Cleveland Teachers Union protests $3.4 million in budget cuts forced by enrollment declines

Budget protest by CTU at CMSD school board 2015.JPG

Cleveland Teachers Union members protest budget cuts for schools with red signs at Tuesday's school board meeting while staff from the district's central office counter with their own green ones.

(Patrick O'Donnell/The Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - The Cleveland Teachers Union objected Tuesday to the school district's plan to trim $3.4 million from next year's budget - cuts that district officials say just keep pace with falling enrollment, but which the union says will undermine support for students.

More than 50 teachers came to the school board's meeting Tuesday to hold up red signs saying "Students Denied" while union President David Quolke listed several schools that will see budget cuts, even as their students struggle on state and other tests.

"Why are all of these struggling students being denied the resources and teachers they need to become successful?" Quolke asked. "How are their academic needs being met?"

District officials said the cuts are just a prudent way to manage the district's budget while they keep losing students. Though enrollment declines are still far less than in previous years, the district predicts it will lose 375 students for next school year.

The proposed cuts, if they remain through several months of budget adjustment, would amount to about $9,000 per student lost. That's a lot less than the more than $17,000 the district spends per-student overall. But George Anagnostou, the district's director of budgets and grants, said the district continues looking at other ways to cut more expenses.

District CEO Eric Gordon has said in recent weeks that he owes it to voters to cut budgets as enrollment falls, to best manage the tax increase that voter passed in 2012 and make it last until 2016.

"The people of Cleveland made it clear when passing two levies that they expect the district to operate differently than we have in the past and produce results," Gordon said. "Declining enrollment and the resulting loss of revenue presents challenges for the entire district."

Anticipating complaints from teachers, district administrators and staff held up their own green signs at the meeting in support of the budget, while teachers displayed their red ones.

See below for a chart showing the proposed change in budget by school, both overall and on a per-pupil basis. Note that the numbers in the chart are limited: They will not show full spending per student, only certain expenses that principals have discretion over; severely-disabled students are not included here; and enrollment changes are only projections.

About 48 percent of the district's overall operating budget is included in these per-school budgets, while the majority is still managed by the central officer.

Among the patterns, according to the district:

-       52 schools see decreases under the proposal, while 48 see increases.

-       40 schools will gain money on a per-pupil basis or see no change, while 60 will lose per-pupil money.

-       The district is trimming $6 per student from school budgets compared to this ongoing school year under the plan.

-       Enrollment is projected to fall 1.07 percent next year, while cuts amount to 1.14 percent of school budgets, which - as we said above - are just under half of the district's total spending per student

-       The biggest gains in dollars will be for newer schools that are adding entire grades of students, like Bard High School Early College, Facing History-New Tech High School and the two new academies for John F. Kennedy High School.

-       The biggest losses are for Glenville, East Tech and Lincoln-West high schools, who are losing students.

-       The cuts should not lead to any layoffs because enough teachers are already retiring or leaving.

This is the second year that the district is using "Student-Based Budgeting," a system in which the district gives each school differing amounts money based on enrollment and the different needs of students.

But the district is proposing far less in drastic cuts than the $21 million in cuts first suggested last February.

"SBB" gave several schools large cuts last year if their enrollment had dropped,  and large increases if it had grown, or if students had more disabilities or in areas the district targeted for attention.

The proposed cuts last year drew a large and noisy protest several-hundred strong from CTU. After City Council members and residents questioned making large cuts so soon after voters passed a large tax increase in November of 2012, Gordon eventually decided not to cut schools fully and gave schools an additional $15 million to ease the transition.

On Tuesday, Quolke praised the district for giving more money to successful schools like Bard and to the early college and science and medicine magnet schools on the John Hay campus.

"We certainly want to grow schools that are showing success," he said. "That is a good investment."

But he criticized cuts to Collinwood, East Tech, Glenville and John Adams high schools, turning "Strategic School Design" - the districts  name for part of the budgeting process - into "Struggling Students Denied."

"Each and every school in Cleveland deserves to have the resources needed to meet the needs of the students served," he said. "Yet the rhetoric is not the reality."

Gerard Leslie, president of the Cleveland Council of Administrators and Supervisors and an administrator in the district, was  prepared to counter Quolke. He immediately stepped up to praise the district for relinquishing control of budgets to schools.

"It shows they are really willing to make changes for the better," Leslie said.

Leslie said that most cuts are because enrollments are falling at the schools. The district has been pressing principals and staff to try to recruit and retain more students to prevent further losses.

And Anagnostou said some schools that are seeing per-pupil reductions are gaining dollars overall because they are add students. What looks like per-pupil cuts at those schools, he said, are just from averaging the costs of a principal, office staff and other basic costs of running a school between more students.

For new schools that are adding a full grade of students each year, like the Cleveland High School for the Digital Arts and for PACT and E3agle, the new academies for JFK, that pattern is easy to follow.

But several other schools, such as McKinley or Miles Park elementary schools, see overall losses even as they gain students.

The reasons why differ by school, but per-student money depends on the disabilities of students or other issues at the school.

Budgets will continue to be adjusted for each school through the summer and as actual enrollment numbers are known.

PROPOSED BUDGET CHANGES BY SCHOOL FROM 2014-15 TO 2015-16

Note: Buckeye-Woodland and Revere elementary schools will be closed over the summer and their students absorbed into other schools. These numbers do not show the planned closures of the Waverly and Watterson-Lake elementary schools this summer.

John Marshall High School is switching from having a freshman academy and a the main high school for the final three years, to a different model with juniors and seniors attending the standard high school in the fall, while freshmen and sophomores attend three smaller schools being created within the building. Anagostu said the district will spend about $2 million more on all of the John Marshall schools next year during the transition.

*