- The CEO of the Cleveland school district says he will step aside at the end of the school year, Ohio issues, districts, their latest report cards, but no more grades.

Now it's a star rating system, and an Ohio judge temporarily blocks the state's so-called heartbeat law in the battle over abortion access, ideas is next.

(dramatic instrumental music) Hello, and welcome to ideas.

I'm Glen Forbes, and for Mike McIntyre, thanks for joining us.

The CEO of the Cleveland metropolitan school district says the time is right for him to step away.

And for someone new to lead the district, Eric Gordon has led the district for more than a decade and says he will not seek reappointment.

At the end of the current school year, the Ohio department of education releases school district report cards out are the old, A through F grades and in their place, a new star rating system.

But don't look for your school or district's overall ratings, the state did not hand them out this year.

A Cincinnati area judge places, a 14 day restraining order on Ohio's so-called heartbeat law, the move temporarily puts the law on hold, but pro-life advocates say the law will be back and a fuller ban on abortion will be forthcoming.

And a Cleveland hospital that has been serving the public since the civil war era is the latest to announce it has to scale back emergency and inpatient services.

We'll talk about that.

And the rest of the week's news on the reporter's round table, joining me this week from idea stream public media, reporter Connor Morris, who focuses on education and also reporter Gabriel Kramer, state house news bureau, chief Karen Kaler joins us from Columbus.

Let's get started.

The Cleveland metropolitan school district will be searching for a new CEO, Eric Gordon, who has led the district for the past 11 years announced this week, he will not seek reappointment to the post.

Gordon will leave the role of CEO at the end of the current school year, Connor Morris, a lot of chatter around this story.

I think we started hearing some rumblings about this last week, Monday, it was kind of a full court press of reporting.

And by that afternoon we had the news.

So I guess initially when you heard it, was this a surprise to you?

- Yes, it was, you know, his state of the school district speech was coming up next week.

We were started making calls when we heard rumors about it.

And a lot of folks told us that's news to us, you know, they had heard maybe rumblings that potentially he was gonna be, you know, there was some people that thought, yeah, they'd been hearing rumors, but you know, there wasn't anything confirmed, so it was, we really had to dig deep and kind of find a couple people who, you know, were able to confirm it for us.

And then obviously the news came on Monday and you know, of course the inbox was flooded once it happened.

You know, we got the statement from the Cleveland foundation and from the teachers unit and everyone else and the mayor Bib as well too.

But yeah, it, it really did it for a couple people that were close to the, to the matter they really didn't have it confirmed until Monday before the announcement.

So it was a bit of a surprise for sure.

- So there was a report out there that, that mayor Justin Bib and Gordon were not on the same page.

The mayor denied that to you.

He denied that to others.

And of course, Eric Gordon himself made it clear that the decision was his and he was not under any pressure to step aside.

What do we know about that reporting and any possible rifts if there are any rifts between Eric Gordon and mayor Justin Bib?

- Yeah, so it's a tough question for sure.

When I spoke to both of them, they both said that it was Gordon's decision that he felt it was, so Gordon told me that he felt it was time to step down because the school district was in a pretty good position.

They were recovering pretty well from the pandemic.

And he told me that oftentimes these transitions happen at very bad points in the school district's history, where there are a lot of challenges and there are still a lot of challenges facing the school district don't get me wrong, of course, but he was wanting to leave on a higher note.

Essentially Bib told me the same thing.

He told me that Gordon had approached him about it.

There was some reporting out there that this was due to disagreements between the two on charter schools, specifically support for charter schools.

And both of them told me that that wasn't the case.

Very interesting because Gordon himself was a supporter of the school district working with our local charter schools.

And these charter schools are public charter schools.

So these are a little bit different than what I had thought of before I started doing a lot of this reporting.

They're not private schools, they have to accept everyone.

They're not non-public they're, I mean, they're non-profit and they can't reject students.

They have to accept everyone as I mentioned, so these are, there are several about 15 or so high quality of these, you know, public charter schools that work with the school district and actually receive some levy funds.

And Gordon was part of, kind of bringing them into the fold under the Cleveland plan mayor Justin bib has come under fire for there's been some reports that he has wanted to boost support for these charter schools.

And there, he, when I asked him, he said that he wanted to support both so public schools and these public charter schools.

So it's been kind of an interesting kind of divide.

They're both saying, Hey, everything's good.

We are on a good, you know, on good terms with each other, mayor Bib, couldn't say enough about Gordon's tenure about all of his achievements as well, so.

- But very adamant that, you know, more needs to be done.

And basically saying, mayor Bib said, there's you, you can't ever do enough for education.

I think you said black and brown children and things like that.

- Of course, because there there's this significant achievement significant achievement gap there as well.

And there is a lot of, you know, there's a lot that the school district needs to catch up on.

You know, I mean, the pandemic was really bad for them, but things were bad before it, you know, under Gordon there's been a significant improvement.

You know, the graduation rate was like 50% at CMSD when he started.

And then now it's close to like 80%.

It dropped actually to 75% during report cards.

Like that just came out recently, which we can well to be talking about soon, for sure.

- Gabriel Kramer.

- You brought up a good point about charter schools being kind of confusing to understand what they are.

And what's what, because I think there's a natural perhaps skepticism or maybe disbelief in charter schools, I mean, we think about the, the scandal of a school closing four years ago, the electronic classroom of tomorrow, an online charter school for profit school, a school that costs the state millions of dollars and had, you know, perhaps the worst performing grades.

And you're seeing students just being left behind and not able to really graduate or have up to snuff education that you would get in other schools.

But I think that created such an umbrella and rained down on people to have this perception of charter schools.

And I think that perhaps maybe created some of the cloudiness of people saying, Hmm, maybe it's because of charter schools that people are disagreeing.

And I think that confusion and skepticism probably leads to that.

- Yeah, absolutely.

And you know, I've talked to some folks who described Ohio as the wild west of charter schools previously.

- [Glen] Wow.

That's not a term of endearment there.

- I know, not indeed.

And, and so things are a lot better now.

There has actually been a lot of regulations put in place, and really there are a lot of those private schools they're in Ohio, they're called like chartered private schools.

They're not really like the community schools that are these public charters that we're discussing now, but there's still plenty of them out there still.

They still have less regulation than these public schools and these public charters, they still charge tuition.

They can choose, be very choosy about who comes and goes.

So they're still out there for sure.

And there is a serious issue with what are called ed choice vouchers, where these state funds students who have these vouchers to go to these private schools.

So public money is still going to these schools.

So I think there's a lot of acrimony around that and that has kind of not necessarily tainted, but that has leaked into the debate around these, these kind of public charter schools, I will say too, there, it's not that there aren't other issues with these charter schools, these public charter schools as well, their boards are appointed by the private or non-profit organizations that run these schools.

So there's a concern with transparency there and as well too, I mean, anytime that you have nonprofits or private in agencies that are, you know, running schools, I think you're gonna have people who have concerns and are wondering about conflict of interest about what are they covering up, you know, issues that students are facing.

You know, so the other thing too is these schools are not, oftentimes, they're not, don't have unions representing the teachers as well too.

So the teachers union is one of the main groups that's been raising concerns in Cleveland around boosted support for these public charter schools.

- And you mentioned that the teachers union and the fact that they came out with this, this statement right away after this announcement was, was made that Eric Gordon would not seek reappointment.

And I'm extrapolating a little bit here, but I think the teacher's union was a bit upset that he was stepping down, they said that, I mean, they loved working with him.

That Eric Gordon treated them as assets and as, as cooperative partners and not as an obstacle.

And I think, you know, that says a lot.

What have we heard from other leaders, city council, people and ultimately Connor, what kind of legacy does Eric Gordon leave?

- Yeah, it's a pretty significant one for sure.

I mean, it's a very challenging school district to just step into and try to, and of course he worked in the school district before he became CEO, but tons of challenges here in the city, I mean, you've got generational poverty.

You've got students still dealing with the, their families dealing with the after effects of redlining to be sure.

And so there's lots of challenges there.

Significant reforms were put into place in Cleveland under the Cleveland plan.

So all of these issues were at their worst, probably in 2011 or so, or in, before that, you know, students weren't graduating, academic quality was, was pretty bad.

You know, school district buildings, the individual schools were in financial distress because of enrollment being low.

So when Gordon came in, there was a pretty big upwell of support for the school district in terms of nonprofits and other leaders in the community coming together to form this Cleveland plan.

And this was also prompted by the state legislature as well.

The state was looking at how poor the performance was and they were like, something needs to change.

So this Cleveland plan received approval from the state legislature and through it, there's been a very significant series of changes.

So also some levies passed under Gordon as well, too.

So new school buildings, new support for teachers, also several very significant programs have gotten started over the last, you know, five plus years or so, say yes to education, which is basically free tuition program for all students.

And then academic supports built into that as well, because you can't just give poor kids free tuition and expect them to just go to college.

They are dealing with so much more than, you know.

- It's that idea of the wraparound services.

- [Connor] Exactly.

- We hear so much a lot of social services involved and things like that.

- We saw a lot of that boosted under Gordon, for sure.

So he leaves a pretty significant legacy and academics have improved significantly.

And I mean, you just look at the graduation rate, as I mentioned, and it's improved significantly under Gordon, for sure.

You've also seen a lot of other initiatives get ramped up and it's not just Gordon.

A lot of these are just the entire community throwing their support behind these things, but pre for CLE effort to bring about a high quality kindergarten and pre, you know, start preschool services to kids that sets them up for success better.

A lot of also collaboration between higher education and local schools as well.

So he leaves behind a pretty significant legacy for sure.

- Very quickly.

I want to talk about just kind of what's next for everybody.

What's next for the Cleveland plan.

What's next on this search for a replacement and, and what do we think Eric Gordon is gonna, I mean, I haven't heard anything publicly about what Eric Gordon's plans are, but what's kind of the, the future here for all parties?

- Yeah, so there's gonna be a search committee formed of local residents and other stakeholders.

And then there's also probably gonna be a search firm hired to find his replacement.

That's gonna be a lot of the school board and the, the mayor's office working together on that stuff.

And Gordon himself is gonna be trying to do as much as he can, you know, for the rest of the year.

He said he really wanted to focus on PACE which is like a career readiness program.

And, you know, I think he said he was looking forward to spending time with his family once he steps down too, as well.

So.

(dramatic instrumental music) - The Ohio department of education released report cards for the state's school district's Thursday, this year's report cards came with a new format, rather than give grades of A through F districts were graded on a star rating system from one to five stars.

So remind us again, why the change in this format?

Why did they decide that this star rating system ultimately was better than the A through F report card?

- Well, this is basically the second big change for report cards in a decade, kind of the third overhaul almost because 10 years ago, we were still operating under a system that had words like excellent with distinction or academic watch or academic emergency, continuous improvement, words that kind of described what was going on and use the data to show parents what was going on in the schools, but were kind of hard to understand because what does that even mean?

Continuous improvement.

I mean, how do you quantify that if you're a parent trying to figure out how the school's doing?

So they went from there to the, A to F letter grade system, which was thought to be simpler, but still there was this, the complexity of how do you take all of the things that schools do and boil it down to an A through F grade.

And there was a problem where districts kind of ended up competing against each other, almost in the business community had even suggested that that would be something that could happen where you had good districts with A's, lesser districts with other grades.

And so there were some districts that got poorer grades that got really upset, they called their lawmakers, lawmakers decided, Hey, wait a minute, let's make a change here.

And so now we're on the one to five star rating system, and we are only rated in five categories now, not six though this year, there is like you said, no overall star rating.

So you can't look up your school district and find out what overall, how many stars it got.

You can look at different categories.

One category that's not being rated this year is college career workforce and military readiness because the department of education is still looking at that data to come up with a star rating for that.

- And is there any indication, I mean, obviously those overall ratings will be coming back.

You know, some of this of course is pandemic related.

Is there any indication that they're gonna continue to kind of tinker with this format in the future?

- That's a really good question.

I mean, we've already seen, like I said, two big changes just in the last decade.

So much of this comes down to how parents view their school districts and what happens if ratings, aren't what parents want them to be.

And if parents get angry and they call their lawmakers, changes can occur.

And that's what we've seen over the last couple years.

And there was a, a study group that was put together after the, A through F letter grades went out and kind of looked at whether that was serving the public or not, and that study determined that there could be changes here.

And even the teachers unions, the two teachers unions in Ohio, both put out statements saying that they like this new format, they feel that it's more, it's better, but they both acknowledged that there's still work to do.

And I think everybody acknowledges that there's still work to do, but I don't know whether the work to do is on the report card system or if the work to do is really in the schools themselves, because there are still these essential problems with education in Ohio, for instance, the achievement gap between economically disadvantaged kids and their wealthier counterparts that is pervasive.

It's been there for decades.

And while these report cards suggest that that gap may be closing a little bit.

When you add in the learning loss from the pandemic, it's still a pervasive issue.

And no one seems to have a handle on how to solve it.

(dramatic instrumental music) - A Hamilton county common pleads judge has granted a 14 day restraining order on Ohio's abortion law that bans the procedure once fetal cardiac electrical activity is detected.

That could be as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.

Karen, this case brought by the American civil liberties union of Ohio, arguing that the state constitution protects abortion access your thoughts on the decision.

- Well, I'll just point out that I moderated a panel with the legal women voters of greater Cleveland and other groups, the night that the hearing happened.

And we talked about all this and, and one of the lawyers for the abortion providers was on this forum and she said, and explained how the argument is that the Ohio constitution protects access to abortion.

Even though we have also a ban on abortion after about six weeks.

And she noted that there was a amendment that was passed in 2011, that was designed to be an anti affordable care act, measure the healthcare freedom act.

And she said that that language is actually broader in terms of protecting access to abortion than the US Constitution.

So that's the argument that they've been making here is that the Ohio constitution has broader language to protect abortion access than the federal constitution does.

And the judge apparently agreed, gave them another 14 days, well gave them 14 days where the abortion ban has been temporarily suspended.

When I talked to them earlier, the attorneys for the abortion providers, they said, they're gonna ask for a longer block on the ban, a preliminary injunction that would block the law until the case is over, which could take months certainly.

And so we will see what happens here.

But of course, I also talked to the Ohio right to life and other folks, ah, who support the ban, who say there's a lot of moving parts here.

And so they're confident that they're gonna prevail.

- I was just gonna ask too, Karen, that, you know, this was originally, the challenge was aimed at the Ohio Supreme court.

It was switched to Hamilton county.

Just your thoughts in talking to the, the right to life folks.

- Well, that did come up in our forum where we discussed, why they chose Hamilton county and the advocates, the abortion providers said they chose Hamilton county because with abortion bans going into effect in West Virginia and in Indiana, that was really preventing abortion providers in the Dayton area in particular from being able to operate.

And so that's why that they had asked for this ban saying that again, the Ohio constitution protects the right to abortion access even more broadly than the federal constitution does.

But one of the other things I'll note that Mike Gonidakis said is he kind of hinted at the total abortion ban.

That's being talked about that legislators may enact when they come back after the election, and that's been widely discussed of whether lawmakers will take that up or whether they will be satisfied with what's happening now with the abortion ban, that's currently on hold.

There would ban about 90% of abortions in the state.

And so if you start talking about a total ban, which Mike Gonidakis and other advocates are talking about, then you have to open the question up to are there going to be exceptions?

What are the exceptions and how specific can you get in state law to spell out those exceptions?

So that doctors are comfortable actually performing the procedure on women who are in life threatening situations and not saying, Hey, wait a minute.

I don't wanna risk going to prison.

If this goes the wrong way.

(dramatic instrumental music) - St. Vincent charity medical center will discontinue inpatient and emergency room services in November.

Hospital officials say changes in healthcare over the last decade, made the move necessary.

We've seen this with some hospitals consolidating in the area, always a concern.

When residents are losing these services, people close to these hospitals, Connor Morris, St. Vincent typically serves lower income patients at psychiatric emergency room services have been vital to this area of the city is right over here on east 22nd.

- [Connor] Yep.

- What's your reporting led to here, Connor?

- Yeah, so actually, so it's in the central neighborhood, which is really close to downtown.

And I spent some time over there for some stories earlier this year.

And another quick note, too, as well that the salvation army is four blocks away and they rely on it for, for services as well for some of their clientele, the homeless folks that they serve.

And also too, as well, the central neighborhood has like a 70% poverty rate.

I think I'm gonna double check that it's majority black as well.

- And low life expectancies as well.

- Yeah.

And one of the lowest life expectancies in the city, and I mean, there's not even a grocery store, that's close enough to serve folks there.

I mean, there's just really basic needs that are not being met by folks there, which contribute to serious health, negative health outcomes for folks.

And so anytime that a hospital's closing that is providing service and this hospital often was providing, you know, services to folks who didn't have insurance who were underinsured.

So, you know, definitely a serious issue to consider there.

- Gabriel Kramer, this is a historic hospital.

And like I said, we've seen this with other hospitals in the region, Richmond Heights and Bedford, university hospitals facilities there consolidating services.

I mean, is this kind of a trend that we're looking at here?

- It certainly is, I mean, hospitals are short staffed and hospitals are are operating at a loss.

You know, the pandemic certainly doesn't help in that scenario when you know, even before the pandemic started in 2020, from 2017, '18 and '19, St. Vincent was operating at a loss.

So, you know, you think of all these factors, the pandemic making things a lot worse financially, but a really good point.

And the way I think about this is as this area central in Cleveland loses an ER system or services from a hospital in general, you liken it to a food desert.

Like Connor said, you lose a grocery store.

Those are basic needs in 2022.

A lot of people think of an emergency room as a basic need, and it just makes it that much harder for people to access it and especially when you think about the demographics of central and Cleveland in general being majority black, you have to think about how you're disproportionately affecting those people.

(dramatic instrumental music) - The estimated price tag for a new Cuyahoga county jail has gone up dramatically in the past two years in 2020, the estimate put costs at $550 million.

A new assessment now says that cost has risen to at least $700 million, And Gabriel, despite the snowballing cost council still gathering information, including renovating the existing jail.

We've got site concerns.

We've got a lot of concerns, Gabe.

- Right?

And I think the first concern for people is cost.

What's this gonna cost?

And we're talking about, you know, a dollar amount that went up by $150 million in just a couple of years.

Now, there is some data that will tell you that renovating the current building will be cheaper, but that's data from 2014.

So who knows what that cost would be.

And that's a process the county had to go through to determine what that number would be.

And the thing is they need to make a move on this because inflation isn't changing, right?

The, you know, the, the contractor they hired to do provide this information, do this study for them is telling them that the longer you wait, the more this cost is going to go up.

And, you know, he's really trying to advocate for them to get things moving.

- Is it even, and I don't know if you can answer this question, Gabriel, is it even possible to accelerate this process with all the environmental concerns about the sites?

Now we're talking about renovation.

I mean, it seems to me like, even though they've been working on this problem for quite a while, we're not necessarily any closer to resolution, we've had sites that they've considered that have been eliminated, I mean, can this be accelerated?

- Well, it's tough because, you know, while you want to accelerate it, there are people who have a lot of questions.

How a lot of concerns about this.

- [Glen] Absolutely.

- And as you said, the land is contaminated.

That's known, a study was done to suggest that that, that contamination can be cleaned up and taken care of.

But, you know, I think first of all, moving the jail, there were people who were, that were saying, you know, this kind of isolates a population and makes it harder to access for a lot of people.

And the other thing is now, you know, black lives matter.

Cleveland are suggesting that perhaps this is an environmental racial issue where you're putting people who, you know, across the globe, but here in Cuyahoga county, black men are disproportionately put in jail rather than white men, and, you know, if that's the population that's gonna be forcing this perhaps contaminated land, although it says it can be remedied.

I think that's a concern for a lot of people.

Now, this location that is being suggested, if you think about the Cleveland population, the Cleveland map, which is, you know, it can be kind of difficult to draw in this place because this location is east of the cow river, west of the Treemont neighborhood, but it looks more of on a map.

You'd think it might be in the central neighborhood 'cuz it's south of central, south of downtown.

But even though it's east of the river, it's in ward three, which includes downtown, Treemont and Ohio city.

So city Councilman Cameron McCormick has, you know, A lot on his plate as far as trying to figure all this out for his ward.

- Wanted to mention real quick, Akron mayor Dan Horrigan his proposal to create a civilian police review board.

It would create an 11 member board appointed by the mayor to review complaints and make recommendations.

This is in not necessarily in conjunction and not necessarily in opposition to the charter amendment, that will be on the ballot in Akron that has more control for civilians to make those appointments, Idea stream public media's Anna Huntsman will continue to cover that story.

Certainly as we get closer to the November election, Monday on the sound of ideas, we'll talk about a new series you'll be hearing on WKSU changing the course of the river.

It focuses on the health of the Mahoney river.

I'm Glen Forbes.

And for Mike McIntyre, thanks for watching.

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