CLEVELAND – After the bell rang, noting end of the day at Giddings School on Cleveland’s near east side, several children swept through the playground apparatus before their trip home.
It is possible the playground equipment will be the only activity at Giddings and six other schools, if the Cleveland Board of Education follows the recommendation of district Interim Chief Executive Officer Peter Raskin and closes the school while laying off 850 workers, 635 of them teachers.
The news swept through Cleveland neighborhoods like an ax blade chopping through wood.
“As a parent, we catch the rough ends of it,” said Patrick Shropshire, whose daughter attends Margaret Ireland School at East 63 and Chester Avenue. “So what are you going to do,” he whispered to himself.
Outside Captain Arthur Roth Elementary School, neighborhood resident Michell Morgan complained the district was already in distress. The plans to balance the Cleveland Metropolitan School District budget and shore up a $47.5 million deficit forecast for next year by closing schools and laying off staff troubled her.
“Leave the schools open and keep the teachers employed because our school systems are going down the drain as it is,” she said.
Wilma Wise-Sweeney, a volunteer tutor for the students at Captain Arthur Roth School understood her job would become even more important were more teachers to leave the system. “If we help the children now, they’ll probably have a better chance when they get wherever they’re going if they close this school,” she said.
A group of students from the school walked through the crosswalk as they left their classes. They exchanged a quick comment with the crosswalk guard and then gathered on the sidewalk, talking about the mood in the school. The students said teachers inside were concerned about their jobs.
“I see what the teaches go through every day and how they put up with us; how they teach us,” said Deremius Morgan, 13, a seventh grader. He said the teachers were always kind to the students as he wondered how the changes proposed by Cleveland schools’ leadership would affect his life.
The students, each carrying a bookbag, said they did not fully understand why the district was proposing the cuts. However, they knew it involved money. Thirteen-year-old students generally do not have a gull grasp of the finances and politics of school system leadership. However, they knew the information coming from the Cleveland Metropolitan School District headquarters was not good.
The people in the community are trying to keep their balance in light of an already-troubled school district trying to balance its budget. A total of $47.5 million, the deficit, maybe hard for parents, students and teachers to understand.
The teaches who are probably poised to lose their jobs no doubt are wondering how they will balance their own budgets which were based on the paychecks they received from the school system.
Parents and students of the seven schools earmarked for closing, if the Cleveland Board of Education approves the recommendations of the Interim CEO are wondering what schools the children will attend if the school do close.
The board of education could vote as soon as April 5 after holding two community forums scheduled for next week. The forums are to get feedback from the community on the proposed cuts. However, one community observer said Cleveland schools leadership already knows what the community feels.
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