I think I’ve only been inside the CMSD administrative building once, to register my daughter for kindergarten. I went kicking and screaming into it because I was not ready to send her off to a full day of school. I think I was still trying to bargain with my wife as we rode the elevator up to the registration floor. I remember complaining about having to go downtown to do the registration. It was 2017 and it seemed like something that we should have been able to do online. Perhaps they just wanted to give the taxpayers a taste of the good life at 1111 Superior Avenue. I think I got a parking ticket that day, too. I had parked in those diagonal slots on E 12th and didn’t have quarters.
I haven’t spent much time thinking about that building. I haven’t had to visit it again until recently when my wife had a meeting there. In 2020, when it was time to register the twins for kindergarten it must have been online. I do remember thinking it was nice when I realized that school board meetings, at least, were held at a rotation of schools in the district. It makes the school board seem accessible to everyone. I also recall thinking that when I would see the former CEO, Eric Gordon, in person, he didn’t look like the kind of guy who would work in a building like that. And yet he did. He facilitated moving into that rental in 2013’ish, after selling off a building owned by the district that had housed the central administrative offices.
I was not paying any attention to Cleveland schools in 2013. I don’t know why they did what they did. When I went to look back at news articles from that time, I see a lot of familiar government names that have floated in and out of the city, the county, and even as far as Sandusky. But it was obvious in June of 2022, when faced with signing on for another five years for an expensive rental, Eric Gordon and Mayor Bibb should have said, no thank you. Enrollment was dropping. The tax abatement fervor had kept money from the school district coffers. The federal aid was going to expire. The district was full of needs and had a looming deficit. The last thing they should have done was sign that lease renewal.
We have to talk about that lease
I was given a copy of the Cleveland Metropolitan Schools lease for their central offices in downtown Cleveland from a fierce woman who has taught me a lot about the school district. To say I was stunned when I read it would be an understatement. It’s one of those things that if you aren’t used to looking at commercial real estate documents, it takes your breath away. This kind of lease makes the administration seem so far removed from the people in the district - the people who are paying for this lease.
For this current school year, 2023-2024, CMSD has paid $1,766,830.98 in rent for office space, IT space, and storage. Additionally, they are allotted 180 parking spaces in an attached garage for which they pay $255 per space, per month. That works out to $432,000 this year. As you can see from the document, the rent will increase each of the five years of this agreement.
We are a very poor school district. Yet we are paying The New Guy a $750 dollar monthly car allowance and another $255 for him to park that car. If you are a parent of a high schooler in the district, you have probably already gotten the call about how they just can’t afford give out RTA bus passes willy-nilly anymore. The former CEO knew the school district faced a $157 million dollar deficit for 2026. He still signed a lease on rental office space that will cost us around $2 million dollars a year by 2028. And just like when he ended the Get More panel, The New Guy throws his hands up in the air and says the lease was signed before he got here.
There is a lot of empty space
It can’t be said enough, enrollment has dropped and will continue to drop. The district’s Long Term School Plan from 2019, told us that there is a lot of unused space in newer (post 2002) school buildings. If those buildings aren’t going to be closed and they aren’t going to be filled, why are they not being changed over to office space?
There is no need to have central administration housed together in one expensive building downtown. Departments and offices could be spread throughout the district, in schools. There could be registrar offices in each part of the school district, improving access for families. Administrators would be able to see what the buildings are like, how the staff works, how the scholars behave and learn, without doing photo op drop ins. Every day would be an opportunity to see how the schools work, or don’t work in some cases. At each of the school board meetings I’ve attended, a CMSD staff person has used their three minutes of public comment to plead with Dr. Morgan to come see their schools, unannounced.
A school district that understands its dire financial situation would do this. This school district, this school board and really, this mayor, prefer to further soak a very poor tax base for expensive offices with lake views. Instead of choosing to house administrative offices within existing district owned spaces to save money, the school district has clawed back a charitable donation and attempted to reduce instructional minutes from the school day, while speaking bald faced lies about the reasons for doing both. Last week they patted themselves on the back for their administrative budget sacrifice which yielded less savings than a year of rent 1111 Superior.
Here is another way to look at the expense of renting 1111 Superior. Thís CEO and the mayor’s education chief, in particular, have taken aim at the extended instructional time of the John Hay schools. So, I public record requested the costs for each of the three high performing schools within John Hay. One year of one of the schools’, let’s say Science & Medicine, salaries are around $1,954,108. In 2028 we will be paying more than that for fancy building rent. It doesn’t make any sense. I’d rather pay for high quality teachers than parking spaces. I don’t understand why my school district doesn’t share a similar value.
I’m baffled. Wow. Absolutely wow.
I would fight so hard for this levy if they cut out the pork. All CMSD has to do is announce they’re leaving 1111 as a declaration of intent.