Master Plan Update 20
Enrollment-based analysis of K-8 construction needs and District plans July 31, 2017 The Cleveland school construction program as envisioned in the Master Plan of 2002 held promise that almost all (111) of the city's public schools would be replaced with new ones or fully renovated to like-new condition, with the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission paying 68 percent of most of the cost. Steep enrollment declines since then have required that the co-funded Plan be reduced several times. The latest Master Plan (2015) called for 65 new or like-new schools, of which 40 are completed. In recent years, however, the rate of enrollment decline has abated steadily to the point that enrollment, as measured in January and February each year, actually increased in 2016 before sagging about 1 percent this year. The amount of school space that the OFCC will co-fund is based on state-commissioned forecasts of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District's enrollment in the academic year in which the construction program will be completed. Because of the enrollment stabilization, the last such forecast, released in January 2016, increased the District's co-funding allotment for the revised so-called build-out year of 2021-22. Now the state is undertaking a new enrollment forecast, which carries the possibilities that even more co-funding might become available and that the District will, assuming that local matching funds are available, again revise its construction Master Plan. For this reason, the Bond Accountability Commission is offering this analysis of how the School District's currently expected building plans match its K-8 enrollment trends. The question is whether the Master Plan focuses the District's limited resources where they are needed most. This report is based on the premise that in order to maximize the effectiveness of these scarce resources, the District generally should seek to avoid planning for more new or like-new construction in areas that already have enough to accommodate their expected enrollment. Building schools that are not likely to be used to capacity poses a risk of wasting precious construction dollars as well as the operational dollars that will be required to maintain, heat and cool unused space for decades. Factors other than enrollment, such as geographic accessibility, must also be taken into account, but in cases in which the Plan does not appear to be justified by enrollment needs, fiscal prudence requires that a convincing case be made before construction. 1