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

(upbeat music) (crowd chattering) (bell dinging) - Hello and welcome to the City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

It's Friday, December 9th, and I am Dr. Nigamanth Sridhar, Provost and Senior Vice President of Act for Academic Affairs at Cleveland State University.

I also serve on the board of directors for the City Club of Cleveland and a member of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District Board of Education.

It is my privilege today to introduce this forum in partnership with MyCom and part of the City Club's Education Innovation series thanks to support from Nordson.

After 15 years of service to Cleveland families, the last 11 as the CEO of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, Eric Gordon will step down at the end of the school year.

As he has demonstrated in his annual state of the school's addresses, also hosted by the City Club, his tenure has been marked by achievement and accomplishment in the face of significant challenges.

Graduation rates have improved 29 percentage points to over 80% in recent years.

College enrollment rates have also improved significantly.

Today we are joined by Mr. Gordon and the honorable Justin M. Bibb, the 58th mayor of Cleveland, as our community prepares to select the next, the school district's next CEO.

We're looking forward to a conversation between these two leaders about their shared hopes for Cleveland's children and the work ahead for our school district, and the important leadership transition on the horizon.

If you have a question for Mayor Bibb and Eric Gordon, you can text it to 330-541-5794.

That's 330-541-5794.

You can also tweet your question @TheCityClub and the City Club staff will try to work it into the second half of the program.

Members and friends of the City Club of Cleveland, please join me in welcoming the Honorable Mayor Justin M. Bibb and CEO Eric Gordon.

(audience applauding) - Thank you, thank you, thank you.

- Well, first I just want to thank the City Club for hosting this important conversation on a very critical and important topic for our great city.

But Eric, I don't know about you, but I'm still on a high from yesterday.

(laughing) - Go Glenville!

- State champs in Cleveland, baby!

(audience cheering) I was texting Eric last night and said, not only has it been one of the most important memories I've had as mayor, yesterday, but also probably one of the most important memories I would have as a Clevelander.

seeing those young men achieve that kind of success.

And I think it really speaks to the greatness of our city, seeing our Glenville team win a state championship.

What do you think?

- Look, it was an amazing experience and well earned by these young men who have been preparing for this for three years.

And I have to tell you, the key to the city was just- - My first one.

(audience laughing) (audience applauding) - And the right first one, yes, the right first one, two kids.

- Yes.

- Two kids.

- And I had to give hard instructions to Eric yesterday because he lost his voice during the rally.

So he drank a lot of tea last night to prepare for today.

- I am good to go.

Let's have a conversation (laughing) - Well, folks may not know this, but I've known Eric for over 11 years.

When I moved back from DC to Cleveland to start my career in public service, working at the county, focused on education.

It was in the early months of Eric's tenure as a CEO of CMSD.

And Eric, you have seen so much change in public education during your tenure.

So much change in Cleveland, and there's an old saying that you don't know where you're going to you know where you've been.

Can you just reflect on your journey as CEO and your story and how you got here and what it has meant for your vision for the district?

- Yeah, well, I mean, we could take the whole half hour just there.

I'll try to be a little brief, but you know, I think my journey of CEO actually starts with, you know, my growing up.

I actually am the first college graduate in my family, and in the 11th grade, my high school counselor sent a note home to my mother saying that I wasn't college material.

And I'd probably start thinking about a trade.

And my mom, who worked two jobs and so wasn't going to school like we expect parents to do, got really angry and went to school and told my counselor that my son wants to be a teacher, and your job is to figure it out.

And, and so, it was a formative experience, you know, when, you know, because I understand what it is to have a mom that's working two jobs, a stepdad that's working two jobs, and therefore not able to be in school like we expect parents to be.

That didn't mean they weren't engaged, they were really engaged.

And so just even in my growing up, you know what my values are, came from there.

I went to Bowling Green and student taught in Toledo, and that's where I found my passion for urban ed.

And so I taught in New Orleans, Louisiana before I boomeranged home.

Actually left urban ed and went to an affluent suburban school district, which was a good experience to see, you know, how really high performing communities work, but I was really missing the mission.

And so I got a chance to come here to Cleveland almost 15 and a half years ago now.

And 11 and a half years ago, the board, and many of the board are still here in this room, made a really bold choice not to move forward with candidates that they had and took a chance on me.

And so it's been a, just an incredible journey and I feel really fortunate to, to have had it.

- You've seen a lot.

I remember when you took over our CEO, we were in the brink of bankruptcy as a district and state takeover, historically low high school graduation rates, particularly for students of color in the district.

And it's a hard job.

This job is hard, not just in Cleveland, but any big city in the country.

What have been some of the key lessons you've learned navigating the politics, navigating the kind of macro headwinds that you've seen in the district?

- I mean, the first lesson, and I learned it really quickly and in the hard way, is that the title, Chief Executive Officer is the job.

And I kind of remember chuckling and going, okay, well, you know, I'm the superintendent, it is a Chief Executive Officer job.

I would've been better prepared for this job, candidly, with an MBA than a superintendent's license.

And I don't have an MBA.

So I did a lot of on- - Not too late, sorry.

(audience laughing) Did a lot of on-the-job learning and learning how to run a multimillion dollar corporation, you know, a small city.

There are cities of, you know, 40,000 people.

And and so thinking about all of those functions that you understand being the mayor of Cleveland, I didn't have a sense of that.

And so that was a really important lesson.

I would also say there is a balance, and it's often lost in our profession.

There's a balance of urgent and persistent, and people tend to be one or the other.

And I think both are a mistake.

I think you have to be urgently persistent.

You have to keep being persistent with, with a sense of just high urgency.

And I think people either are so urgent that they blow things up and they don't last and they don't survive, or it'll happen at some point and they're not urgent enough.

And so finding a balance of that urgently persistent, and people who work with me, Shari Obrenski is in the room, the teachers union know, I'm typically the guy that goes too far so that other people will go far enough, right?

(audience laughing) And then the third is that I think leaders often get so comfortable with their strategies that they fail to monitor for public trust.

And so I spend lots and lots of my time, and this gets to the politic big P and small p, of really testing, not only are we getting results, but do you trust how we're getting them?

And I actually learned this from a colleague who was getting great results in another larger urban district, but you could watch the public trust eroding when people were saying, yeah, you're getting these scores, but are you getting at by blowing up my kid's school?

And we don't want that, right?

And so finding that public trust balance has been really important for me over my career.

- You know, I often get asked this question since I'm coming on the end of my first year as mayor, you know, is there anything that surprised you so far being mayor?

Looking back on your 11 years as CEO of the district, what's the one thing that surprised you in this job so far?

(chuckling) (audience laughing) - That's a great question, one thing?

- I hear a book coming, by the way.

(audience laughing) - That's a great question, mayor.

I don't know that I can say that there's a one thing, I guess the thing that surprised me is that so many things that go in the book of you can't make this stuff up, you know?

(audience laughing) - I Got a handful of those too though.

- Yeah, I mean, just the, you know, so just as an example, last year we had a building struck by lightning in the middle of the year, and it fried 30 electrical panels, what?

You know, like when you get that call, like, and I mean, I could just catalog hundreds of things over 11 years that I'm like, that that can't even be true.

And you know, so contrast that with last year we had all these things happening and I got a call that we had a fire at Charles Mooney, and that building is an older building, and I'm thinking electrical fire and like, you know, are the kids safe?

Do I have to get over there?

And you know, because that's kind of year it's been, you can't make this stuff up.

And so when I got a call back, it was, oh no, some a middle school kids had put toilet paper in the stool and lit it on fire.

And I was so relieved that it was like, yay!

Mischief!

you know?

(audience laughing) - That's great.

So it's that, it's all of the things that you just can't believe are true that actually are.

- Absolutely.

- We are certainly seeing an historic change of a new generation of leaders emerging in Cleveland.

At the city, obviously at the county, new leadership on the rise, our Chamber of Commerce, our foundations, three new brand new Presidents of our higher ed institutions in Cleveland.

And obviously we all know that there's been a lot of rumor mill gossip about why did Eric make this decision?

Reflecting on your legacy and what you've done thus far as CEO, and you talked a lot about this in your state of the school speech about passing the baton.

Why now for you?

- Look, I know I could have stayed another four years that would get me to retirement.

I have, you know, I have an incredible board who have been incredibly supportive.

We've had a relationship for, as you've said, more than a decade, but Cleveland gets leadership transition wrong.

I mean, we just have a history of, you know, not getting it right.

The school district has had this, and when I looked in, you know, at where we sit as a district, we are at a pivotal moment.

We have strong public trust that's really important.

We are financially and operationally at a strongest point compared to the bankruptcy that we were in when I took the job over, we have had a really remarkable rebound out of COVID.

We got a lot more to do, but 12th highest gains in the state, you know?

So really, you know, we've got that my team is turning over.

So there's just a series of, you know, elements that make it right for the next CEO to be successful, before a next set of challenges will have to be made.

And they're coming, right?

In four years, the next CEO is gonna need to be thinking about an operating levy.

Well, you know, who knows what the academic world's gonna look like?

That person, if it's really a legacy, that person deserves the wind at their back so that by the time those tough community decisions have to be made, he or she is trusted in the community in the same way that I've been able to be trusted as opposed to a more selfish point of view of, well, I get my four years and then hand it off now that all these challenges are back in front of us.

That's just not the right thing to do.

- In your opinion, you said something profound and he says, Cleveland has gotten leadership transitions wrong.

Why is that?

- Well, I think we love our city, you know, and so we don't want to step aside.

I think we actually do it for really great reasons.

I mean, look, I would love to keep doing this.

I, this is my life's work, right?

But if, I mean, you mentioned the word legacy.

If this is really a legacy, it's because of what's gonna come after I'm gone.

- [Justin] Good point.

- And I know making this move now creates the opportunity to really leave a legacy for this city as opposed to, again, putting a person in four years from now who is immediately gonna face challenges that we all know are coming.

And that person would have no time to prepare for.

- Yeah, great points.

And I know that I want to really just recognize the leadership of the school board, who is really working closely with Eric and my administration to really make sure we get this choice right for the city.

Because as we saw yesterday, education is everything for the future of our community.

And, you know, we have greatness crawling our streets on Scoville, on Dove, and Cams and West Park.

It's our job, not just as the leadership of CMSD and the leadership of City Hall, but your job too, to make sure that every child in this city has the skills, the tools, and the exposure they need to achieve their God given potential.

So we all have to rally around to get this choice right, for the city of Cleveland.

That's critical.

- Yeah, that's right.

But that's one of the strengths of this community.

It's been the strength as long as I've been here.

This is a community that knows how to come together around things that matter.

And all of the work that we've managed to accomplish over the last, you know, 10 plus years has been through collaboration, through public-private partnerships, including government and foundations, business community, and with a stay the course kind of perspective.

And you know, when I talk to my peers around the country, they just can't believe, first that we stay the course.

And we've been talking about education, it's been in K-12 education, has been in GCP's strategic plan from the day I got here, the business community.

And it still is, right?

So that's one.

And then the other is the ability to bring this community together.

You know, when I explain to people that, you know, we have a mentor for every kid that goes to Say Yes scholarship, my peers say, no, you don't.

I'm like, yeah, we do, because Cleveland does come together around things that matter.

And education is the core.

If we're gonna be the city that we want to be, we're not going to, you know, every city thinks they're gonna going to bring people into the city to solve their problem, but we're all having the same conversations.

Our city understands that we have to continue to develop our infrastructure inside to make the city thrive in the way we all want it to.

- Absolutely.

You've been at the table at the Aspen Institute and the Great Council of schools.

I think I got that right?

- Council of Great Cities- - Council of Great City Schools, sorry.

What are your colleagues around the country saying about what the future of public education looks like in the nation?

- So particularly in urban education, this is actually a time of pretty high risk across the country.

There is a lot of churn happening.

And part of the reason that I made my decision and made it public so early is because I knew that to get the very next best person in this seat that we needed to be out in the market first.

And we are the board's already well into our search.

Just yesterday, the Superintendent of Columbus City schools announced she's retiring at the end of the year.

And so there's another search that hasn't even yet begun while we're already out there.

But I say that about the churn because we need to be looking for the next leader that's going to stay the course.

And all of the signs from the priorities that your administration has laid out, the goals the board has already set for the district, the search firm, they've identified all points to finding the next leader that'll keep us moving this needle in this direction.

Nationally, my peers in this space, we are all committed to the work that you're seeing in Cleveland where we're moving to a more mastery kind of oriented model.

I will say statewide, there's real concerns about policy at the state level.

That's gonna be a challenge coming into this.

There's, we are still using a lot of legislating our way to quality, which actually squashes the innovation that should be coming out of COVID right now.

Locally, we are really set up to thrive for all the reasons we've already mentioned.

But also because, you know, quietly, and we often don't notice it living here.

Cleveland is hugely respected in my industry, and so is going to attract people that will really want the opportunity to continue this work here.

- You know, one of the things that I've talked to some of my colleagues across the country about is the spirit of true collaboration we have in Cleveland.

And one of the best examples of that has been the Cleveland Plan.

And what the Cleveland Plan has done has really set the right, not only spirit of collaboration, but the right aims to truly be a model of innovation in public education in America.

Can you talk about the importance of the Cleveland Plan and what we need to do as a city to make sure we not only celebrate the great success we've had, but really continue to double down and accelerate the pace of change under the Cleveland Plan?

- Well, a couple of things I would say about that.

One of the things I'd say is that in your listening tour and when you and your team came out and said, we are gonna double down on the Cleveland Plan, that was really affirming, right?

I mean, I knew that, but for you and your team to be able to take the time to listen to people and say what matters?

And for them to say back, keep going, that is really affirming of the work that my team and my colleagues and I have done over the last several years.

And the five priorities that you've outlined are things that if you had said to me, I don't need to listening to or write 'em down, those are the things that have written down, right?

So I think that's really important.

But the other is that the coalition, you know, the coalition is still with us.

We were with you just earlier this week actually, and I've counted around the room more than half of the people that are the Cleveland Plan Coalition weren't there when we wrote it.

And yet we are still here doing this work.

And it's just another example of this town's ability to really get around something that matters, education, and stay the course.

Even as people have turned in and out, and I'm about to do the same, stay the course.

And so it was, that was also really affirming to be able to look at that room earlier this week in the Red Room, where we sat in two in the morning with Chick-fil-A, banging out the last details.

And to look around that room and see some of the people who remember the Chick-fil-A and other people who have only heard the story, right?

Still being there.

So I'm really excited by your public commitment to double down on the Cleveland plan.

And I also really am excited by doubling down, meaning a even more intentional use of the city's resources, the time, the Treasurer, the talent to make a shift from what was an education agenda when we needed an education agenda to what we need right now, which is a youth agenda of which education's a part.

- Yeah, and I just want to really circle back on what Eric alluded to.

So our administration earlier this year did a listening tour all across the city in all 17 wards talking to parents, teachers, principals, faith leaders, community leaders, about where does public education in Cleveland go from here as we come out of the pandemic?

And really five core priorities emerge.

Number one, we must as a city do a better job of investing in those in-school supports and out of school supports.

And so the investments we want to make around having a youth and children's cabinet at City Hall to make sure every stakeholder in our community is focused on addressing the social and emotional supports of young people.

Safety, we as a city need a 10 year blueprint to cut down on violent crime in our community.

And every child must have a safe route to school, be safe in the building, and have a high quality afterschool program or job to go to when they leave school, that's critical.

Secondly, world-class facilities, we must continue to do a better job of investing in world-class facilities for all of our young people across the district.

And then thirdly, we gotta recognize that COVID has certainly impacted how our children learn in the classroom.

We've seen massive losses in literacy coming out of the pandemic.

So I'm so excited about the campaign we're launching with the library and the teachers unions to really address our literacy rates in Cleveland.

And also making sure that we elevate the voices of parents.

Because parents must have a seat at the table to improve how we improve education in our city.

So I'm so excited about the priorities we outlined and having the district as a key partner in the effort is gonna be so critical for the city.

- Well, and it's been fun for me, I've been working with Chief Trafiro, we actually took those priorities to my student advisory committee who rank ordered what mattered most to them, and then talked with us about what success looks like and why it matters.

And got to do the same thing with our parent advisory committee earlier, I guess last week, where they also rank ordered.

And it's been really interesting to see what matters most and to whom.

But I'm really excited about it because again, you know, and I really do hope people in this room will read the priorities.

They are priorities, that signal that we are going in the right direction and that we can accelerate this progress, recover from COVID and build upon the successes of the last decade.

I'm really excited about the work ahead and the opportunity for it to, you know, keep everything moving the right direction.

- Great, well, before we get to audience questions, I want to just ask, ask you one more question, Eric.

Reflecting on your tenure with the district, what gives you hope?

- Oh, so much gives me hope.

You know, I set three goals for myself when I took this job, and I share them now, I didn't share them then, but one was to improve the worst performing district in Ohio, and to prove it could be done.

And we have, we have a long way to go.

I'm not declaring victory, but we have demonstrated that we can take the district that was not just last, but dead last, and accelerate progress and improve it.

The second was that once we got those graduation rates up, you mentioned about Black and Hispanic students, our graduation rates for Black and Hispanic students now exceed the state average for Black and Hispanic students.

(audience applauding) But it had to matter, right?

It had to matter.

And I had a kid at the Landmark restaurant, I will never forget this.

And I walked in for a meeting and this kid was sitting at here and he's supposed to be at Morehouse.

And I said, like, what are you doing here?

And he said, well, I was $800 short and I couldn't go back.

And, and so, we got him into Cleveland State.

He finished, he's got his degree, he works here in a community, but no one's, you know, college chance should be, you know, based on where I have breakfast, right?

So we needed a Promise Program, which is now part of Say Yes, and this community's incredible generosity.

And then the third was to remove the barriers that make this happen in the first place.

And that's where the family support specialists and now the youth cabinet.

So those things are things I'm, you know, I set out to accomplish and feel like the infrastructure is in place.

What gives me hope is, I mean, in so many ways, Glenville gives me hope.

You know, you know, so many examples, that's a visible one that everybody saw.

Every day there are incredible things that our kids are doing, our educators are doing with our kids, our families are engaging in.

And we have to make sure that we're prepared as a community to keep building on these.

And so, one example, I was at our eSports championship, I'm really proud that we launched eSports clubs and the coach came up afterward and said, these kids had nowhere to belong until eSports.

We have to, if we're gonna get at the youth violence program, we have got to create belonging for kids.

And we have to, and this is where the shift from education to youth is so important to me.

We have to start treating our kids like they are actually residents of this city who deserve all of the resources and supports and trust of this city and not simply students.

Student is their job.

They're constituents like everybody else.

And we've gotta make that important shift if we're gonna get this.

(audience applauding) - Well, as a student of public education, we could, I could sit there and listen to these gentlemen talk all afternoon long, but we don't have all afternoon.

We're about to begin the audience Q&A.

I am Nigamanth Sridhar, I serve as the Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at Cleveland State University.

I'm also a parent of a child that attends a CMSD school, and I'm proud of that.

I also serve as a member of the Board of Directors of the City Club of Cleveland, and a member of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District Board of Education.

Today we are joined by the Honorable Mayor, Justin M Bibb and CEO Eric Gordon, talking about the work ahead as the baton is being passed on to the next era of CMSD leadership.

We welcome questions from everyone, City Club members, guests, students, and those joining via our livestream at cityclub.org or radio broadcast at 89.7 Idea Stream Public Media.

If you'd like to tweet a question for our speakers, please tweet it @TheCityClub You can also text it to 330-541-5794.

Again, that's 330-541-5794.

And the City Club staff will try to work it into the program.

May we have the first question, please?

- Good afternoon.

- Of course.

- [Eric] Who would the first question be?

(all laughing) Had to be Merl.

- Another City Club tradition.

(all laughing) - My name is Merl Johnson, I'm a member of the State Board of Education and I wanna thank the City Club for this very important forum.

The Cleveland Plan had a lot of problems, the original one.

I was glad that CTU stepped in and made it better.

And one of the things I love about the Cleveland Plan is the Student Advisory Council.

Eric, as I said to Brent Larkin when he did his column, you have such a respect for the student voice, more than I've seen in any other superintendent I know.

And that's why I love attending the Student Advisory Council meetings.

So can you talk about the last one, where you already mentioned it, but can you share some of the priorities that the students came up with?

With the mayor's, what do you call it, your list for what your priorities are for Cleveland?

The students looked at, the conversations were so exciting.

And just please share some of the priorities they came up with.

- Sure, so the mayor's priorities have 15 action items sitting behind them.

So five priorities with 15 action items.

We had students rank order what mattered most to them, and we asked them, so what does success look like?

What do we need to do to get to that success?

And what role will they play in it?

The the top three, not surprisingly, the first was safety.

Our young people want to feel safe coming to and from school, that that is both physical safety, but they also don't want to feel like criminals walking to school because they're black or brown or poor city kids.

And I've heard over many, many years, you see a hoodie and think thug, you don't see my violin or my sport or my book or whatever.

And so they want to feel safe in the community in a bigger way that will actually get at some of these other, you know, crime issues.

The second is, they really are interested in the focus on the integrated health, the Say Yes work that the mayor and his team want to continue to support and invest more deeply in, particularly around mental health needs that kids are facing.

And I do wanna also just say that treatment is not the only way you address mental health.

So suddenly we have this thing that everybody needs a therapist, I probably do too.

There are other ways to get at that.

And again- - Me too.

building community, building connectedness, you know, so that was the second one.

A third was wanting a teaching force that increasingly looks like the kids we serve, so wanting more Black and Hispanic teachers in the classroom.

And then the fourth was really a lot of energy around college and career readiness, in particular planning and career exploration or pace content.

So the dialogues were incredible.

We have literally thousands of pieces of chart paper to now code and give back to the city and to the district about how to make this happen.

But student advisory is one of the things I've said to the kids as I'm transitioning, it is in law, and to our knowledge, it's the only student advisory in the country that is in law.

And so the next CEO, they just need to hold that person accountable that they have the legal right and responsibility to inform the CEO in the district.

And so I'm really excited for it to continue long beyond my tenure.

- [Merl] Okay.

- I'll, just start thanking you both, for your fine service.

My question deals with, and Mayor Bibb got into a little bit about when he talked about COVID, is that kids face pressures far beyond, you know, education.

It's, you know, it's health, it's clean air, clean water, it's safety and concerns and things like that, telecom and connectivity and all sorts of stresses.

How do you insulate kids from those sort of problems that impede their education?

What's your advice to your successor of what will help kids learn and focus on education when they have all these other pressures in their lives?

- Yeah, it's a great question.

And so, I'll start with the end of your question, which is my advice to my successor is lean into the power of community.

Lean into the power of community.

So many, you know, school districts and school district superintendents have been kind of, feel beaten up by their community and so they become insular, as opposed to leaning into the power of a community to solve these problems.

And so, you know, being a part of solving the digital connectivity issue as opposed to saying, we've got this on our own.

You know, so it's really about how do you leverage what this community has done well all of these years and to continue to build upon that.

Say Yes is a critical component for mitigating it.

I don't think it buffers kids, but it mitigates what kids and families are doing.

And so in making sure that this community continues the investment in Say Yes and the resources that we put in place so that we can, you know, solve problems in the moment as they're occurring for kids and families that keep them at the table.

And then, you know, all of, you know, our kids face risks, but build on their assets.

Our kids have so much more voice and agency than when I came here 15, 16 years ago.

And the more, you know, success breeds success.

So helping kids continue to find multiple ways to be part of their own success.

Even just this morning, my student bloggers got featured on Idea Stream, right?

Because Idea Stream picked up their story.

And so how do we keep leveraging those successes and not sending a message that somehow our young people are helpless victims.

But that yes, they face some tough circumstances, but they're also remarkably resilient and can mitigate those and be incredible successes.

- And I recognize that we as leaders at City Hall have a responsibility to address some of those barriers.

First and foremost, and I've had this conversation with the county executive elect, the county has to step up on social services, they have to.

(audience applauding) Because that's what, that's their number one responsibility.

And so when we have a county that's a laser focused on high quality social service delivery that empowers people, that goes a long way.

In terms of, you know, our responsibility at City Hall.

You know, as Mayor, I'm really focused on how do we make this the best city in America to raise a family?

So what does that mean?

Well, we gotta make sure we have high quality parks, east side to west side.

We gotta make sure that we have thriving small businesses in our community.

We have to make sure this is a safe place to live and start a business.

And so having a youth agenda and having an all of government approach and partnership with the district and our other leaders in the private and public sector, that allows us to take care of some of those external issues that our children are facing.

And that's why this partnership is so critical to our community.

- Yeah, and I know we've got another question, but I just wanna remind our listeners too, that Cleveland is part of Cuyahoga County.

So I can't tell you how many times I've heard.

(audience laughing) - Yes, yes.

- I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've actually heard people say, well, those are Cleveland's kids.

I am a Cleveland taxpayer that pays county taxes.

And if they don't wanna serve my kids, then give me the money can serve my kids.

(audience applauding) - Meghann Marnecheck, Executive Director of the Cleveland Transformation Alliance.

Thank you both for the great conversation and your leadership.

I have the great pleasure of working with both of you.

I kind of have a two-part question this morning or this afternoon now.

First part, last week I had the great pleasure of seeing some community leaders that don't have interaction with the district, have perceptions changed about what's happening in our schools every day.

How can we make more of that happen collaboratively to help accelerate the great work and build upon what's already happened for our district and our educational landscape?

And how are we working collaboratively?

The second part, to address the leadership, or I'm sorry, the literacy issue that we see coming out of the pandemic?

- Wanna start?

- Yeah, I'll start.

I'm so happy you brought this up because, Shari Obrenski, who runs CTU as President, really challenged me on this point and I really appreciate it.

She says, you know, Mayor, we have to tell the story of what's working well and celebrate that story, while at the same time saying, we have more work to do.

And I'll admit, you know, for a long time, you know, in Cleveland we get so caught up in just saying we're great, without also saying we have work to do as well.

It has to be a both, because our children can't afford the status quo more of the same.

But to inspire people to give them hope, you have to talk about progress, and that's critical.

And I think we as leaders have a responsibility of telling that amazing story while also holding ourselves accountable to accelerate the pace of change.

And I would also, just elevate the importance of everyone really thinking boldly about what can they do differently to accelerate progress.

You know, CMSD, the Mayor's office, our foundation leaders, we can't do it alone, we can't.

And if COVID has taught us anything is that every sector has a role to play to advanced progress for Cleveland's children, Eric?

- I would build on that and say, what people in this room and listening to this can do is stop apologizing and become unapologetic at calling the question when people say stuff that is layered in race and class.

(audience applauding) I cannot tell you through the pandemic how many times I heard, oh, we didn't realize all these disparities existed.

Yes you did, (audience laughing) yes you did.

And so we've gotta stop letting people off the hook on this.

I call it the CMSD stink, because we're CMSD we must be bad.

And when I say, well, what building were you in?

Well, they haven't been in a building like, so come see, you know?

There's this concept called educational torque.

And one way to look at it, and I would encourage anybody to look at their own school system, is look at their system's graduation rate and then look at their system's kindergarten readiness.

Most systems have a kindergarten readiness and a graduation rate that are almost identical.

Our system has a group of young people that unfortunately do not come to kindergarten ready, and we accelerate to a much higher graduation rate that's educational torque.

So yes, the report card says that we are not performing like some of the affluent systems I used to work in.

And yet, it is hiding incredible work across this city.

And it's again, why Glenville is so important to me.

Look, it is incredibly important for football.

It's more important for what we can do and what's happening every single day.

But we've gotta call questions.

We cannot let people continue to tell what we know are false narratives because they're talking about kids.

They're not talking about the system, they're not talking about me, they're talking about kids.

And that should be enough motivation to say, stop, I'm not letting you have that conversation about children.

(audience applauding) - So, first of all, thanks for being up there together to show that you two are a unified force for the good of the schools.

We have a text question today.

What is CMSD or the city doing to keep our Say Yes family support specialist in each school for the next two years?

(audience laughing) - Well, we're meeting on it this afternoon to get to a solution.

(audience laughing) Look, we are going through a short term challenge that has some complicated background to it.

We will solve this, we will solve this.

I am 100% confident, we have put too much effort as a city, a county, a district, philanthropy, business.

We will solve this.

And, and I expect we'll solve this, you know, fairly shortly and be able to announce that we have addressed this problem.

- We're gonna get a resolution, we can guarantee that.

(audience applauding) - Good afternoon, Mayor and Superintendent and CEO Eric Gordon.

My question is that do we have something in place that clearly brings to our understanding that any of the new teachers that are coming from these institutions of higher learning, do we know and collect data on how effective these teachers that are coming from these universities are?

And for us to also think about our institutions that are a hundred and over 160 years old, meaning our HBCUs, are we reaching out to our HBCUs to bring those talents, that diverse talent to our great city?

Thank you.

- Yeah, thanks Tim.

So first of of all, yes, we do actually track which programs have high effectiveness in the candidates and which programs we are able to effectively recruit from.

We've actually also built a really great partnership with Cleveland State that now has expanded to Bowling Green and Ohio University, where we actually, through support of the Cleveland Foundation, actually have a fellowship where people compete to student teach in the district.

So we can teach them in their final year before they get a job, and we can kind of pre-evaluate whether we wanna hire them.

We also do recruit from HBCUs.

I will tell you snow is a problem, for a lot of our, we don't get candidates.

(audience laughing) - [Justin] I don't wanna talk about that.

(all laughing) And I will also tell you, you know, and locally there are very, very few HBCU candidates in education.

So we've got to make education attractive again and attractive particularly to minorities, to people of color.

But yes, we do track the data and we're really pretty aggressive about going in and getting those candidates from those institutions.

- And a couple things I want to add.

I think our PACE program could be a big opportunity to start to think about how do we attract CMSD current students to be in that teacher pipeline?

(audience applauding) And one thing that were exploring about a decade ago, the former mayor and now senator from New Jersey, Cory Booker, had a program in Newark called the Teachers Village.

Where they provided housing and down payment assistance to attract new teachers to Newark as part of population attraction, but also to increase the diversity of the pipeline of new teachers.

That's something we should explore in Cleveland, particularly as we think about revitalizing the east side of Cleveland long term.

And I think we gotta put all those things on the table to address that pipeline issue as a community.

- Well, and the other thing to this, and then we'll move on to the next question, is we could hire every candidate of color coming out of these institutions and we wouldn't get anywhere close to the need or the goal.

But if we look at our current paraprofessionals, 80% of our paraprofessionals are people of color.

So we have to double down on our para teacher.

If we look at our substitutes, 75% of our substitutes are people of color.

So how do we make substitutes to teacher?

And then how do we think about, even our high school students, maybe not, they may not immediately go into a teacher track, but what do we do to now encourage our high school students to become paraprofessionals so that we can pay them to go become a teacher?

So there are ways that we can continue to diversify this pipeline, even as the higher ed system is grappling with how to bring people of color back into the profession.

- Yes, Michael Thompson.

I'm from the YMCA, I'm the East District director.

I got a two-part question.

So the first question is, what are some of the new partnerships that you guys are involved in that you would like to share?

And to Mr. Gordon, I know that you're not just gonna be able to turn it off in June.

How are you going to play, (audience laughing) or what role will you play to be instrumental in the administration and just in education period?

Not to be in the way, but still be effective.

- You wanna start?

- New partnerships?

- So for partnerships, I'm really excited about the deep investments in out-of-school time partnerships.

YMCA is actually one of those partners.

And this is something I'm really excited about, the Mayor's priorities, because this is the role cities plays, right?

We were talking earlier about social services being a county function.

City plays a role in recreation and those sorts of things.

And to have the Mayor put explicitly that this is a priority is exciting to me, because it's allowed us to bring multiple different out-of-school time providers into the district this year.

I'm also excited about all of the partners in our PACE work, our planning and career exploration, you know, hundreds of individuals from dozens of businesses that are doubling down to give my kids earn to learns, We've got MCPC here that's really led that work.

Internships, apprenticeships, summer jobs.

So there's a lot, I mean, again, it goes back to the collaborative nature of this organization.

There are just dozens and dozens of examples of partnerships.

As for my role, I'll play the role I'm invited to play, you know, I will need to step out of the way.

No CEO should have to have me keep popping up and people saying, (audience laughing) well, Eric Gordon, would've blah, blah, blah, blah, right?

And one of me is plenty, right?

So that person needs the opportunity to be his or herself without always having me somewhere out there.

So my role's gonna need to be somehow in the background and it'll be the role that the CEO, the board, the administration invites me to play.

And we'll see what that is.

- And a couple things.

One, I think new is great, but what I'm focused on is how do we deepen execution with the great partners I already got, right?

Because I think that that's a big priority for my administration, and I know for CMSD as well.

And secondly, I got a handful of things I like Eric to do.

So we're gonna talk later.

(audience laughing) - I'm looking for a job, so.

(all laughing) - Good afternoon, my name is Juan Pena, I work at Team NEO.

Just wanna say real quickly that I'm actually a proud CSU graduate.

(audience applauding) So I started right about when you were CEO.

I thank you for your service, and really grateful for all the work that you've done for CSU.

To my question.

So I'm really curious to hear about the Mackenzie Scott Grant that you got, I would love to hear all the details about that.

- He's got a great story about this by the way.

- So this is how this happens.

I get, I get an email saying, we need to call you, we need to reach you today.

We have a private donor that wants to make a gift to the district.

So I call an organization that is not Mackenzie Scott's organization who says, this is completely confidential.

You can't tell anybody, we're representing Mackenzie Scott, but you're not allowed to say who she is.

She wants to give you $20 million.

Send us your bank account numbers.

(audience laughing) Now, I mean, how many times have we been told never give your bank account?

(audience laughing) So I called Helen Williams at the Cleveland Foundation and I said, I just got this call, they want our bank account numbers, can I give 'em yours?

(audience laughing) So then we didn't hear anything.

And I literally called Helen back and said, we're getting scammed.

You all gotta be watching your bank account (audience laughing) until one evening we were at our Excellence in Teaching Award banquet and I got a text message that 20 million dollars showed up in the bank.

(audience laughing) So, it's a real thing.

(audience laughing) I am so excited about this money to create opportunities for our kids and our adults and our community that we would not otherwise be able to do.

And so examples are international travel, or college visits, or youth camps, or private lessons or you know, programming.

We announced we're gonna remodel our transportation break rooms, which if you've been in them, you're stepping back into the fifties right now, right?

And this is how we show we care about you?

Like, so we're gonna be able to do things we can't do.

But what I'm more excited about is that I'm working on a strategy to have our students be the distribution committee.

Where the applications will actually go to a panel of students who will get a stipend like they would if they sat on any other Board of the Gun foundation or the Cleveland Foundation or other boards, and make decisions and allocate $400,000 a month for the next five years, in the way that students believe it should be allocated.

So it's another chance to empower.

(audience applauding) It also gets me off the hook of saying, no, you can't have the money.

(audience laughing) - We have another text question.

Eric, will you and your wife stay in the Cleveland area?

- So I don't know a lot, I do know the answer to that.

We are Clevelanders, we live in the city, we're staying in the city.

(audience applauding) - He'll call me about the potholes too.

(audience laughing) - I'm finally able to!

(all laughing) Yeah, we are not going anywhere.

- I have another question from our virtual audience.

How are we using youth advocates in planning for the future of our schools?

- Well, I can chime in on this one.

So after I got elected, Eric invited me to talk to the Student Advisory Committee during the transition.

And already thus far I've had two meetings with that body.

And I've made a commitment as Mayor to meet quarterly with the Student Advisory Committee at CMSD.

So they're gonna be a big part of how we get feedback from students to move the city forward.

- And then building upon student advisory, which you've heard about, we also have a program called Civics 2.0 where we have civics clubs and schools where students are now working on voter registration, turning out voters, for not only general elections but primary elections.

So that's a growing body of work.

We have a group of students called the Un-Silenced Voices of CMSD who blog and do podcasts.

That's what was just featured on Idea Stream.

And we are just about to launch a re-imagining of high school journalism where instead of writing stories for the antiquated high school newspaper that many of us remember when it wasn't antiquated, they're actually gonna be stringers for the district's communications department telling the stories that students want told about the organization.

So there's lots of opportunities for voice and choice and advocacy for our kids.

- Another text question, have you been able to increase parental involvement with their children in school?

For example, attending open houses, student conferences, et cetera.

- So part of the Cleveland Plan requires us to intentionally measure effective student, parent engagement with their teachers.

And we measure that, our teachers actually report it right on our student's report cards.

And so pre-pandemic, we had gotten to over 90% of our parents who had had meaningful engagements with their child's teachers, as reported by their teachers.

Now does that mean that they're there every day?

No, just like my mother was not able to be there, but it does mean that they had meaningful engagements as reported by teachers.

Now we lost some ground on that in the pandemic.

And we are getting the opportunity to innovate in a way by using these new virtual technologies to make what we consider engagement more accessible.

Because in the past we wouldn't have called a phone conference or a video conference engagement, but now we know of course it is.

That's how many of us do part of our work nearly every day.

We also have spent a lot of time with our Parent Advisory Committee over the last year, you know, really trying to understand the ways in which parents want to engage with the district because we were struggling with people engaged with their kids' school, but they weren't engaging with their kids' district.

And I really want, just like I want my students empowered to own the future of this district.

I want my parents to be too.

And so we have actually used student advisory to repurpose the parent advisory in the same way.

And we had a great opportunity last week with about a hundred parents representing schools across the district informing the mayor's priorities.

- All right, that's it, thanks everybody, appreciate.

(audience applauding) - Thank you Mayor Bibb and CEO Gordon for joining us at the City Club today.

Today's forum is in partnership with My Com, as well as support of the City Club's Education Innovation series, thanks to support from Nordson.

we are grateful to each of you for your continued support of City Club programming.

We would also like to welcome guests at tables hosted by the Cleveland Teachers Union, CMSD Board of Education, the George Gun Foundation, MCPC, MC Squared Stem High School, My Com Cleveland, Nordson, PNC, Positive Education Program, Say Yes Cleveland, YMCA of Greater Cleveland, and Youth Opportunities Unlimited.

Thank you all for being here today.

Next Friday, December 16th, the City Club will be joined by Kyle Dreyfuss-Wells, President and CEO of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District as part of their Local Heroes series.

You can learn about this forum, and others happening next week, at our website CityClub.org.

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

Thank you once again to Mayor Bibb and CEO Eric Gordon.

And thank you members, friends of the City Club.

I am Dr. Nigamanth Sridhar, and this forum is now adjourned.

(audience applauding) (bell dinging) - [Narrator] City Club, go to CityClub.org.

(whimsical music) Production and distribution of City Club forums on Idea Stream Public Media are made possible by, PNC and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland Incorporated.