The Cleveland Metropolitan School District will be making significant changes to its workforce with 410 employees being laid off and 29 schools being closed according to Chief Executive Officer of the CMSD Warren Morgan. This decision follows the unanimous vote in favor of passing the Building Brighter Futures initiative in December 2025. The district plans to cut $150 million from its budget through a wave of layoffs to alleviate ongoing financial pressures coinciding with a declining enrollment rate. The notices were first sent out last week and will continue until the district reaches its goal. Morgan justified the cuts by highlighting the 50% decrease in the student population in the past 20 years, while staffing only declined by 31% during the same period. “Due in large part to declining birth rates, our school population has fallen from 70,000 to 34,000 scholars, but we still have roughly the same number of schools. With shrinking enrollment, it’s impossible to fully staff and equip dozens of half-empty buildings,” Director of Media Relations and Executive Communications Janice Edwards said. However, members of the Cleveland Teacher’s Union report that they have received little clarity on key concerns, including the steps following the layoffs.

Morgan says that students will ultimately benefit from the changes, arguing that all CMSD students will gain equal or extended access to academic and extracurricular resources. Approximately 96% of students who will transfer to a new school will attend one with an equal or higher star ranking, and 95% of students are to attend a school with equal or improved building conditions, according to CMSD. Still, this raises the question of what happens to the remaining 4% and 5% of students. Although most students are projected to benefit with better infrastructure at a school with a higher ranking, Morgan seems to have overlooked some important factors.

Closing 29 schools raises concerns how students will get to and from school, as longer travel distances may require new transportation arrangements that are not always ideal or attainable, particularly with the unpredictability of Cleveland weather. These changes can also have an emotional impact on students who rely on specific educators—many parents chose particular schools with the expectation that certain educators would be working there, and now that may not be the case. Thus, layoffs will disrupt student-teacher relationships. As a result of this change to the system, the student to teacher ratio is bound to increase, leading to larger class sizes with decreased individualized attention. This reduction in educator support may harm students’ educational process.

When asked about benchmarks that will track the initiative’s success in the following years of its enactment, Edwards said: “While we haven’t yet publicly identified specific benchmarks for next year, clearly things like enrollment, both by school and in specialized programming, along with operational savings, are key metrics that we’ll be monitoring.” Interestingly, for an initiative that is meant to increase access to educational opportunities, enrollment rates and district savings seems to be an inadequate measurement for that.

Bill Gates and his foundation once supported and funded the movement to divide large schools into smaller ones. Cleveland adopted this approach in the early 2000s, granting students a broader range of schools with varying academic focuses. Several years ago, Gates moved away from this to give attention to other initiatives. Now, the CMSD is confronted with financial strain alongside a push to expand language electives and career preparation course programs. Students and families are concerned that merging schools could dilute these existing programs, potentially weakening course rigor and affecting current state rankings.

Educators serve as critical systems for many students, especially those who treat school as a second home through extracurricular engagement. The relationships students form with educators can be meaningful, and framing teachers as easily replaceable is a grave mistake on Morgan’s end. While students may find it annoying to be assigned homework and tasked with learning extensive amounts of content, these expectations help prepare them for life beyond the classroom and build disciplinary skills. We should refrain from taking our educators for granted because, besides our parents and guardians, they play a central role in shaping our future success. Many of us look back on our primary school teachers with a great deal of appreciation. A reason for this may be because they taught us foundational skills, such as reading and writing, that we carry through the rest of our educational careers.

Although there is significant uncertainty surrounding the outcomes of the Building Brighter Futures initiative, the district’s effort to address its challenges is nonetheless notable. There is no perfect solution. As long as laid off educators receive clear guidance about their employment status and students are accommodated as effectively as possible, the initiative has potential to improve access to resources and Cleveland’s education system over time.

Amid the district-wide approach, Case Western Reserve University could also consider improvements of its own to strengthen student resources and access to course opportunities. It has become a growing concern that students are unable to successfully register for major-required courses due to limited availability relative to demand. This trend is noticeable during residential selection as well. Addressing this issue may require a refined evaluation of course capacity, distribution and broader enrollment operations that contribute to these frustrations experienced by many students. At present, CWRU students have few immediate solutions when encountering these challenges, and the existing student resources offer limited, short-term support for what ultimately needs a long-term reform.