Cleveland Municipal School District seeks input
on plans for West Side high schools
by Chuck Hoven

(Plain Press, June 2008) The Cleveland Municipal School District is currently in the process of updating its Master Facilities Plan and is seeking input from the public on how best to move forward. Several options are being considered for West Side High Schools. Public meetings were held at four locations in late May and the Master Facility Plan Working Group of the Board of Education plans to meet in early June to make recommendations to the full Board of Education. The Board hopes to have a revised facilities plan to present to the State of Ohio by July. The plans will have far reaching impact on West Side neighborhoods.

The Cleveland Municipal School District’s staff proposes that a new 800-student high school and an adult education facility be built for Max Hayes at W. 65th and Walworth at the site purchased by the district for the West Side Alternative High School. They propose that the Max Hayes High School be included in Segment 5 of their construction plan which means construction would begin between 2008 and 2010.

NEWS ANALYSIS

Also in Segment 5, the district proposes to build a new 1,400-student John Marshall High School on the site of the stadium at John Marshall. This plan calls for the current John Marshall High School to remain open. Since the current school houses more students than the new John Marshall will hold, it will remain open after the new school is built while the school district builds the alternative high school.

The district proposes that the alternative High School, designed to relieve overcrowding at Marshall, Rhodes and Lincoln West High Schools, be built in Segment 9. Construction would start between 2012 and 2014. West Side Councilman, concerned about overcrowding in the high schools, have urged moving up that date. The district’s proposed plan calls for the new high school to be built on W. 45th and Detroit on the site of the current Max Hayes High School. Acknowledging that the site is not ideal for building a new high school because of its limited size, the district is open to suggestions of other sites.

Sites of the ideal size needed for a high school are limited on the West Side. As proposed previously in the pages of the Plain Press, perhaps the best site for an alternative high school to replace West Tech would be W. 65th and Lorain Avenue at the site of the current Zone recreation center. The suggestion would be for the school district to join with the City of Cleveland be to build a combination state of the art Cleveland Recreation Center and High School.

The W. 65th and Lorain Avenue location has many advantages. It is centrally located in the area once served by West Tech and has excellent RTA access (both bus and rapid.). The combination of a city recreation center and a high school would allow for shared maintenance and operating costs with the city of Cleveland.  The closeness of the facility to the new Max Hayes High School would allow sharing of the gyms and pool by both schools. A city recreation center at the site would allow the city to help keep the new facility open in evenings and summers for community use. The combination of city and school district resources should allow for a high quality facility. The city’s ownership of the site and partnership with the school system would allow the construction to go forward without expensive land acquisition and land clean-up costs.

To offer input on the Facility Plan residents can call the CMSD Facilities Hotline at 574-8413 or fill out a Talk to the CEO comment form at on the district’s website at www.cmsdnet.net.

News & Articles | Archives