Residents air concerns about school facilities plan

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More than 120 people attended a March 1 public forum on the school facilities planning process at Noble Road Presbyterian Church to voice their comments and concerns. The forum, sponsored by FutureHeights and the Sustainable Heights Network, focused on how the district’s facilities plans might impact individual neighborhoods and the community at large.

On Feb. 22, the district presented two facilities options. One (Option A) would consolidate all elementary and middle schools into three pre-kindergarten through eighth grade buildings; the other (Option B) would have two kindergarten-through-eighth grade buildings and three pre-kindergarten through third grade buildings. In both scenarios, Noble Elementary, Gearity Professional Development, Boulevard Elementary and Fairfax Elementary schools would be closed. (Details about the two options are available at a website maintained by the school district: http://chuhfacilitiesmasterplan.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/ch-uh_designideas-1-9.pdf. )

Residents who attended the forum voiced several concerns about the district’s two options: the two plans’ lack of school sites in northern Cleveland Heights, lack of transparency in how seven of nine options considered were eliminated, and lack of involvement in the process by city officials, among others. Only 28 percent of attendees who responded to the post-forum survey said that they were interested in seeing the district move forward with either Option A or B; 45 percent said that they were not interested in either option, and 53 percent said they wanted to see an Option C. (See the complete survey results.)

Mark Chupp, assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University, moderated the forum, which began with presentations from four panelists (view video from the forum: part 1 and part 2). Joyce Barrett, executive director of Heritage Ohio, discussed the importance of looking at the long-term effects on property values of closing a school building. “When a neighborhood loses a school, property values go down, which results in a loss of tax revenue to support the schools,” she said. She recommended that cities and school districts work collaboratively on school facilities planning.

Sagree Sharma, urban designer and project manager at the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative, discussed the importance of new development being contextual. She suggested that the district and the city ask itself, “What assets do we already have that can be built upon?” She also emphasized the importance of looking for ways to adaptively reuse a building, given the degree of vacancy that already exists in the city.

Jay Foran, senior vice president of business attraction at Team NEO, shared the City of Lakewood’s school facilities planning process with the forum. Foran chaired the 40-member community task force that held community meetings at all 14 school buildings in Lakewood and developed a community values statement. “The most important thing that we had to remember during the process was that it was first and foremost about teaching and learning,” said Foran. “The community gave us two mandates—maintain neighborhood schools and no busing. We also sought to minimize the number of transitions during the rebuilding process that any individual student would have.” Lakewood ultimately reduced its number of school buildings from 14 to 9, and plans to complete the project in three phases, requiring three separate bond issues.
 
Cheryl Stephens, director of acquisitions, dispositions and development at Cuyahoga Land Bank and a Cleveland Heights City Council member, spoke about the hidden costs of mothballing vacant buildings, including providing security and maintenance. She also spoke about issues surrounding the demolition of vacant buildings, such as asbestos abatement, and the impact on neighborhoods.

FutureHeights and the Sustainable Heights Network, sponsors of the forum, continue to discuss the issues raised with the school board. “We’ve written a letter to the board of education and the city councils of Cleveland Heights and University Heights, asking them to collaborate on this planning process,” said Deanna Bremer Fisher, executive director of FutureHeights. “And, we hear from the school board that an Option C is in the works.”