Cleveland Municipal School District offers update on building plans

(Plain Press, May 2008) Representatives of the Cleveland Municipals School District offered an update on the school system’s Master Facility Plan at an April 10th meeting at Lincoln West High School. Since the passage of Issue 14, in May of 2001 when voters decided to support the rebuilding plan with funds matched 2 to 1 by the State of Ohio, the Cleveland Municipal School System has lost over 20,000 students. Projections according to a district spokesperson predict the district will only have 42,000 students seven years from now.

David Riley, speaking for the school district before about forty people in attendance at Lincoln West High School, said that the district hopes to challenge some of the enrollment projections made by a demographer hired by the State of Ohio. He said currently the projections say the district will have only 8,900 high school students in grades nine through twelve in 2015. Riley says the district now has 4,400 students in kindergarten. The district disagrees with the state’s projection. Riley says the district’s contention is the state should allow the district to build high schools to accommodate class sizes based on the amount of students entering kindergarten times four grades. (Four times 4,400 would mean building or rehabbing high schools to accommodate 17,600 students.)

The school district’s plans call for completing the elementary school building program first, and postponing the construction of the high schools while it increases its student population and convinces the state that more space is needed. The district says funding is not currently adequate to fund the high school construction and rehab at the present time. The plan calls for the district to ask voters to extend the bond issue to provide those funds.

Riley says current plans call for rebuilding the 800-student Max Hayes High School at a new site. He mentioned W. 65th and Walworth as one possible site. He says once Max Hayes moves to its new location, the school can be used to house John Marshall students while the school is rebuilt or rehabbed. He said the school system hopes to build a new school at John Marshall, but some questions remain because the current building is a historic structure.

Riley offered an update on plans for the new Thomas Jefferson K -8 School, which will house 785 students at 3145 W. 46th Street. He noted some additional properties have been acquired for the site where a new school will be built. The demolition of the old school is underway. He said the district hopes to complete the new school by 2010.

Riley said a major challenge on the West Side was swing space (space used to house students while their school is being rehabbed or rebuilt) during construction. He said when Buhrer school (off of Scranton) is complete, Buhrer students now housed in Kentucky School (W. 38th near Franklin) will move from there --freeing up that school for use as swing space. Also, Halle School (between W. 82nd and W. 73rd on Halle Avenue) will be freed up as swing space when Artemas Ward, now housed at Halle, moves into its new school.

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