CLEVELAND — Cleveland Metropolitan School District’s CEO, Warren G Morgan, gave the State of the Schools speech on Tuesday. 

What You Need To Know

  • CEO Warren G. Morgan gave the State of the Schools address Tuesday and announced that CMSD is the only urban district in the state meeting state standards

  • He said attendance and graduation rates are up and chronic absenteeism is down

  • The district still has challenges, a big one being their budget. The district is hoping a levy on the ballot in November passes, which would help their budget problem, but not fix it completely

“The state of the schools is strong progress,” he said.

Morgan made a big announcement during the address, that CMSD is the only urban district in the state to meet state standards.

“CMSD’s academic progress on the state report card showing that for the first time in history, CMSD achieved three stars and is meeting state standards,” he said.

Morgan said the number one issue he heard from families, students and faculty over the last year is safety, and he’s implemented changes to focus on that issue.

“We responded by ensuring that this year all CMSD schools are cell phone-free learning environments…We are also in the process of implementing a new badging system that will start in 2025 for all of our high schools so that we can better keep track of those who are entering in our buildings,” he said.

He pointed to other successes such as attendance and graduation rates going up and chronic absenteeism going down.

There are still challenges that the district faces, though, a big one being budget. The district made budget cuts, reduced positions and froze executive level salaries to save money, which helped them get out of fiscal watch. The district hopes that a levy on the ballot in November could also help.

“By the 26-27 school year, we’re going to have a negative reserve of $110 million," Morgan said. "So even in the speech, I talked about the cuts that we made last year, we’re back here a couple of years from now. The levy, if successful, would bring in $52 million over 10 years so that will help."

Morgan said it would not fix everything.

“It will only cut that deficit currently right now in about half, so there’s more work we have to do," he said. "So when thinking about the facilities, thinking about enrollment programs, that’s work we have to do moving forward."

Morgan said he wants to help continue to move the district forward and that money would help do that but was still excited about how much they have accomplished.

“The future of CMSD depends on us,” he said.

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