I begin this rebuttal with a photo of my daughter having received special recognition from the White House for having been born. All three of my children have these recognitions from President Obama and if I were not such a slacker, I would have put them together in a slide show so that you would know just how important I am. I would have included in my All About Me Important Person slideshow the handwritten note Sen. Sherrod Brown sent to my wife and I when we were finally able to get legally married. I would have also tossed in a photo of myself from 2000 when I was a Herndon Legislative Fellow, just so you really know how important I am and how this is all about me.
In fact, I am going to take a few minutes here to remind you of my backstory, which I am positive I have told a dozen times, but I’m so important, it is worth repeating. I am a mom. From 2017 to the end of the last school year, I had three children in the CMSD schools. I am the president of the Campus International parent committee, which is very glamorous and high profile. I am the chair of the Scholastic Book Fair, which we hold twice a year. I am a dedicated public-school volunteer who deserves an official ID badge to allow me to use the school elevator. I still have to wear the temporary sticker ID badge, every day, in the school, which has my old driver’s license picture on it, and it is hideous. I guess they are trying to keep me humble.
Now, on with my speech.
If you are with the press, I am going to ask you to stay in your roped off section, press badges visible at all times, and only taking B roll video when I am at a good angle and looking very important.
We have come to the moment of Dr. Warren Morgan’s second State of the Schools speech and on the heels of his revelation on The Dish, that he is unaware that we are an open enrollment district, it turns out that he also does not understand how school choice in our district works. It is true that not every high school in our district has a band class, cheerleading and a football team. But if those things are something desired by any 8th grader in Cleveland, they have a choice to select high schools with those activities when the school choice portal opens. The only school in our district that has a wait list from year to year is Campus International K-8, which is not a high school, obviously.
When Dr. Morgan opines wistfully that he wants to see an excellent school in every Cleveland zip code, I can’t help but think he doesn’t realize that even in school districts with a good historical reputation, there are still neighborhood schools that people would prefer not to attend. People in Shaker and CH-UH right now are nodding in the affirmative. The whole reason for the existence of the Cleveland Transformation Alliance is so that all families have access to free, qualified help to guide them through the school choice options. Whatever it is that a family desires for the education of their children, Cleveland already has, and the CTA can help you identify it.
Dr. Morgan laments that only three schools offer Algebra I to their 8th graders. I lament that only three schools have enough students prepared from K to 7th, to be ready for Algebra 1. I lament that not enough Cleveland schools tell their raising 7th graders that they can start taking College Credit Plus classes the summer before 7th grade starts. The students who are ready for more challenging math or any other subject can get it and begin their college careers, which would allow CMSD to focus on getting all of the other kids in those schools proficient in math. My daughter, the one pictured above, took Algebra I as a 10-year-old 7th grader in CMSD. This district has so many amazing possibilities if we just look up from the reflecting pool to see them.
Dr. Morgan rightfully celebrated CMSD achieving 3 Stars on the Ohio Report Card. He doesn’t tell you that the metrics used to calculate those Stars lag for a year. We are celebrating the 3 stars earned in the last year of Gordon’s tenure, if we are going to put the achievement on the desk of the CEO instead of the desks of the students and teachers. I prefer to celebrate the students and teachers. Campus International School benefitted from the test scores of their students and the teachers who educated them from year to year, which earned us 4 Stars.
As to the state of the schools going forward, I’d like to point out that there are still three empty chairs at the school board meeting table. How long is that going to continue? And have we ever had a thoughtful discussion about why we’ve lost five school board members since Dr. Morgan was appointed? Probably not.
I have several public records requests that remain unanswered, some from early August. I think they are pretty important records that would help answer a lot of questions, but I doubt any more will be answered before the November election. We wouldn’t want the citizens of Cleveland to be armed with actual information before voting on the levy/bond issue. I continue to send more record requests because I think we have a right to know how our public dollars are being spent and have been spent in the past.
But it is not just about public dollars being spent. There are apparently issues with enrollment, where students are not fully enrolled and therefore unable to be logged in for the basic assessments of NWEA for the fall. We have children with IEPs in need of correction or IEPs that may have been changed to suit the needs of the school, not the student. These are very serious issues. They predate Dr. Morgan. They go on in school districts all over the country. They are ubiquitous but that doesn’t mean they should be ignored.
This is my why.
EVERY student in CMSD gets one shot at K-12 education. They need to be in safe classrooms with qualified teachers. They deserve it. This school district isn’t just an EdD jobs program. This is about the students. All of them. They need to be taught. They need field trips. They need attention, not photo opps. They need more instructional minutes. They need quality curriculum. They need their legally required IEPs to be followed. They need after school activities. They need to be taught novels. This is about them, not about lake view offices and car allowances. They need to be prepared for their future jobs, and not to be steppingstones for 1111 Superior’s future jobs.
They are the most important people in this school district. They are giving the CEO and his ELT a performance review every time they unenroll and go elsewhere.
Thank you for attending this State of the Schools rebuttal.
I wish that school choice was as simple as you described. Ultimately, School choice = school privilege. There absolutely were a ton of inequities throughout the district prior to Dr Morgan’s arrival. I agree it absolutely is about ALL OF THE STUDENTS. And has been or at least should have been about all of the students.
However when there’s silence after a student is gunned down in front of their high school, or the parents than can either sacrifice to get their children to their school of choice or be forced to attend one of the non star schools closer to home I begin to wonder if we are being honest and fair in critique. After all these things happened on the previous administration watch. If the accolades are Eric Gordon’s to claim then so too should be some if not a majority of the criticism.
I had two students at campus, you used to give them rides. Now one is at John hay and the other at ignatius. Not everyone had a great experience at that school and there’s a lot to be said about how the school administration and the teachers union protected abusive and terrible teachers particularly at that school.
I am very concerned about the budget and spending but not just for now. How far back are your records requests for?
I once worked at a place where we thought the org was good. Now that same org laid me off almost a year ago and last I hear is sunsetting less than 18 months after the new ceo (who has since resigned) was hired. all of this is to say, while Dr. Morgan is a grownup and probably doesn’t need any help from me, I do wonder what shape was CMSD in REALLY when he took over?
That question isn’t an indictment on Eric Gordon either. I’ve gotten to know him professionally over the years and have what I believe is a mutual respect for him.
I just want to know a bigger, more zoomed out picture because it just seems hard to believe that everything fell apart since Dr Morgan got to Cleveland.