Parents, Community Activists Camp Over Night In Front Of East High School To Protest Its Slated Closing
Cleveland, Ohio Mayor Frank G. Jackson
Cleveland Public Schools CEO Dr. Eugene Sanders
By Kathy Wray Coleman
Editor of the Determiner Weekly.Com and the
Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network
(Cleveland, Ohio Area News)
A group of about 100 parents and community activists led by Cleveland Ward 7 Councilman T.J. Dow and Cleveland schools parent Donna Brown camped out in front of East High School on East 79th St. and Superior Ave. Sunday evening to protest the slated closing of the majority Black school.
Armed with an on hand D.J., fried chicken, hot chocolate, heated tents, and an itching to take schools CEO Dr. Eugene Sanders and Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson to task on the issue, the group chanted “save our school,” gave speeches, and called for Jackson and Sanders to join them at the over night rally.
“Come on down Mayor Jackson and Mr. Sanders” said Larry Pool, an East High parent. “We are calling you out and we will recall the mayor if we have to. You will not close East High School because it is unconstitutional to judge our children on academics when other school districts get more money.”
By virtue of the system of funding Ohio's public schools partly with property taxes, a method that the Ohio Supreme Court has on at least three occasions ordered the state legislature to replace with a more equitable formula, Cleveland schools spend half the amount of monies annually per child in comparison to the Perry Local School District, where the money making Perry Nuclear Power Plant is located. Yet, state education officials judge students from school districts statewide by the same yard stick on state mandated standardize testing, a disposition that has contributed to the placement of 75 percent of Cleveland schools in the academically delinquent categories.
Sanders and Jackson, who by state law controls the predominantly Black school system that is now $53 million in debt, were no where in sight relative to Sunday's camp over, though that did not stop the protesters from repeatedly referencing the duo.
“Our children have a right to community schools and where is Frank Jackson,” said one protester, shortly before singing the R and B tune “I Believe.”
Longtime Community Activist Ada Averyhart said the fight to keep East High School open will be ongoing until protesters get what they want.
“We will not rest until East High is taken off the school closings list and our next stop is city hall at Monday's City Council meeting in support of Councilman Dow,” she said.
A public official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that none of the schools slated to close are in Cleveland's Ward 5 where Jackson lives and was previously councilman before becoming mayor, and that that alone reveals that politics, rather than academics and declining enrollment, guided the decisions around the slated school closings.
The slated school closings are part of a sweeping $70 million transformation plan that calls for two high schools, including East High, and 16 middle and elementary schools, to be shut down, 16 of which are on the majority Black East Side of Cleveland. Sanders has said that the school closings are necessary because of declining enrollment and to enhance educational outcomes, though he has been challenged for targeting schools like A.G. Bell K-8 School with an artificial academic assessment formula in spite of its status as second in academics among the 80 district K-8 schools. The school also supports students with learning disabilities and those students represent at least a fourth of the student population there.
Cleveland School Board Members, all of whom are appointed by the city mayor via state law, are scheduled to vote on the school closings in March, a rescheduled date that follows a decision to scrap a planned vote for this month.
Dow said that Jackson appears hellbent on going through with the transformation plan including the closing in June of East High School and others schools nabbed to be dismantled.
“He [Jackson] has not given me any indication that East High or any of the other schools scheduled to be closed will not be closed,” said Dow, a former assistant county prosecutor and community activist who appeared at home with Sunday's activist groups, which include Black on Black Crime Inc., the Oppressed People's Nation, Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor, the Carl Stokes Brigade, and the Imperial Women.
Cleveland Public Schools CEO Dr. Eugene Sanders
By Kathy Wray Coleman
Editor of the Determiner Weekly.Com and the
Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network
(Cleveland, Ohio Area News)
A group of about 100 parents and community activists led by Cleveland Ward 7 Councilman T.J. Dow and Cleveland schools parent Donna Brown camped out in front of East High School on East 79th St. and Superior Ave. Sunday evening to protest the slated closing of the majority Black school.
Armed with an on hand D.J., fried chicken, hot chocolate, heated tents, and an itching to take schools CEO Dr. Eugene Sanders and Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson to task on the issue, the group chanted “save our school,” gave speeches, and called for Jackson and Sanders to join them at the over night rally.
“Come on down Mayor Jackson and Mr. Sanders” said Larry Pool, an East High parent. “We are calling you out and we will recall the mayor if we have to. You will not close East High School because it is unconstitutional to judge our children on academics when other school districts get more money.”
By virtue of the system of funding Ohio's public schools partly with property taxes, a method that the Ohio Supreme Court has on at least three occasions ordered the state legislature to replace with a more equitable formula, Cleveland schools spend half the amount of monies annually per child in comparison to the Perry Local School District, where the money making Perry Nuclear Power Plant is located. Yet, state education officials judge students from school districts statewide by the same yard stick on state mandated standardize testing, a disposition that has contributed to the placement of 75 percent of Cleveland schools in the academically delinquent categories.
Sanders and Jackson, who by state law controls the predominantly Black school system that is now $53 million in debt, were no where in sight relative to Sunday's camp over, though that did not stop the protesters from repeatedly referencing the duo.
“Our children have a right to community schools and where is Frank Jackson,” said one protester, shortly before singing the R and B tune “I Believe.”
Longtime Community Activist Ada Averyhart said the fight to keep East High School open will be ongoing until protesters get what they want.
“We will not rest until East High is taken off the school closings list and our next stop is city hall at Monday's City Council meeting in support of Councilman Dow,” she said.
A public official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that none of the schools slated to close are in Cleveland's Ward 5 where Jackson lives and was previously councilman before becoming mayor, and that that alone reveals that politics, rather than academics and declining enrollment, guided the decisions around the slated school closings.
The slated school closings are part of a sweeping $70 million transformation plan that calls for two high schools, including East High, and 16 middle and elementary schools, to be shut down, 16 of which are on the majority Black East Side of Cleveland. Sanders has said that the school closings are necessary because of declining enrollment and to enhance educational outcomes, though he has been challenged for targeting schools like A.G. Bell K-8 School with an artificial academic assessment formula in spite of its status as second in academics among the 80 district K-8 schools. The school also supports students with learning disabilities and those students represent at least a fourth of the student population there.
Cleveland School Board Members, all of whom are appointed by the city mayor via state law, are scheduled to vote on the school closings in March, a rescheduled date that follows a decision to scrap a planned vote for this month.
Dow said that Jackson appears hellbent on going through with the transformation plan including the closing in June of East High School and others schools nabbed to be dismantled.
“He [Jackson] has not given me any indication that East High or any of the other schools scheduled to be closed will not be closed,” said Dow, a former assistant county prosecutor and community activist who appeared at home with Sunday's activist groups, which include Black on Black Crime Inc., the Oppressed People's Nation, Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor, the Carl Stokes Brigade, and the Imperial Women.
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