Core Values

Perfidy and Betrayal

This photo is from a classroom I get to use for our CIS+ afterschool program. I read to little kids in this room somedays and on others we color and talk about all kinds of things. The chairs are awkward to take down and put back up and I know I probably don’t do it as well as the daytime teacher deserves. I try to get better at it each day. I found myself lecturing a student who wasn’t being respectful of the environment by telling him that the teacher had to raise funds for those chair organizers. Knowing what we know now, Macenzie Scott would have been better off paying off every Donor’s Choose project in CMSD than having Dr. Morgan and his secretary re-imagine the program.

Making sure that our after-school students follow the same essential agreements expected of them during the day at Campus International School, is a core value of what we are trying to do with CIS+. We spent the first two weeks of the school year teaching them what was expected. We have spent the past two weeks trying and sometimes failing to upkeep the expectations. It is not easy and we’re only doing it two hours a day.

I am told that Dr. Morgan and his ELT spent a lot of time trying to come up with core values for CMSD, which likely would have been easier for him had he ever familiarized himself with The Cleveland Plan. Oh well, he did say he was a listen and learn guy, not a read and learn guy or even a listen to people who know what they are doing guy. So far as I can tell, the core values of Dr. Morgan’s school district (it no longer feels like my school district) are perfidy, vanity, greed, gluttony, and envy. Although I will also entertain arguments that they are just typical education bureaucrats and aren’t putting as much thought into what they are doing.

This is Dr. Morgan and his Executive Leadership Team.

Last September while Dr. Morgan and his executive assistant were traveling to Florida together to watch a football game, CMSD received their school report card info and it was kind of spectacular. But you didn’t get to hear about it. Decisions were made to focus on Listening & Learning instead of letting families know that we were definitely back on track post-Covid. I suppose we could imagine why that decision was made by this vainglorious man and directed from the Mayor’s office by Michelle Pomerantz. No need for me to spell it out for you.

This September is a true celebration of all that Dr. Morgan and Mayor Bibb have achieved. Dr. Morgan sent out an email touting CMSD’s first ever 3 Star rating. Clearly, his snake oil had worked. Or had it? Dr. Morgan didn’t really get to Cleveland until August last year, after curriculum and plans were set. The only thing he did upon arrival was slash principal’s building budgets and spend money at 1111 Superior. Those 3 Stars are the culmination of years of slow, steady progress of the Cleveland Plan, Eric Gordon, the principals, the teachers and thirteen years of students being valued.

On Facebook, Candice Grose spread the good news, but curiously did so without allowing comments. She initially allowed comments on the CMSD Instagram feed, so I left a positive one.

I was positive, encouraging, congratulatory, and a real team player there. Someone even “liked” my comment. But about an hour later, Candice deleted my comment and shut off comments for Instagram. Attention Andrew Roman: you need to sit her down and have a legal words talk with her.

So then I went over to LinkedIn, where Candice, Selena Florence, and even Kitty Arnold have blocked me, but not on the official CMSD page. I left another encouraging comment.

Spending as a core value

I received more public records this week. I had asked for records about any swag given out at last year’s State of the Schools speech. That’s the one where Dr. Morgan spent over $11,000 of taxpayer dollars to buy tickets for the speech, thus ensuring the most softball of questions during the Q&A. Turns out he also felt the need to provide gifts to his guests, so he put in a rush order for engraved glass paperweights. I have yet to see what they look like, but I’ve taken to calling them Paperweights for the Lightweight. He spent over $12,000 taxpayer dollars on them. He also rented teleprompters for $2,500. That brings us to over $26,000 taxpayer dollars for one speech.

I had so many teachers contact me about the colossal clusterfudge at the IX-Center that I was compelled to make public records requests about how much we spent on the last-minute decision to force 2,000 teachers to drive to the IX-Center to learn all about the new ELA curriculum from HMH. CMSD even flew in trainers from HMH to lead the PD. Those trainers spun a very positive tale on their LinkedIn accounts, which many of the tortured teachers found hysterical. Parking was a nightmare. Getting in and out was a nightmare. The food situation was a nightmare. The lack of drinking water was a nightmare. The actual curriculum is a nightmare. The internet at the IX-Center was incapable of handling the needs of the PD program. It was awful. But on the bright side, it was also incredibly expensive and Dr. Morgan is all about spending money for terrible things.

When I put these invoices up on the Publicly Cleveland Conversations Facebook group, one commenter remarked, “wait, you guys got handouts?” To which someone replied yes, but they had to share it with the person next to them.

Betrayal as a core value

My wife taught special education for over 20 years. She fought so many battles against her school district and reported their infractions to the state multiple times. We have twins with IEPs and we know how to advocate for them. We have started a special education advocacy non-profit because too many families need help but cannot afford pricey advocates and attorneys. Eventually, we hope to have an advocacy army to hold school districts accountable to the children they are supposed to serve.

For as many tips and tidbits I have received about obscene spending, the crappy new curriculum, failures of Network Leaders, abusive principals, nothing kills me more than when teachers and paraprofessionals tell me about what is happening in special education at the direction of 1111Superior. I am told that students are not receiving their legally required IEP services in lots of buildings for a host of reasons. To make enrollment numbers work, IEPs are being illegally changed and/or change of placements are happening without following the law. Paraprofessionals are being moved around even though they leave behind students with their services explicitly written into their IEPs. Staff cuts that you don’t hear about are creating havoc with special education services. Now, I’ll be kind and just assume that with his attitude toward “speds” Dr. Morgan just doesn’t care what happens to these students instead of assuming that he wants to break the law, is knowingly breaking the law, and is knowingly violating civil rights.

I hate that there isn’t much I can do for the people who are asking me for help or describing what is happening. This is despicable. But because there are no test scores to crow about on his resume, Dr. Morgan is unlikely to change. Because of the laws protecting these students, ironically, I am unable to help them and it is very likely that their parents don’t even know what is happening to their children. This makes me sick.

Deceit as a core value

Dr. Morgan continues to boast that he and the staff at 1111 Superior have, so far, taken the brunt of cuts due to the huge budget deficit that is sometimes looming and sometimes back in the black, depending on the day. However, I have been hearing that while the school buildings (where the most important function of a school district happens) started the year with projected budgets, over the past few weeks, principals have been told that their budgets just can’t be as large as they had expected. Dr. Morgan did this last year, too, when my school didn’t have paper for several weeks.

I made a public records request of the school building budgets for 2025, 2024, 2023, and 2022. Guess what? Dr. Morgan hasn’t been truthful. At one school, Dr. Morgan swiped $356,493.46 from their budget last year. At another he swiped $715,445.12 from their 2024 budget. At Campus, our 2024 budget was reduced by over $525,000 last year. I’m hearing from all over the district that it is happening again. This means cutting teachers. This means cutting lots of things. I’m just now going through the numbers, so I’m sure I’ll have more to report at another time.

Gluttony as a core value

Remember when we passed that levy during Covid and it was supposed to supply Cleveland schoolchildren with 1:1 tech in perpetuity? Well, it doesn’t. And when those kids break their iPad charging cords or crack a screen on their Chromebooks, the school district will order new tech supplies for them. But the payment for the supplies will come out of those freshly cut school building budgets. But Dr. Trent Mosely, yeah, taxpayer will foot the bill for his Apple watch charging station. That’s absolutely what the voters intended when they passed that levy.

Dr. Morgan and his ELT have no positive core values. They do not care about this school district or the children they are supposed to serve. Morgan cloaks himself in religious vocabulary (servant leader) but that is insulting to anyone paying attention to his actions instead of his words. He is untrustworthy. His team is untrustworthy. They are telling staff that instructional minutes will be cut next year regardless of the levy passing. They aren’t telling you that when they knock on your door, with smiling faces, claiming credit for the hard work of others.

Wow

There are now 236 subscribers to this blog. Thank to everyone who has shared it. I really appreciate it. I also appreciate all of the people I have gotten to meet and talk with because of this blog. Over on Facebook, there are now 450 members of the Publicly Cleveland Conversations group. Misery loves company, I guess. Hopefully it’s more than just misery for most. I hope this is useful. And to everyone who says “sorry for venting” to me, know that I’m here for that, too. Not every tip is actionable but sometimes it helps to let it out.