December: Scores
More than half of Cleveland 3rd-graders show limited proficiency on the state reading exam, which means they could be held back a year if their scores do not improve; 46 percent performed at a basic level. Third-graders were tested for the first time in October as part of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. The test will be used as a gauge to help teachers and principals determine whether a student should be promoted to 4th grade. The students have two more chances to take the exam: March 8-12 and July 5-26.  A sample test is available at www.ode.state.oh.us, quick link Proficiency-testing. (See chart, page 5.)

January:Teachers
Parents can gain immediate information about teacher credentials as Ohio becomes one of the first 10 states to make the information available online. The Ohio Department of Education (ODE) web page was created in response to the No Child Left Behind Act mandate that schools provide information about teacher quality. The site identifies which teachers are considered “highly qualified.”  Parents also can obtain this information by telephoning their child’s school. Visit the Ohio Department of Education’s new web page titled “Educator Information” under the hot topics link on the ODE homepage at www.ode.state.oh.us.  

January: Books
More than 7,000 books are distributed among 12 of the district’s elementary schools through the Cleveland Schools Book Fund. The fund was established by The Cleveland Foundation to give kindergarten to 3rd-grade students access to quality books and enhance classroom libraries. The schools that received books are Bolton, Case, Euclid Park, Henry W. Longfellow, John Raper, Moses Cleaveland, Robert Fulton, Robert Jamison, Stephen E. Howe, Union, Watterson-Lake and Willow.

February 23: Riverside
Riverside Elementary School is the first building demolished for eventual replacement as part of Cleveland schools $1.5 billion facilities overhaul.  Construction on the new building is expected to begin in late May or early June, says Denny Kolp of the Bond Accountability Commission (BAC).  He adds that the project is on schedule, despite press reports that the overall facilities project is behind schedule.  The new school will cost $8.2 million.  It is one of 50 new district schools to be built over the next 12 years. Classes ended at the school in June and students are now temporarily housed at the former Nathaniel Hawthorne School located on West 130th Street.  Located on Montrose Avenue in the Westpark area, Riverside was built in 1935 and has had additions in 1945, 1947, 1952 and 1964. 

March 15-19: Union election  
Joanne DeMarco defeats four other candidates in the race for president of the Cleveland Teachers Union.  She replaces retiring President Richard A. DeColibus, who has led the CTU for 16 years.  DeMarco currently serves as first vice president of the union's executive board.  She wins by a vote of 2,724, defeating DeColibus' choice for a successor Jan Brundage.  Brundage, a bargaining unit representative, received 1,091 votes.  The vote count also includes 821 for Tony Miceli, a CTU trustee; 586 for Bill Ritter, a teacher at John Marshall High School; 79 for Gene Tracy, a teacher at Lincoln-West High School; and nine for Martin Pastrana, a building chair at Kentucky Elementary. As union president, DeMarco vows to maintain "squeaky-clean" financial records for CTU and spend dues on programs that benefit members. Meryl Johnson, presently director of community relations for the CTU, wins for the first vice president position with 2,039 votes. Michael Charney, currently the CTU's professional issues director, is elected second vice president with 2,793 votes.

March 17: Paige
U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige visits a Cleveland school, just one week after President George W. Bush stopped here as part of his campaign to win Ohio, a pivotal state in the upcoming November election. The federal government has provided enough money for schools to meet requirements set by the No Child Left Behind Act, Paige tells reporters at Whitney Young Middle School in the Lee-Harvard area, one of the district's highest-performing schools.
Paige adds, however, that the nation's high-poverty schools could see a 52 percent increase in Title I funding from 2001 levels if Congress approves Bush's proposed budget for 2005. Title I dollars are a major portion of NCLB funding.  This school year, Ohio received $396.4 million in Title I funds. 

March 23:K-8 schools
The district announces that four middle schools and one preK-5 school will open as K-8 schools this fall.  At the same time, another 22 middle schools and K-5 schools will make a gradual transition to K-8, adding one or two new grades each year. The first in line for complete conversion are A.B. Hart, Nathan Hale and Wilbur Wright middle schools and Carl and Louis Stokes Academy.
 The district began the conversion process in 1999, when four elementary schools went to K-8.  Since then, a total of 23 middle schools and K-5 schools have been converted. In addition to the new K-8 conversions, Margaret Spellacy and Charles Shuler middle schools will add 9th-grade classes this fall. 

April 20:Layoffs ahead
In reaction to a $100 million projected budget deficit, the district announces plans to lay off 873 employees in June and not replace another 543 expected to leave through attrition. The layoffs include 618 teachers, nurses and counselors, 125 bus drivers and attendants, 35 secretaries and cleaners, 55 assistant custodians, laborers and security officers nine assistant principal, seven trade workers and 24 at-will (non-union) employees. Another 334 teachers are expected to be loss to attrition. Schools chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett says the cuts may erode progress that has moved the district out of state academic emergency status. (See story, page 15.)

April 28:Campbell proposal
Mayor Jane Campbell says an income tax increase could help Cleveland Schools out of its $100 million projected deficit.  Employees who work in the city currently pay a 2 percent payroll tax. Voters would have to approve it.  Campbell's suggestion comes as organizers across the state step up efforts to get state legislators to overhaul the state's school funding formula. The state Supreme Court has ruled it unconstitutional four times because of its heavy reliance on local property taxes. Ohio Fair Schools Campaign and other groups schedule a May 3rd hearing in Cleveland at Trinity Cathedral Church. It is just one of several scheduled around the state by Project Chalkboard.

May 25: Charters claim students
Cleveland Municipal School District seeks to recoup $2 million in state funding it says it did not receive because 400 of its students are listed on the class rolls of charter schools. "There are students that some of the charter schools have claimed are in their schools when we have documentation that they are in our schools," says district spokesman Alan Seifullah.  As a result, the district did not receive per-pupil funding from the state for those students.  The charter school claiming the most of the district's students is International Preparatory with 93 students.  Seifullah says the district will not know until July whether it will receive the money he says it is due. 

May 25: More Layoffs expected
The district announces it may add to its growing list of layoffs.  Due to a $100 million deficit, the district laid off 903 employees in April.  An additional 533 were expected to leave through attrition.  But so far, only 35 say they will retire. As a result, up to 600 more teachers, secretaries, cleaners and trades workers could be laid off if more employees do not agree to retire. The district considers offering $40 million in buyouts to encourage retirements.
But unions refuse to give up a 3 percent raise, which would have paid $22 million toward the cost of the separation packages, says Lisa Ruda, district chief of staff.
That along with $17 million in cuts to health insurance and a savings of $4.5 million in unemployment benefits would have financed the buyout. 

May 27: Rally for education
Approximately 800 teachers, parents and students fill Cleveland's Public Square to voice outrage over Ohio's method of funding schools.  The Cleveland Teachers Union organized the "No Recess Rally" to urge the General Assembly to find an alternative method of funding schools that is less reliant on local property taxes and does not force school districts to approve levies, Meryl T. Johnson, CTU first vice president, tells the crowd. Blaine A. Griffin, a parent of two students at A.G. Bell Academy on the east side, says the school finance problem is not just an urban one and lawmakers need to be held accountable.  "We should lock them in the state legislator's building, turn off the air conditioning on a hot July day and not let them come out until they have a solution for funding education."          

June 7: Ohio Graduation Test
The Ohio Board of Education approves lowering the cut-off scores students need to pass the math and reading portions of the Ohio Graduation Test.  A poor performance on a pilot test taken in 2003 led to the revision.  Students had to answer nearly 60 percent of the questions correctly to pass pass.  That was revised to 41 percent for math and 42 percent for reading. The Class of 2007 will be the first required to pass the test to graduate.  (See Catalyst Cleveland June 2004.)

July 28: Transportation Cuts
Due to a $100 million budget deficit, the district announces its plan to cut transportation following the School Board's 9-0 vote in June to also cut staff and academic programs.  K-8 students must now live more than two miles instead of one from school to receive yellow bus service.  The RTA will replace yellow bus service for middle school students who live more than two miles from school. Special education students whose Individualized Education Program stipulates transportation services will not be affected. 

August 6: Historical Landmarks
The city's Restoration Society says 49 Cleveland school buildings should be listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Plain Dealer reports.  Cleveland City Council has final say on whether a building receives the designation. Tremont and Louis Agassiz elementaries and Collinwood high school are official landmarks. Currently, eight out of 21 council members do not want schools in their respective wards identified as historical landmarks.  They prefer to have them either rebuilt or renovated under the district's $1.5 billion capital improvement plan.

Aug. 26: School restructurings
The Cleveland Municipal School District begins the first day of the 2004-05 school year with newly restructured middle and high schools.  Some 29 middle schools, grades 6-9, will either begin the transition or fully convert to K-8 schools.  Four high schools - East, Rhodes, Glenville and East Tech - will convert to 15 small schools with about 400 students each.  The goal is to increase academic rigor and build stronger student/teacher relationships by grouping students with the same teachers through 12th grade. The conversions are being funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation via grants administered by the Cincinnati-based KnowledgeWorks Foundation.

Sept. 10:  Blue ribbon
U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige presents Louisa May Alcott K-6 School, on Cleveland's west side, with the No Child Left Behind National Blue Ribbon.  Alcott is Ohio's only urban school to be honored. The award goes to high-performing schools with no achievement gaps among its minority and disabled students.  Principal Maureen Kennedy Berg says 35 percent of her 216 students are black, 15 percent Hispanic and 25 percent are in special education.  She credits the district's literacy initiatives and professional development for the school's success.  Berg and teacher Juanita Taylor will be among representatives from 256 Blue Ribbon schools to be feted at an awards event on Nov. 4-5 in Washington, D.C.

Sept. 14: Construction update
The district reports that as of July it has spent approximately $35 million at 65 of 116 schools slated for roof and window repairs and parking lot repaving.  The report details where repairs have been made under the district's "warm, safe and dry" program, aimed at bringing conditions at all schools up to a minimum standard. The work included roof repairs or replacements at 39 buildings, windows repaired or replaced at 45, exterior door replacements at 67 and 92 repaved parking lots. The improvements are funded with money raised from a $335 million capital bond issue plus state funds.

Sept 30:  NCLB tutoring promoted
In an attempt to get more students to take advantage of tutoring services available under the federal No Child Left Behind law, the district sponsors a Supplemental Services Fair at East High School. The free tutoring is available to students from Cleveland schools identified as "in need of improvement" under NCLB for failing to improve low reading and math scores on state tests. In 2003-04, only 550 of 8,738 eligible students signed up for tutoring, known as supplementary services under NCLB. The district spent only  $60,000 of $8 million in federal Title I funds set aside for tutoring services and transfers within the district to betterperforming schools.  The funds carry over to this school year. 

Oct 6:  Funding inequity
Ohio is narrowing the gap between per-pupil funding that wealthier districts receive over high-poverty districts, reports the Education Trust.  The Washington D.C.-based organization studied local and state school financing trends between 1997 and 2002 for each state. Ohio, along with Connecticut, Georgia, Minnesota, New Jersey and New Mexico, improved funding for poorer districts by at least $500 within those five years.  In ‘97, there was an $861 disparity between Ohio's wealthier and poorer districts. By ‘01, the gap shrunk to $347, according to the Trust.  New York and Illinois have the widest gaps, with the wealthier districts receiving over $2,000 more in per student aid than high-poverty districts.  

Oct 15: Poverty effort
About two months  after a U.S. Census report identifies Cleveland as the most impoverished of the nation's large cities, Mayor Jane Campbell announces plans to open a school as a multi-purpose community center. Daniel E. Morgan Elementary School will remain open between 3 and 9 p.m., Monday through Friday. As a "lighted school," it will provide student tutoring, adult job training and senior support services.  Morgan was selected because it is located in Hough, a neighborhood with a high concentration of poverty, despite recent gentrification efforts.  The city's Empowerment Zone will pay $100,000 for security and custodial maintenance. The mayor will have the program evaluated for effectiveness after a year.         

Nov. 2: Levies fail
Out of 286 school issues on ballots across the state, slightly less than half—142—fail, including the Cleveland Municipal School District's operating levy. Levies in two of the Big Eight urban districts fared better.  Cincinnati voters renewed a 10.14-mill, five-year operating levy that will raise $65 million annually for the school district; Columbus voters approved a 6.97-mill continuing operating levy that will raise $62.3 million each year. In Cuyahoga County, voters in Bedford, Mayfield, Shaker, Strongsville, Warrensville and Orange approved levies.  Garfield voters rejected a 9.4-mill emergency operating levy that would have raised $4.25 million annually for five years.  CMSD officials have not determined when they will take another levy to voters. 

Nov. 12: Achievement gap
Over a five-year span, the achievement gap in Ohio narrowed slightly between black and Hispanic 9th-graders and whites, who generally score higher on state exams, reports the Legislative Office of Education Oversight. Between 1998-99 and 2002-03, the agency compared the percentage of black and Hispanic 9th-graders who passed state reading and math tests with whites.  The gap narrowed between whites and both blacks and Hispanics by 5 percent in reading and 4 percent in math.  By 2002-03, the difference between whites and Hispanics who passed the reading test was 13 percent; it was 15 percent between whites and blacks.  Whites passed the math test by a difference of 26 percent over Hispanics and 40 percent over blacks. Visit www.loeo.state.oh.us. 

Nov. 17: Paige resigns
President Bush names his domestic policy advisor Margaret Spellings to replace Rod Paige as U.S. Secretary of Education. The Senate must approve her appointment.  The White House announced Paige's resignation on Nov. 15.  Paige will be remembered for implementing the federal No Child Left Behind law.  The goal behind Bush's NCLB is to have every child proficient in math and reading by 2014.  Critics say Washington underfunds the initiative.  Paige also stirred controversy by referring to the National Education Association — a 2.7 million-member teachers' union — as a "terrorist organization."  He later apologized for his comments.  Paige, 71, is the former superintendent of the Houston Independent School District.  He plans to return to Texas for a home remodeling project.