- [Narrator] Production and distribution of City Club forums and Ideastream Public Media are made possible by PNC and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland Incorporated.

(upbeat music) (bell ringing) - Good afternoon.

And welcome to the City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help our democracy thrive.

I'm Kristen Baird Adams, president of the City Club Board of Directors and chief of staff of PNC's National Regional Presidents organization.

We are here for the annual State of the Schools address delivered by Cleveland Metropolitan School District CEO, Eric Gordon.

The start of this school year marked the third year of classroom instruction affected by the COVID-19 global pandemic, which in CEO Gordon's words created the most significant disruption of our education system in modern times.

Here in Cleveland, when the school's first shutdown in March of 2020, CEO Gordon and his team rose to the challenge to bridge the digital divide, ensuring connections for nearly 38,000 scholars and renewed their efforts to more boldly than ever before, address the harsh and unacceptable realities of the many other inequities facing CMSD scholars and their families.

It is those very challenges that are at the heart of CEO Gordon's efforts to bring about genuine change by building a more fair, just, and good system of education for every child in Cleveland.

Profound challenges faced the district and its efforts to achieve this vision.

But there is good reason for optimism, including Cleveland's longstanding track record of powerful public private collaboration, rarely seen in other communities across the country, renewal of the school funding lobby, the continued progress of Say Yes Cleveland and PRE4CLE, and the American Rescue Plan Act, which included the largest ever one-time federal investment in K-12 education, with the goal of helping address the disparities we see in our community and across the nation.

And of course the sheer grit and determination of this community.

So how do we build a more fair, just and good system of education for every child in Cleveland?

Today, CEO Gordon will share with us more on his vision to do just that and the challenges and opportunities our district and our community face along the way.

As in every City Club forum, you can participate with your questions in-person here or by texting them to 330 541 5794.

That's 330 541 5794.

You can also tweet them to @thecityclub.

And now teachers, students, members, friends of the City Club, please join me in welcoming CEO, Eric Gordon.

(audience clapping) - Good afternoon.

- [Audience] Good afternoon.

- Oh, I'm a school guy.

We can do better than that.

Good afternoon.

- Good afternoon.

- There we go.

I heard my scholars out there.

Good afternoon, everyone.

As I began preparing for my 11th State of the Schools address, I had to pause to consider the moment itself, the opportunity to stand before you today with more than a decade of service behind me as your superintendent and CEO of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.

Over the last decade, people have commented to me frequently about the enormity of the challenge at CMSD in turning around the ship and steering it in a better direction.

I feel really privileged to be at the helm of this ship that 11 years ago had veered dangerously off course.

And I'm grateful to have worked for more than a decade with many of you in this room to point this vast organizational vessel in a much better direction.

Over the last decade, we have celebrated continuous gains and record-breaking graduation rates each year under the Cleveland plan, while mapping a clear course for closing and in some cases eliminating achievement gaps and for demonstrating growth and improvement that far outpaces the rate of growth of most school districts in Ohio and across the nation.

In that time, CMSD earned the status of being ranked in the top 15% in Ohio for improvement in K-3 literacy, the top 4% in Ohio for improvement on state reading and math exams, and the top 1% in Ohio for improvement in graduation rates.

In fact, our 80.1% graduation rate makes CMSD the fourth fastest improving district in Ohio.

(audience clapping) But wait, there's more.

Our 80.9% graduation rate for African American students, and 82.6% graduation rate for Hispanic students means that our children of color in the CMSD graduated rates nearly six percentage points higher than their peers statewide.

(audience applauding) The Council of the Great City Schools, a national coalition of 76 urban school districts recently released a report looking to answer the question of how well large city public schools like Cleveland do at overcoming the effects of poverty and other barriers.

They use data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, NAEP, also known as the Nation's Report Card.

This report entitled "Mirrors or Windows" ask the tough question of whether urban school districts like Cleveland are windows of opportunity to help overcome or mitigate poverty and other barriers, or whether they are simply mirrors of societies' inequities.

This report found that Cleveland is one of just 12 cities that was identified as having beat the odds for our students on each administration of the NAEP over the last decade, and as only one of six school districts in the country that consistently improved our performance every year over that 10-year period.

(audience clapping) In fact, this report found that if we were to control for poverty and other barriers, such as language acquisition and learning disability, Cleveland would actually outperform state and national averages in fourth and eighth grade reading, and in fourth grade math as well.

It is clear by all objective measures that we have indeed steered CMSD toward a much better path than where it was headed 11 years ago.

Thank you.

(audience clapping) But that was then.

That was a voyage on which we were navigating rough, but familiar waters in a pre COVID world before the shutdown, before the world stopped.

So here we are post shutdown in a world that's trying to start up again.

Where do we venture now?

What's next for CMSD?

Today in my 11th report on the state of our schools, I'll address the impact of the global pandemic and more optimistically detail the once in a lifetime opportunity we have to not just overcome the effects of the shutdown, not just return to familiar waters, but to steer the CMSD in an entirely new direction and chart a course unlike any other in its history of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.

Before I do so, I do want to take a moment to recognize a number of people in this very distinguished audience of educators, families, partners, stakeholders, and supporters of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.

First to Dan Moulthrop and his City Club staff, along with the City Club's partnership with Ideastream Public Media, who together have made it possible to not only present to those in this room today, but also to broadcast the State of the Schools address to our entire community.

Thank you to the City Club and to Ideastream both.

(audience clapping) And we owe a debt of gratitude to the generous sponsors of this annual event for enabling us to share the progress and achievements of Cleveland Public Schools with a much broader audience, including my student scholars, their families and caregivers, and educators who are attending today at tables sponsored by our supporters who you see on the screen.

Please help me thank them as well.

(audience clapping) Mayor Frank G. Jackson, in his fourth and final term as mayor of Cleveland, will forever be remembered for his visionary leadership of the Cleveland plan that propelled our district on a path of continuous improvement, gap closing and record-breaking academic success.

Mayor Jackson, who among his numerous achievements as mayor played a pivotal role in making Cleveland a Say Yes to Education city, ensuring for every child in Cleveland the opportunity to attain a post-secondary education, tuition-free, for the next 25 years.

These accomplishments and many more will be a hallmark of his legacy as our mayor.

The mayor is not able to be with us today.

I do ask that you keep him and his family in your hearts.

(audience clapping) Mayor Jackson and the City of Cleveland have also been ably represented over the past 14 years by the mayor's Chief of Education, Dr. Monyka Price.

Monyka is here.

Please stand so we can thank you for your many contributions over the years.

(audience clapping) Critical to our progress that we've seen over the last decade are my bosses.

The nine members of the Cleveland Board of Education who provides such consistent and outstanding leadership.

Our board is known, and it has been recognized nationally for their unparalleled service and dedication to Cleveland's public schools.

With us today, our board chair Anne Bingham, vice chair Robert Heard, and board members, Sara Elaqad, Denise Link, and Dr. Nigamanth Sridhar.

Please thank the Board of Education, my bosses for allowing me to do this work.

(audience clapping) Also with us today are representatives of many of this community's agencies that help to shape and who continue to support CMSD.

These include, The Greater Cleveland Partnership, The Cleveland Foundation, The George Gund Foundation, The Cleveland Council of Administrators and Supervisors, The Cleveland Teachers Union, Breakthrough Public Schools, The City of Cleveland and Cleveland City Council, County Executive Armond Budish and Cuyahoga County, The United Way of Greater Cleveland, College Now of Greater Cleveland, our partners at PRE4CLE, The Cleveland Transformation Alliance, and The Higher Education Compact of Greater Cleveland, our state board member, Meryl Johnson, and so many more.

Thank you to all of our agencies, those I named, and those who were named in spirit for continuing to support the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.

We can thank them.

That'd be great.

(audience clapping) And I would really be remiss if I didn't recognize our amazing CMSD students, their parents, and our incredible educators of all roles.

Whose tireless dedication to our students and families have led to the successes of the last decade.

Many of those students, families and educators are here today.

I'm gonna ask all of my students, my families and my educators to please stand for a well-deserved recognition.

(audience clapping) Thank you to my scholars, my parents and caregivers and my educators.

So on March 13th, 2020 CMSD, the City of Cleveland, the state of Ohio, the United States of America, in fact, the entire world faced a deadly storm of epic proportions.

The original forecast as it approached was that the storm would be fierce but brief.

And if we moored down and waited it out, we could then proceed back on our course.

We now know that these early predictions and the hope that the storm would pass were wrong.

And the storm that hit was more ferocious and devastating than anyone predicted, especially for those with no safe harbor.

As a nation, we are known for what historian Noam Chomsky called the privileged few and the desperate many.

While the economic disparities of the desperate many were known long before the COVID-19 pandemic, the global shutdown that directed everyone into digital lifeboats forced the privileged few to confront the stark realities of many poor Americans, including those living here in Cleveland.

In the city with the highest childhood poverty in the nation, those with privilege watched from home as CMSD and numerous other community organizations work to feed children and adults who when their jobs evaporated and schools closed simultaneously lost access to school breakfast and lunch for their children, and also the income needed to replace those meals and pay for dinner too.

In Cleveland, identified as the worst digitally connected city in the country, those with access to the internet worked from home and complied with orders to stay inside while accessing core services like medical care, legal supports, education, and even unemployment benefits through the worldwide web, a web, as it turns out that isn't truly worldwide.

Again, CMSD and our many community partners became lifelines to our families.

We worked tirelessly to reach those who not only were cut off from such supports, but who needed them more than ever.

We printed and mailed academic content to our students' homes, broadcasted lessons on WUAB channel 43, purchased and deployed iPads, Chromebooks, and laptops, distributed hotspots to the homes of every CMSD family, and began the process of converting those hotspots into permanent high-speed internet access as well.

The storm was fierce.

But as we now know, it was not brief.

In fact, the storm is still raging today.

So after anchoring down briefly, organizations like CMSD had little choice, but to attempt to navigate our way to safer waters.

The dilemma we faced was whether to push forward in the hopes of brighter skies on the horizon, or to turn around and attempt to reach the calmer waters we enjoyed before the storm.

For me, that choice was clear.

As the leader of one of the most important institutions serving the people in the ninth most racially segregated city in America, I knew we needed to not only address the enormous impacts of the public health pandemic on the students we serve, but also the massive added threat of continued economic and social injustice that was playing out in disadvantaged urban communities across our country, including right here in Cleveland.

I knew then, and affirm today that we had a moral obligation not to retreat, but to venture forward.

Audre Lorde, an American writer, feminist and human rights activists once famously said, "For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.

They may allow us to temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring around genuine change."

Let's face it.

Even in the best cases, the school systems that so many are striving to return to in America were built for an agrarian society in an industrial age, not for a global society in the digital age.

But now with the vast disparities between the haves and have nots laid totally bare, it's nearly impossible for the privileged few to ignore what is in plain sight.

And so I ask, why would we as a society work so hard to find ways to pick up the master's tools when we know they're only sufficient for rebuilding the master's house.

Why wouldn't we instead create new tools to build a new house?

One that, as Kristen said, is more fair, just, and good.

I mentioned earlier that CMSD had proven over the past decade that we were able to sail a strong vessel through a number of storms arriving at better destinations, but even those voyages were achieved using old tools on an old ship.

The question today is not if we can build and sail a strong ship, but what kind of ship we should build and where we should sail it.

The question is, how do we emerge from this pandemic and position the Cleveland Metropolitan School District for the future?

To answer these questions, the state of Cleveland's public schools and our vision for the future of CMSD must be about far more than simply correcting for the setbacks our kids experienced in the shutdown.

And it must be about far more than simply getting kids back on track for where they would've been in an antiquated system that was dismantled by the pandemic.

If we've learned anything from the past 18 months, I hope it is that the core infrastructure of our communities must be designed for the many and not for the few.

And that, as examples, the people of the world's most wealthy nation shouldn't have to rely on their schools to meet their basic food needs, or that these same people should have access to affordable high-speed internet access as a public utility, deemed every bit as essential as heat, electricity, and water in a global society that requires connection through a digital world for people to function and thrive.

It's actually ironic that a century ago, the Spanish flu epidemic of 1919 resulted in another previously unaffordable luxury called electricity, becoming a public utility available to all when that pandemic ended.

I watch and wonder whether local, state, and federal leaders will once and for all eradicate this enormous yet easily fixable disparity, even as we tackle more intractable disparities like food insecurity or the quality of the educational experiences that most disadvantaged people in our communities experience.

For our part, the pandemic shutdown for CMSD to set aside old tools like classroom seat time, learning in brick and mortar buildings, conventional Carnegie units, course grades, and grade levels, and enabled us to create and begin to use new tools like competency-based learning, anytime-anywhere learning, learning that is more individualized and learning that focuses on the whole child, including his or her social, emotional, cultural and physical wellness.

At CMSD, we are leveraging these new tools to position ourselves for the future.

It's our vision in a post pandemic world that in pursuit of a more fair, just and good system of education, each of our learners, both each of our scholars and each of their educators will be individually and collectively engaged with intellectually complex tasks that are worthy of their productive struggle.

And that these tasks allow our learners authentic opportunities to demonstrate their work and their learning of both their academic content and their transferable skills in a joyful and adventurous environment.

Notice that I said a more fair, just and good system of education.

I fully understand that my educator colleagues and I alone cannot eliminate all of the injustices our community has and will continue to face.

But that does not mean that we don't have an urgent responsibility to dramatically reduce those inequities.

Notice also that I said each of our learners.

This is not just our vision of a more fair, just and good system for students, it's what we expect for everyone in a curious organization of dedicated people who are always learning and improving together, whether you're a student or an adult.

In our vision, I shared that our learners should be engaged in intellectually complex tasks.

In education we often call that rigor.

But there's actually an important difference.

If you look up the definition of rigor, you'll find it is described as scrupulous accuracy or adherence.

But how does one describe scrupulous accuracy or adherence in our everyday work?

An intellectually complex task can be described in plain words in which learners know exactly what they are expected to do.

For example, seventh and eighth grade students who participated in our recent Summer Learning Experience were presented with this intellectually complex task.

The City of Cleveland has had a declining population for many years.

There's been a revitalization effort over the past few years to bring the city back.

Your job is to evaluate this effort and report to the Departments of Economic Development and Community Development.

After conducting observations in your neighborhood and comparing it to observations made by other students in different neighborhoods, your team will identify one revitalization effort to dig deeper into and evaluate.

You will then make a recommendation to how to revitalize Cleveland.

You'll also notice that our vision doesn't say real world.

The real world is certainly important, but it's only a subset of where learning can occur.

If Gene Roddenberry hadn't written about a far-away future where people flipped open radio devices to talk to each other across the galaxy, where star ship captains touched glass screens to operate their computers and where people simply called out to their computers with questions, questions the computer answered back to them.

You might not be tweeting messages about this speech to @ericgordon_ceo and @thecityclub on those smartphones you're using today.

And don't forget the hashtag celebrate CMSD.

The trick of these intellectually complex tasks is to go beyond the intangible definition of rigor while exploring the world not only as it is today, but as we would hope it to be.

But to do that, these tasks have to be worthy of our productive struggle.

We have to want to work together in our group to figure out the solution.

We have to want to research and learn new academic content that helps us answer the question.

We have to be willing to tinker, to try and to fail and to try again.

This task has to be worth our time, our energy and our curiosity.

Part of the way we can make tasks worthy of our struggle is providing authentic opportunities to demonstrate our learning, not just of academic content, or English or math or chemistry, for example, but also of transferable skills like working on a team together, learning how to present to an audience, learning research skills and more.

In the work environment you often see these demonstrations of learning manifested as presentations of your team's ideas or prototyping a new idea in a medical lab or on a fabrication floor.

In a restaurant, it might be the taste, quality and presentation of the meal you've prepared for your customer.

In the arts, it could be juried competitions, performances, gallery exhibits, and more.

Like these authentic demonstrations of learning happening in the world around schools, we must also present our learners with opportunities to demonstrate their learning in authentic ways in school as well.

We did this over summer by creating Demonstration of Learning Days where our students first got to invite their families and friends to see and hear about their learning and then competed citywide in competition categories in the arts, STEM, humanities, and in a category of projects like those seventh and eighth graders that I described earlier called "I Love the Land".

Finally, all of this should take place in a joyful and adventurous environment.

Learning should be fun.

And if we achieve this vision or rather when we achieve it, our students will also do just fine on their standardized tests.

You can applaud that.

(audience clapping) In fact, I predict we will close gaps faster and better than we've ever done before.

Don't believe me?

Just ask the 8,400 students who participated in our Summer Learning Experience.

Ask their parents, ask their teachers.

If you are one of those students, parents or educators, stand up.

Let them see who you are so they know who to ask.

I know there are people in this room that participated in Summer Learning Experience.

The learning we saw in just four weeks on hundreds of projects, just like the one I described to you earlier was astounding.

So how do we make this happen?

I mentioned earlier that we have proven our ability to sail the ship toward a brighter future, but to truly arrive at this beautiful new port, to position CMSD for this much brighter future, we have to retrofit our lake freighter into a state-of-the-art cruise liner.

We have to ensure that our learners, our students and their teachers have experiences similar to that of a luxury cruise, opportunities to walk the deck and stare into the stars and wonder, opportunities to go on excursions and try new things, opportunities to splash in the pool, go to the show, enjoy the all-inclusive dining, opportunities, in CMSD's case, to have a full school experience like those we prototyped this summer.

Fortunately, we have both the desire and the means to do so.

CMSD is using the resources provided from the American Rescue Plan Act to make the investments necessary to bring our vision to life.

While school districts across the country are being warned not to use their one-time American Rescue Plan funds for long-term investments, we are actually placing some big bets on our future.

The American Rescue Plan by Congress's design is a three-year plan.

And like Congress, we are thinking about our emergence as a stronger, healthier organization that is living our vision for a bright post pandemic future over this year and the next two years.

Using our Rescue Plan funds, we will complete the full conversion to a one-to-one technology district, ensuring every student and educator in the CMSD has the appropriate modern iPad, Chromebook, or laptop to meet their anytime-anywhere learning needs.

And by replacing these devices each four years, CMSD seniors will now be able to keep their laptops after graduation.

(audience clapping) Beginning this year, every CMSD campus will have a full-time health professional focusing on the whole child's learning needs.

Beginning this year, every traditional PreK-8 school in the city has added either a before-school, zero-period, or an after-school ninth period, which begin on Monday, enabling us to expand access to the arts, music and physical education in addition to the instruction students already receive in these areas during the typical school day.

(audience clapping) Over this year and the next, CMSD will convert each of our library and media centers into modern community college and career hubs.

Cyber cafes open to students before and after school and during their lunchtime, in addition to during the school day, ensuring access to a modern library and media collection, while also providing a one-stop-shop for students to sign up for clubs and activities, access services and supports like their Say Yes Family Support Specialists, explore their career interests and aptitudes as part of our new PACE career exploration and planning programming, get help with college applications, essays and scholarships, or just to hang out together to work on those intellectually complex tasks.

It's important to note that these big bets in particular, full-time health professionals, expanded art music and physical education, and the expansion and conversion of our library and media programs, are only made possible because of the bold new collective bargaining agreement ratified by the district and the members of the Cleveland Teachers Union last spring.

There is often a question about the role teachers' unions do or do not play in educational innovation.

While I can't speak for other cities, I can confidently share today that CTU, led by President Shari Obrenski has not only embraced our vision for a brighter future, but has actively worked to bring this to life over the summer and into this current school year.

(audience clapping) With the American Rescue Plan funding, we can at a critical time for CMSD bring these and other big bets to life over the next three years.

But unlike many of my counterparts across the country, I'm able to make these bets because of the incredible support of this community.

By passing Issue 68 last November, Clevelanders have created a stable financial condition that allows us to make these investments and show our community what their schools could be both in the next three short years and beyond.

I urge Clevelanders to visit our schools and participate in the many authentic demonstrations of learning that our learners will be engaged in.

Come to our concerts, view our juried art exhibits, cheer our scholar athletes to victory at their athletic competitions, or serve as a judge for a school's team project.

And look for us in the community, installing our works in libraries and community centers and activating our anytime-anywhere learning.

You will see your Issue 68 tax dollars hard at work.

Our people have suffered throughout this pandemic.

They deserve more than we've ever delivered to them, and CMSD is better positioned than we've ever been before, and that we may ever be again to give them more.

If we've done nothing else in my last 10 years as your CEO, it is to prove what's possible if we envision the future and build it together.

Today, and in the days to come, I invite you to join us as we set sail on this brand new CMSD experience.

An experience like none in the history of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District and a life-changing experience for our kids, our school community, and our city.

Before I conclude, I'd like to thank Jo Byrne, our cruise ship director so to speak, who donated her time and her talent for free to create the amazing graphic recording that mapped out our journey today.

And a special thanks to Benn Draher CMSD's TV station manager, who served as first mate, graphically bringing our journey to life.

And to Roseann Chic Canfora, my helmsperson, my navigator, who has worked with me side-by-side to craft each of my State of the Schools addresses for the past 11 years.

Thank you Chic for your service to CMSD.

(audience clapping) Thank you again for joining me today and allowing me to share the bright state of our Cleveland Public Schools.

I look forward to your questions.

Thank you everyone.

(audience clapping) - Today at the City Club, we are joined by Eric Gordon, CEO of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District for his 11th annual State of the Schools address.

We are about to enter the Q&A portion of our program.

For those of you here in-person, if you would like to ask a question, please line up behind one of the designated microphones.

We ask that students line up to the microphone on the left side of the room and our other guests to the microphone on the right.

As a reminder, please keep a six-foot distance between yourself and those around you while waiting in line.

And please have no more than three people waiting in line at one time.

For our virtual listeners, if you have questions, again please text them to 330 541 5794.

That's 330 541 5794.

You can also tweet them to @thecityclub, and we'll do our best to work them in.

- Hi there.

How are you?

- Hi.

I'm good.

- [Eric] Good.

Can you tell me your name?

- Hi.

I'm good.

My name's Logan Williams and I wanted to know what are some plans that you have investing into the Gifted program at schools?

Also, how do you plan on helping students that feel behind during the pandemic?

- Thank you.

Great question.

The hardest questions always come from our students.

This is a Wade Park scholar here.

So the question is about both Gifted programming and catching up, right?

- [Logan] Yes.

- So we are approaching it as a district, not just me, but your teachers and our educators.

There is two kinds of philosophies in education.

One is, today is September 22nd, here's where you're supposed to be, you're behind.

So we're going to shovel a whole bunch of remediation at you.

We're gonna pull you out of class.

We're gonna tutor you.

We're gonna try to catch you up for all the work.

And it starts with a position where you, as a student, don't know the content and are put into what I call a frustration space of how can I do this when I don't know?

Our philosophy is to figure out where you are, what do you know, and leverage that asset.

So maybe you should read at the fifth grade level and you're reading at the mid fourth grade level, then let's start there and let's put books that you're really interested and make you want to read and get you reading so that you skill up really quickly because you start from a place you know.

That's our philosophy and what you'll see across the district, which is why I described those projects that lets you enter, whether you're gifted or whether you're a struggling student, a reluctant learner, you can all engage in that project and you each get to start from your strengths and accelerate from there.

And that's what you're gonna be seeing very differently in this school year with many projects that are actually launching next week and expanding throughout the year and what you'll see differently from districts across the country.

So you're part of doing something great.

Thanks for your question.

- [Logan] Thank you.

(audience clapping) - Good afternoon.

- [Eric] Good afternoon, Ms. Johnson.

- My name is Meryl Johnson.

I'm a member of the State Board of Education.

And you talked about moving from an antiquated system to a system in which students enjoy learning.

There's two bills now, 322, 327, that would make the enjoyment of learning impossible for our students, because they would censor our educators from teaching the truth about our history, talking about race, equity.

It is just very, very scary.

I'm holding a pencil that has a website honesty for ohio.info, which gives more information about those bills.

My question to you is, what are your thoughts on those bills?

- Yeah, thank you.

It's a really important question.

So first of all, at the heart of this is a scare tactic, and we just need to name that there's a scare tactic.

It's a scare tactic to weaponize something called the critical race theory.

Critical race theory is a well-researched academic theory taught at post-secondary institutions who study this specific stuff.

It's being put out as something that schools teach.

Schools don't teach critical race theory.

And not just CMSD.

Schools don't teach critical race theory.

But it's being used as this weapon.

What's hiding behind that weapon is whose cultures and histories matter.

And so the way I've called it is, there's a simple solution.

There is no country in this world that doesn't have awful parts of history in their past.

It's just a fact of the globe we live on.

So if we don't want to teach that history, then what Columbus needs to do is to take American history and world history out of the curriculum, not just the parts of it they don't like.

And while they're at it, they have to take American literature and global literature out of the curriculum, not just the pieces they don't like.

Now that sounds absurd because it is absurd.

We need to teach a full canon of our literature, a full accounting of our history, the parts that we're proud of and the parts that we are embarrassed by and need to learn from and grow.

And that's what we will continue to do in this district.

And again, we're not gonna be scared away by somebody weaponizing a true academic theory that is a scholarly body of research at the university level and trying to scare people that somehow we're demonizing children in K-12 by simply teaching a full canon and a full history.

- [Johnson] Thank you.

(audience clapping) - Hi, my name is Layla Harden and my question is, what workshops have you put in place to help my teachers professional development?

(audience clapping) - So you actually asked the perfect question.

That vision that I put up on the screen where it said learners, it didn't say students, it said learners.

It said students and educators.

And so we have collaborated again with our principals' association and our teachers' union.

We have created what are called teacher communities of practice, where we have teachers teaching others these new skills that we want our teachers to be able to do in your classrooms.

We've declared a space of safe practice.

You are not going to be evaluated while you practice this new skill, just like we want your teachers to do with you when you're trying a new skill.

And so we have teachers even as tired as teachers are, and they're tired, this has been a long 18 months, but we have teachers that are actually teaching each other.

We have teachers that submitted their own projects and open them up and said, "Critique me, help me make it better."

They demonstrated their learning and saw improvement in it.

So we are actually doing a lot to help teachers continue to improve their craft.

But I would also ask you to remember that data that you saw that shows that we are actually outpacing the state and the nation.

That's because of your teachers too.

So while we keep wanting to get better, it's because we have the best people in the field first and want to be better at it.

Great question again.

Thank you very much.

(audience clapping) - Hi, I'm a former student of CMSD.

I'm currently a Say Yes scholar at Cleveland State University.

(audience applauding) During your speech, you spoke on mental health.

And I think in this past 18 months, we've really seen that people really do struggle with mental health, especially a lot with anxiety.

What will you be doing to ensure that our students are getting proper mental health resources provided to them?

- So another really important question.

Mental health in our country is very undervalued and therefore very underinvested in.

And the school district, we'll do our part in it, but we're not gonna be the full solution.

This has gotta be one of those more intractable societal issues that we have to tackle.

What are we doing?

We have a full social, emotional learning curriculum, PreK-12, which is about prevention and promotion of health pro, social pro healthy behaviors.

A lot of the enrichment activities that we're investing in are to create those pro social spaces where you can actually practice good mental health behaviors, interacting, reconnect with friends, things that we know are helpful.

So there's a first layer of providing basic opportunities for your mental health.

The second is that through Say Yes to Education, and we're one of only four cities that have this, so we're really fortunate, we are actually piloting integrated health task forces that really think about how do we bring medical and mental health medical professionals into our schools in a much deeper way than the partnerships we already have.

We have good partnerships with the county and their services, but how do we actually get more direct, immediate small group supports and then individual supports when they're needed.

But this is a societal issue that we really have to address.

And I would say young people that are just coming out of high school, early college students, you have a much healthier appreciation, less of a fear of naming that mental health is a part of our entire health.

And so the advocacy that you and young people will be doing to bring attention to a problem that in my generation we were taught to hide.

Mental health was something you should be embarrassed by, even though surgery is not.

Well, we have to think about our whole health as not an embarrassment but is important.

And you and your peers continuing to raise this question and advocate, and as you grow, really call on our society to make it an important part of our society will be the long-term solution as well.

So we'll do our part.

But don't ask me the question, ask everyone the question.

Don't stop asking the question.

Thank you.

- [Audience Member] Thank you.

(audience clapping) - Hi there.

- Hello.

- [Kristen] Sorry.

- I've been watching the news lately and it's saying COVID is getting worse again.

What happens if it does get worse, are we just gonna go back online or are we just gonna stay this way, or something different?

- So COVID is getting worse and COVID is impacting kids now.

We have a kindergarten student who's hospitalized right now.

We have high school students who are hospitalized right now.

And we have staff members that are hospitalized right now.

So it is not just on the news, in our lived reality it's getting worse.

The good news is that we have had so far, almost 400, maybe now over 400 cases identified this school year of students or adults with COVID.

Those are the ones who have told us.

There are others that don't tell us.

Only one case happened at school.

That's because you and your peers and your professionals are wearing their masks, doing your temperature checks, keeping the sanitizing, hand-washing, staying three feet apart where you're able to do so, we're fogging our classrooms and buses.

We're doing what we know we have to do.

And that's keeping us in school.

I was on a call with one of my superintendent colleagues today who already transitioned a big part of their system back to remote because they have not been able to stay in front of this.

If we have to, we will.

But our goal, our teachers want to be in class with you.

We want to be in class with you.

And so continuing those mitigation strategies, that mask, that we declared for the first five weeks, and I mean, I'll just tell you now, on Monday I'm gonna tell you it's the rest, we haven't tripped this nine weeks, we're gonna stay there, is working.

We also have added, and we'll be bringing citywide random voluntary swab testing, where you as a student can actually have a swab test and it's not the stick that they shove up into the back of your brain, it's just a little q-tip, so that we can make sure that we find out quickly if you do have COVID and we can help you with it.

And we will continue to run vaccine clinics.

And there's a lot of fear in our community of the vaccine, not politic about the vaccine, which is a whole other thing you see on the news, but a fear, a genuine fear.

But we have to get ourselves vaccinated, 12 and older, families, friends, if we're going to get through this.

Otherwise, we're gonna continue to live in this middle state that you're asking about and wondering what's gonna happen tomorrow.

But you have my commitment.

My team and I look at this data every single day and we are making adjustments literally daily.

We had one class, we switched to remote because we had an in-class infection.

They did their 10 days, they're back in school.

If we have to do that for a school, we'll do it.

But our primary goal is keep up the prevention, keep up the mitigation so that we don't get there.

So great question again.

Thank you.

(audience clapping) - Hi there.

This is a Twitter question for you.

Will you strongly consider implementing a curriculum for City of Cleveland jobs specifically in public works and public safety to create the next generation of city workers?

- So I don't know if that was teed up or not, but I'll take it.

Yes.

So next month we will be announcing the conclusion of two years of work to construct a career going curriculum 6th-12th grade that is partnering with employers in the high yield sectors in Cleveland.

So this includes advanced manufacturing, the healthcare sector, the construction trade sector, IT sector, the core services sector, like the city sector.

We're getting interest now from banking sector and many others.

Where from 6th-12th grade students will be exploring their career interests and aptitudes, they'll get a breadth of exploration and a depth.

As they move into high school, they'll get opportunities to have shadow days, mentorships, internships, apprenticeships, earn to learn, so that when they graduate high school, whether they choose post-secondary or not, they're ready for the opportunity jobs of Cleveland.

So again, I don't know if that was a ringer question, but I'll take it.

It's called PACE and we'll be announcing it publicly in just, well, maybe we'll be announcing it publicly today.

Coming soon.

(audience clapping) - Hello, my name is Geneja Robinson and my question is, what is the hardest part about being DEO with the coronavirus still going around?

- What's the hardest part of being the CEO with the coronavirus?

That doesn't feel like a fair question.

No.

I tell people when they ask me, how are you doing?

It almost doesn't feel like a fair question to ask anymore.

And it's such part of our culture of kindness and courtesy.

And I tell people I'm living the COVID dream.

The hardest part I think is making sure that you know that I know we're gonna be okay.

And so hopefully what you've seen over the last 18 months, you've seen the videos that I put on social media or whatever, the letters I've sent home, the messages I've called, your teachers have seen it.

I hope that underneath that whole thing, you kept hearing me say to you, it's gonna be okay, and here's what we're gonna do.

And the hard part was, I didn't know what we were gonna do.

'Cause none of us have been through a global pandemic before.

I actually told somebody when they were really angry with me, I said, "I hear you.

In the next time we have a global pandemic, I'll make a better decision."

But the hardest part is making sure that you're okay, you and all of your classmates and all of your parents, and that I have a responsibility to that, and making sure that I communicate that we are gonna be okay, we're gonna get through this.

We are, and I would argue in some ways, doing far better than many other communities because of the space and grace we've created as a community.

I think that's probably the best answer I could give you.

And that was a really tough question.

Thank you.

(audience clapping) - Hi, my name is Jerry Ani Domingez and my question is, how hard are some of the decisions you have to make?

- I didn't hear the question.

Can you speak a little louder?

- How hard are some of the decisions you have to make?

- Remember snow days?

- Yeah.

(audience laughing) - Here's the thing about my job is, people who are in my job because they want to make everybody happy will fail.

You can't.

If I call a snow day, you're gonna be elated and your mom is gonna be upset because she wants you in school, right?

And so part of my job is to really do what I believe at my core is the right thing to do.

And so there's lots of hard decisions.

There are hard decisions about the COVID decisions we've made that I explained earlier.

There are hard decisions about speaking to my board members, my bosses, about my recommendations for how we're gonna use this money we have, things we will do, and then the decisions that means we won't do, right.

But at the end of the day I always just, I call it, can I put my head on the pillow at night?

Did I do what I fundamentally believe is right?

And that makes it a little easier for me.

And I think that's true, whether you're a CEO or whether you're a student scholar or whatever profession you'll choose.

We're all gonna face hard decisions.

We're never gonna please everybody.

But if we can honestly say, "I hear you, I understand you, and here's the reason I did what I did and I hope you'll respect it."

That's what makes it work for me.

Thanks again.

Great questions.

(audience clapping) Quick 'cause I'm about to get the hook.

- Sure.

Hi, my name is Vanessa.

I'm a CSU grad student, as well as a thanatologist and funeral director, but more importantly, I am a parent.

So I hear all of these amazing things that you and teachers and our schools are doing for our students.

However, what happens to students that are still lagging, that are still behind and not quite there and maybe not gonna succeed in the next grade or the next level?

- So the thing is, over the next three years, we're gonna have kids in widely varying different places.

And so what you will see unfolding over the course of the year are additional opportunities for those kids.

So weekend programming, evening programming with tutoring available, programming during winter and spring break to get caught up, and other big Summer Learning Experience.

It's not that we shouldn't provide lots more opportunities to close those learning gaps, but it is that we need to provide them in ways that we know from the best educational science will actually create the learning faster.

So I don't want to discount that, oh, kids will just catch up because the in-school programming's differently.

That's why there is more before school and after school, why there's more clubs and activities while there'll be tutoring coming in.

And like I said, very soon, we just put the applications out now, you'll see teachers in schools offering evening programs, weekend programs, summer programs to help kids keep catching up.

So there's a lot more coming for that extra time that kids legitimately need.

The thing we have to remember, you've heard me say this before, we didn't lose learning.

We know where learning is, it's right here with us.

We lost time.

And so we have to create opportunities for that time to come back, and we can't and shouldn't expect every student to catch up in a summer or even in a year.

The Rescue Plan is a three-year plan for a period.

We need to close those gaps as quickly as we can over the course of the next three years and stay that course as we close those gaps.

Thank you.

- [Vanessa] Thank you.

(audience clapping) - Thank you for joining us for the annual State of the Schools address featuring Eric Gordon, CEO of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.

And that brings us to the end of today's forum.

Thank you, CEO Gordon.

And thank you members and friends of the City Club.

This program is now adjourned.

(audience clapping) (bell ringing) (upbeat music) - [Narrator] For information on upcoming speakers or for podcasts of the City Club, go to cityclub.org.

(whooshing) - [Narrator] Production and distribution of City Club forums and Ideastream Public Media are made possible by PNC and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland Incorporated.