things the mayor wants them to do, regardless of opposition, but it is still important to speak up and make them a little uncomfortable.
When will the mayor select his new Yes Men for the school board? Anyone know the timeline?
Make sure you check out Signal reporter Michael Indriolo’s story about how the levy passed but the cuts are still coming. Rapaciousness requires even more money, which is the title I would have gone with, but Signal didn’t ask me.
Also check out Fox 8’s Ed Gallek report on concerns about CMSD spending. Apparently, there is another watchdog out there and I would love to meet them. Fyi, Ed, Columbus spends a lot less for their top 10 highly paid admins and has at least 10,000 more students. And Indianapolis, where Dr. Morgan was last, spends a whole lot less for their top 10 admin, but has about 10,000 fewer students. There is no justification for CMSD pay. Nobody is coming along to take any of these administrators away from us for more money.
Even though I couldn’t begin to tell you what we are choosing anymore, you should be aware that the school choice portal opens soon. Choose the school with the HMH curriculum for ELA! Oh wait, that’s all of them. Soon to be science and math, too. Choose the school with the extended school day! Oh wait… D’Amico and Voight are going to void that option too.
Speaking of the D’Amico and Voight research into the importance of instructional minutes, CMSD sent out a survey to ask for family input. Which I’m sure they will value as much as they valued the teacher input on the HMH curriculum. Still, please fill it out when you come across the link.
Over at the Publicly Cleveland Conversations group on Facebook, I have been posting contracts for various members of the Executive Leadership Team. Also the mystery contract for Victor Wakefield for Chief of Staff, which was signed and then Wakefield bailed on the job. I suspect it was because he saw the creepy Welcome To Cleveland poster that Kamal Chatman made for him.
One of our anonymous participants shared an article about CMSD’s new Director of College Readiness and the job he recently left behind. CMSD always hires the best, I am told.
As always, thank you for reading this blog and sharing it with others. Each time I get a new subscriber notification, I am both stunned and grateful. Please continue to send me your tidbits of information. I’m happy to make public record requests or do some digging for you.