CLEVELAND — A group of Cleveland Public School students is running out of time to secure enough funding for an educational trip to Greece.
They hoped to use funding from the district's Get More Opportunities Grant Program, which was established in 2022 thanks to a $20 million dollar donation from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott.
But the Cleveland schools are now forecasting a $168 million budget deficit by the end of next year, and district leaders have decided to keep that $20 million donation in their general fund to avoid further cuts.
Dr. Susan Roebuck, lead guidance counselor at John F. Kennedy High School, said that decision has put some of her students in a difficult position.
“We have 16 students between John F. Kennedy and John Adams who are traveling to Greece and we are in need of funds,” she said. “We initially applied for the Get More Opportunities grant and we did not receive it.”
Roebuck is the advisor at her school’s travel club and was eagerly anticipating getting the money from the grant program, which was established with the goal of enriching student’s learning experience with opportunities the district could otherwise not afford, like college visits, travel and more.
“We thought that we would get it because we were denied several times, and other schools have gotten it numerous times, so we thought it would more equitable this time, but it was not,” Roebuck said.
They’re supposed to be leaving in just 24 days and still need to fundraise nearly $30,000 by March 1.
Roebuck and the other teacher leading the trip, Andrea Dockery-Murray, who is a visual arts teacher at John Adams Academy, said since they began planning last year, students and parents have spent money to get passports and more.
They said many of their students have never left the country and may not have the opportunity to do so again.
“I had a parent that came up from Atlanta,” Dockery-Murray said. “He flew in one day to take his child to get her passport, and then he flew out later that day. Like, who does that? It’s like, what a total let down to my students.”
In a presentation to Cleveland City Council earlier this week, CEO of CMSD Dr. Warren Morgan, who hasonly held the role for seven months, said it’s been difficult to make decisions to balance the budget.
He said the Get More Opportunities fund is now down to $16 million, and though the program is paused now, they are trying to find a way to bring it back in the future and make funding more equitably distributed among the district’s nearly 100 schools.
“When I think about the wards, this grant was only distributed in half of our wards,” Morgan said. “So, even when we think about all the wards that are representing the city, it’s only been about half, and most of the funds went to seven of our schools.”
Morgan added that taking the money out of the general fund would cause the district to make even more cuts than they already have to.
One student who is supposed to go to Greece next month, Tyler Baker, said he signed up because he’s never left the country but wants to explore and learn about other cultures.
“It was international,” Baker said. “So, I could cross the world. I’ve never been across the world or out of the states. And, I was looking up the food and I want to try the food.”
Baker has gotten his passport and come up with the money for his portion of the trip, something he fears will have been a waste if the rest of the funding doesn’t come through for the other students.
“It’s surprising,” he said. “I don’t know. Cause now that I don’t know if I’m going to go or not, cause if they don’t get the funding, they could pull the trip. I done got my passport and paid all the money for it already, so it’d hurt a lot.”
Cleveland schools responded to our request for a statement by saying they didn't have time to issue a statement or arrange an interview before our deadline.
The advisors and their students are still working to secure the funding for the trip through March 1st.
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