Cleveland schools leaders have a plan to shrink the district's footprint by closing and consolidating schools.

State and local governments are scrambling to help feed the hungry, as a federal judge orders the federal government to restore full funding.

And some Ohio lawmakers want to make it harder for libraries to ask taxpayers for levies.

Ideas is next.

Hello and welcome to ideas.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you for joining us.

School districts across the region are consolidating due to enrollment declines and budget pressures, but none as extensively as the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, which announced this week it would shed 29 schools to save money and improve student experiences.

Voters love libraries.

And this week, the election proved it.

But some state lawmakers want to make it harder for libraries to get levies on the ballot.

Fallout from Ohio's congressional redistricting.

Republican Kevin Coughlin won't run for Congress against Democrat Amelia Sykes.

Joining me for the roundtable from industry and public media, local government reporter Abby Marshall.

And with us for the first time, Jordan Miller, managing editor of the appropriately named online news source Jordan Miller News, primarily covering stark, Carroll and Tuscarawas counties in Columbus.

Statehouse News Bureau Chief Karen Kasler let's get ready to roundtable.

The Cleveland School Board will decide, likely at its December 9th meeting, whether to approve a massive consolidation plan presented this week by CEO Warren Morgan.

The plan would close 18 buildings and leases on five others and subtract 29 schools from the district.

And A.B., the plan essentially cuts the footprint of the district in half.

It cuts the number of schools by a third.

He says that's absolutely necessary.

Yeah, this has been something that has kind of been in the in talks for, for several years at this point.

You know, you have this looming $150 million budget deficit, you mentioned enrollment drop of about half as of 2020 for 34,000 students.

And so there are so many buildings but fewer students.

So this has been something that they said needs to happen in order to allocate and focus those resources on a smaller number of schools.

You could see this coming.

Obviously every year there is lower enrollment.

And if you look at this over the span of the last 20 some years, you know, 50% lower enrollment.

So it's easy to say you should close schools, but that's a really difficult thing to do.

We saw this with just one school in Lakewood, where they wanted to close an elementary school, and the board eventually voted to do that.

But all kinds of protests about that.

Now we're talking about 29 schools being shut.

Yeah.

So they would close 23 buildings, consolidate.

You know, all of these buildings.

29.

The specifics are the district will have if it's this is approved in December 9th, 45 elementary schools, down from 61, schools at 62 buildings, 14 high schools, down from 27 schools at 23 buildings.

So we are talking about a massive change, but that's something that, you know, Warren and Bibb Mayor Justin Bieber saying is necessary.

We need these big changes in order to make the school system viable and make sure that students have these resources, that enrollment is kind of much higher at all of these other schools, and they can get some of these programs that they're not seeing across the board.

So you're on a first name basis with the school CEO.

Now that he's got two last names.

Yeah.

Two last names have Warren Morgan.

I wanted to, to ask you, Jordan, when we talk about school consolidation, as I mentioned, I haven't seen anything of this, extensive nature.

But when you look in the counties that you cover, school districts all over are dealing with lower enrollment.

Yeah, and they are.

And I cover a lot of the more rural parts of Ohio.

So the Carrollton is Minerva's sandy valleys.

Those school districts are already small enough that they serve their area with one big, large school district for their respective school district.

The last major consolidation that we had in the Stark County, region was when canton, McKinley and Timken consolidated.

And that was when I was in high school, or I had just graduated and that was a major news.

But now it's to the point where it I was, you know, almost 15 years ago.

So people have gotten over it, but there's was talk about canton possibly moving their school again, and they're in the process of doing the opposite and building two new elementary schools.

So that's the opposite from consolidating.

Right.

So it all depends on the financial situation and what districts believe is going to save them money.

And it should be noted that Cleveland is also planning to build schools.

It's not that they're shedding everything.

They're moving out of some that they lease, they're closing, some that they don't need.

But then they're also planning to do some new building to move students into better situations.

Yeah, absolutely.

So the whole goal of this, the that they're saying is to have not only strong enrollment, but all of the students have access to learning in new or updated buildings.

So you're looking at Collinwood High School, will be merged with Glenville High School, but they'll actually be put in a new building and that's going to be open in 2031.

So it's not just necessarily.

Yeah, it's going to be new construction.

There's a little bit of everything in this and, and included in the, in the opposition to it.

You just mentioned one that's going to be a real hot button issue because people really identify with their high schools.

Collinwood has a long, proud history.

So does Glenville.

We've heard a lot of pushback from that, including from, the dean of Cleveland City Council, Mike pence, recently reelected Mike Zack.

Yes.

Who has been there for for decades.

Yeah.

So that's, you know, like, like Jordan was mentioning, people get very attached to their schools, in their neighborhood schools specifically.

And that has been something that Polanski said.

He was pretty livid over this.

And he mentioned that you might even see more people choosing to go to charter schools if their neighborhood schools are closed.

And he his argument is this is more opportunity taken away from the east side and East side children.

And kind of the opposite of that argument.

The flip side, Morgan has said this will actually provide more opportunity to students, kind of across the board.

So some of the things are saying is, they want this will achieve the goal of having each high school have access to college credit and career pathway programs starting next year for each K through eight school to offer at least one new core, non-core class like band foreign language.

And in some cases, students will have access to new sports and extracurriculars.

So Morgan's saying there's actually going to be more opportunities.

But, some of these council members are concerned about, you know, maybe people leaving CMS altogether.

And when you mention charter schools, the schools have to offer these buildings to charter schools first as a as a way of sales.

So you might have more charter schools and more choice there as well.

And Belichick is saying we may we may lose students that would go to the public school district.

Mayor Bibb, as I mentioned, is in favor of this.

He appoints the school board.

It would it's it would it would seem as though this is going to be a vote that the school board would favor, because the man who appointed them did.

But he yesterday spoke with a number of ministers talking basically about the political will.

And that's what I was driving at earlier.

You can say you need to close schools, but once you start to do it and it gets a little bit messy and it gets kind of hot, maybe you don't want to do that.

Now, of course, an election cycle has just ended, right?

And this announcement has happened.

So you've got a little bit of time to get it done.

But he's going on tour.

He's he's going to be out at a couple of those schools next week.

Recently reelected mayor Justin Bibb.

He is back on the campaign trail.

But for this and as you mentioned, for listeners as well, Cleveland has a very unique situation when it comes to the school board.

School board members are not elected.

It is mayoral controlled.

So Mayor Bibb actually appoints them.

So as you said, there can be maybe some more political will there.

But, you know, Bibb said that this is something that he we saw this when he was talking about the Browns.

It's something he's willing to take the political hit for, because it's something that he views as being able to better the city.

So he's back on tour.

He had these pastors yesterday that spoke in favor of how this will benefit the area's children.

And it's just going to be that adjustment period as well, where, you know, maybe people will get over it.

Maybe they will be really upset about it.

We'll we'll see.

Tuesday's election is over, kicking off the midterms next year.

But let's stick with what happened locally this week in Cleveland, Mayor Justin Bibb coasted to reelection and will work with several new council members, though one is in a race that's still too close to call Abby.

The entire Cleveland City Council is up for reelection.

With fewer wards available.

They went down to 15 wards.

In the end, most incumbents won reelection two races.

Incumbents were in the same ward.

Let's talk about those.

Ward five.

Ward five, Richard Starr and Rebecca Moore.

There has been some political drama with the redistricting process.

Rebecca moore's, current Ward 12 was split into about six pieces, so she kind of had to decide where she was going to run.

And she decided new Ward five because that's where her home fell.

About three fourths of that Ward is currently in Richard Starr's area.

So he did have that home field advantage.

And that was very clear.

He came out on top, and beat her.

And then also Ward ten, and we mentioned this earlier, longtime council member Mike Plesac, he defeated Anthony Harrison, who actually had the backing of council leadership and the council Leadership Fund, which is a president controlled council president controlled political action committee.

And I think political have served more than 50 years when he's done with this term.

Well, yeah, he is the longest serving member of council.

He got I mean, that was very evident.

He got almost two thirds of the vote in a ward where he didn't have the number.

And he didn't have the backing of of leadership in the finances.

You see, with his reaction to the Collinwood situation, he's still mixing it up.

Oh, yeah.

He that that's always reliable with with Mike Polanski.

He will be around in Collinwood forever, it seems.

Tell me about the one race that's still too close to call.

Yeah.

So Tammy Shaw, he is a progressive union organizer, an attorney, and he drives a truck for Rust belt, rust belt.

Riders of the composting group here in Cleveland that he actually holds a seven vote lead right now over incumbent Danny Kelly.

So that is a razor thin margin.

So they have to, you know, wait for all the the postmarked vote by mail votes to come in and then count the provisional ballots.

So we have to wait for the certification to see if that lead holds.

But if he does, he will be the only newcomer to unseat an incumbent in this race.

And that is pretty rare in Cleveland.

So that includes the ward, new Ward 12.

So that will be Edgewater, Cordell West Boulevard into Jefferson.

And so yeah, we're definitely gonna be keeping an eye on still some votes to count their provisional votes as well as, mail in.

Yeah.

Because they had counted early, early in-person as well as at the polls when you have seven.

And I heard something like 60, of the mail in votes haven't, haven't or ballots have not been counted.

This could swing it could it could definitely swing.

So that'll be something that's really interesting.

But Cleveland had a very low voter turnout as usual.

Lagging county average.

I believe it was 18% in Cleveland.

But, which is like triple what it was, election ago.

So yeah.

So this is just proof every vote counts seven votes.

That that's pretty interesting.

So, yeah, we'll keep an eye on that.

And real quickly, a couple of other new faces on council.

Yes.

So we have Austin Davis.

He is an attorney and former advisor, policy advisor to Mayor Justin Bibb.

He is in new Ward seven, which is near West Side, Ohio City, Tremont, the flats.

And then we have Nikki Hudson in Ward 11, new Ward 11.

That's Cordell, Detroit, Shore Way, Edgewater, parts of old Brooklyn.

She's taking over from we have Carrie McCormack, downtown council member that step down that Davis is going to be replacing.

And Jenny Spencer, that Hudson will be replacing.

So we will have some new faces as well as the old town council.

All right.

There's your politics.

We're not going to talk about politics again for 3 or 4 years here.

Oh, I'm sure, Karen, pundits viewed the results of Tuesday's election nationwide as a big positive for Democrats.

How are state Democrats looking at those results?

While state Democrats in Ohio have been looking for daylight for a long time, I mean, it's been, a bad couple of decades.

And unfortunately for Ohio Democrats, I mean, going back to 1994, Republicans have won 82% of statewide candidate races.

And, so when you take out, I mean, like the two, races where, Barack Obama won Ohio, I mean, those were the big wins.

And of course, Ted Strickland won in 2006.

But other than that, Democrats have not had big wins statewide.

And so Ohio Democratic Party chair Kathleen Clyde says this she feels, forecasts a good year coming up next year.

When you've got a race for governor and U.S.

Senate, those are the premier ones.

But you've also got, all 15 members of Congress, the entire Ohio House, half the Ohio Senate, some Supreme Court seats, all of that on the ballot next year.

Democrats are looking forward to what they say will be the best year since 2006, but they haven't had very many good year since 2006.

Unfortunately for them, and the declared candidate for governor, is Amy Acton on the Democratic side, she'd, be running there against Vivek Ramaswamy.

But what do we hear about Tim Ryan?

I keep hearing more and more about how he may jump in the race.

I looked up from my computer the other day.

There's a bank of TV screens in the, studio or in the newsroom, and I see Tim Ryan on one of the afternoon, talk shows, national shows, news shows.

So is he considering it?

Has he told anybody?

What's the story?

We don't have an answer to that yet, but, all signs are pointing to him getting into the race, and, I'm hearing some chatter that suggests that we should know something in the next week or so.

He had set a deadline, I think, of September 30th, where he was going to make a decision, and then he told us, now he's going to wait for a couple more weeks.

I think the results of this election are part of what he was waiting to see.

But this is very frustrating, of course, for the people who've been working with Amy Acton, who has been campaigning for governor all year long.

She got into the race even before Vivek Ramaswamy.

There's polling all over the place, showing her ahead, some showing him ahead.

There's neck and neck.

I mean, in terms of reliable polling, I don't think we've seen anything really yet, but, a a contest, a Democratic primary would be something that I think a lot of Democrats want to avoid.

But other Democrats say they want the choice to have.

They want the option to have that choice.

A number of library systems asked voters for levies on Election Day, and voters in most cases said yes.

After the state changed its guaranteed funding formula for libraries.

Some lawmakers, though, want to make future levies harder, which is surprising to you that so many levies were put on the ballot and so many passed.

Given the uproar over property taxes?

No, because libraries have a library, levies have a 92% passage rate over the last 15 years.

People really love their libraries and library levies tend to be small, and so people tend to vote for them.

I'm looking, Jordan, at some of the ones in the counties that you cover.

There were three Massillon, Tuscarawas and Newcomers town.

They all passed.

Yeah.

And as Karen said, a lot of people will always support their libraries.

But this new House bill, 137 it would let the local taxing authorities decide if this is even going to make it to the ballot.

Supporters of the bill, they're all for it because a lot of people get tired of levies being put on their ballot.

But opponents say we want the choice.

We want to.

If we want to say no to a library ballot, we want to at least be able to voice our opinion.

It's interesting because the ones they want to limit being put on the ballot are the ones people like, yeah, they vote yes on them.

So they their answer is, let's do fewer of those.

Let's somehow have another taxing authority say, you know what?

We're not going to ask for that.

Instead, we're going to ask for this other levy.

But don't the voters have only shown with what was the number, Karen?

92%.

92%.

And yeah, I wrote about that, House Bill 137 there earlier this week.

And this is a bill that is just in committee.

It has not been passed.

So it is still in the process.

But I've gotten a lot of feedback on that, where people have said they want to have the choice to decide they, like their libraries.

Library said that this could be potentially devastating because what happens is there's a mandate right now that says if a library levies board of trustees, if a library board of trustees wants to put a levy on the ballot, there's a mandate that it goes to the voters.

And this would put local taxing authorities, give them the option to say no, now is not the time to ask our voters for a levy.

And libraries have said we need this money.

The state is not giving us the money that it used to give us for libraries.

And voters are saying we like our library.

We want to keep our library funded.

Looking ahead to 2026, there will not be a rematch in Ohio's 13th Congressional district, which includes all of Summit County.

Republican Kevin Coughlin, who challenged incumbent Amelia Sykes last election, withdrew this week, saying the new map gives him no path to victory against the Democrat.

Karen.

We're seeing fallout, at least here, and perhaps there will be some in other parts of the state.

Yeah, I think that, the fallout on that map, which was voted on a week ago today and Democrats were very upset about that map, at least some of the more saying that this was a deal that the Democrats on the Ohio redistricting Commission should not have made with Republicans.

Democrats said this was the best of the worst options that they saw, and that if the map had gone on to the legislature, which would have been the next step for a congressional map, then Republicans could have passed any map they wanted.

And Democrats said they saw maps that showed no competitive districts whatsoever.

But after Tuesday's election, Democrats are saying this map looks like a much better option for them and that maybe they could retain that.

Ten Republican, five Democrat.

Composition of the delegation.

Right now.

And, of course, Democrats are hoping that maybe they'll even pick up a seat or two.

What's interesting to me to see if that happens.

Yeah.

What's interesting to me is if they hadn't reached that deal on the map, then we would have had the legislature, as you said, and it could have done anything, but it also would have acted after the election that we had this week, in which California tilted the table toward Democrats.

And so you could see, perhaps Republicans in Ohio saying, okay, tit for tat.

And maybe what this did was prevent that.

Absolutely.

I mean, we don't know what we don't know.

But I think for most Democrats, the decision to go ahead and deal on this map and end up making the Toledo and Cincinnati area districts currently represented by Democrats, a little more Republican, but making that Akron area district currently represented by Amelia Sykes, more Democratic Democrats kind of felt like this was a deal that they were willing to make.

And we'll just have to see how it, comes out.

Okay.

A judge ordered the Trump administration to fully fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for November by today.

But we're a week into the month, and locals have been scrambling to assure the hungry have food through local food banks.

Karen, the uncertainty and delay around Snap funding has led the state to help food banks where people are turning to for help.

I know that $7 million was disbursed.

We talked about it last week, but that's really only for those who are at the very lowest of the income scale.

It's also not fully funded in that case.

And if the federal money is coming, it isn't here.

Now.

You got to eat today.

Well, there's $7 million going to the food banks and an $18 million going to emergency relief benefits for those very low income Ohioans, people who are 50% or below the federal poverty level, who have kids.

So that's about 63,000 Ohioans, more than 57,000 kids in this Ohio Works First program.

But the problem right now is that the state is struggling with how much they can put in, and they're getting feedback from the federal government saying they can't put in that much.

They're still trying to clarify all of that.

And so it's going to be a little while before those folks are going to see that increase.

These families are supposed to see their usual monthly allotment from this Ohio Works First program, and plus 25% of that for that amount.

But it's still less than what they would get from Snap.

So this is really starting to be a serious concern for people who receive Snap.

People who are involved with food banks is the pressure is definitely on.

Abby.

The United Way of Grover Cleveland is helping people locate food assistance.

How are they doing that?

Yeah, so they expanded their food assistance resources, through their 211 helpline.

So if that's something that you or your neighbor needs, that's online.

21108.

Org.

Org.

And it's a new 201 food resource finder.

So it will help people get connected with nearby food programs.

I also wanted to note here in Cleveland, a mayor just yesterday announced a 30 day moratorium on utility shutoffs for nonpayment to kind of help with people that might be struggling at this time.

So they don't have to decide, am I going to put food on the table or am I going to keep the lights on?

Our Gabe Kramer talked to a mom the other day, and we had that on the air, yesterday where, she said that some of the pantries didn't, that she usually goes to, didn't have food.

She has to find the ones that do.

Yeah.

In order to feed her family at this point.

Again, it's a it's a timing thing.

And I know you cover, these, these counties south of here.

Jordan.

Anger.

Hunger is not just an issue in urban areas.

I would assume that there are going to be some, pain being faced in the in the rural areas as well.

Yeah, I've got about 33,000 households in my tri county area.

That's through three counties, 33,000 households.

That's not 33,000 people.

I mean, some of these households are two, three, 4 or 5 up to eight people in a household.

So they're hurting down there.

And now one of the things that, I, I think is recent and a lot of people attributed, to the Snap benefits issue was there was a bank robbery in Alliance last week and $400 were taken.

And this is in the midst of all of the Snap benefits.

And that was a lot of the rumor and speculation was, was that $400 going to be used for food, because that seems as though such a small, minuscule amount to ask for.

And, a lot of people are worried in my areas about crime really kicking up if people are unable to get their benefits in a timely manner, because sometimes people will do what they need to to eat.

Yeah.

Abby, I mentioned also that the airlines are going to be reducing by 10% by order of the federal government, the number of flights and, Hopkins is not one of the major airports, but clearly it's going to be impacted.

No.

Yeah.

Of course, because you have these TSA agents and airport controllers that have to come to work unpaid.

So you're seeing longer lines, longer delays, and then you're seeing some of these ripple effects because of, you know, Cleveland's not one of those 40 airports that are getting slashed, but you're going to see delays.

And the Frontier Airlines CEO, as we know, Cleveland is a hub for frontier.

He urged travelers to book backup tickets in case their flights canceled.

So if you're flying in the next ten days or so, he said that you might want and you don't want to be stranded, you might want to get a backup ticket, which really, that's very unfortunate.

Think about how expensive airline tickets can be, and especially with Thanksgiving upcoming.

That's where I was going to go.

You know, somebody made a joke on, on I think it was one of the shows on I can't remember where I consume so much at this point, that, frontier used to be the backup option here because, you know, it's just.

But it's this is the kind of thing that forced the shutdown to end in 2018, when so many air traffic controllers called out sick that it was kind of the tipping point.

And here we are, you know, about three weeks from Thanksgiving, and there's a lot of people who are going to want to travel to see family and friends and that sort of thing.

And if this is still the case, it's only going to get worse, potentially, if we're starting to cut down, traffic here.

So there is there's a serious issue.

I mean, with all the other things that are going on snap and furloughs and Head Start.

And now hearing that, some people who rely on the government to help with their heating bills, they're not going to see some of that funding.

I mean, there's a lot of an impact here that's happening.

A first year Jackson School District elementary school teacher is being hailed for her quick thinking to save a choking third grader class.

Can you spell Heimlich?

Third grade student put a quarter in her mouth, and the teacher, Abby Richardson, was playing a video for the class at the time.

I saw it on your website.

On the main page today.

Jordan.

That's still there.

You talk to Richardson.

It's her first year teaching.

She sprung into action.

Yeah, thankfully.

No hesitation.

As, what, a 22, 23 year old think of people that go their whole lives without having to do anything, really life saving.

And, Abby Richardson, was so thankful that the student alerted her to what was going on.

And then, she just performed the Heimlich maneuver while her other third grade students got another teacher in the room to also help with the situation.

And thankfully, that coin was dislodged.

And I'm told that child is doing great.

Yeah.

What a what a, experience for them.

And I know the school.

Then, you know, threw her a little bit of praise, on social media picture of her and rightfully so.

Celebrating her.

Yeah.

Rightfully so.

Teachers.

I'm married to a school teacher, so I can say they don't get enough credit for the things that they do that are just teaching, you know, the ABS and CS.

So to see somebody go out of their way to make sure that their students are safe and taken care of in every way possible without losing their composure is it's incredible.

Monday on the Sound of Ideas on 89 seven KSU the return of brick and mortar bookstores in communities around Northeast Ohio.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for watching and stay safe.