From Scott Rosenstein at TWDC via Facebook group:

1. Sign the petition at Tremont West's office, Merrick House or at Tremont West's Annual Meeting
2. Pick up your Save Tremont School button from Tremont West's office
3. Attend the CMSD Board Meeting on Tuesday, January 26th at 6:30pm
This is important! Let's show the Board that we care and we do not want our school to close!
The meeting will be held at Whitney Young School at 17900 Harvard Avenue.
Please call Tremont West at 216-575-0920 for car pool information. We need drivers!
Join us at 5pm to rally before heading the the board meeting!
The caravan will be leaving at 5:15pm!
4. Write a letter to the CMSD Board! Please write it right now! You can email your letter to kristentrolio [at] twdc [dot] org, fax it to 216-575-0998, or drop it by our office. Letters will be mailed AND delivered to the Board Members on January 26th. We need letters ASAP. Letters should be addressed to:
Cleveland Metropolitan School District Board Members
Cleveland Metropolitan School District
1380 East 6th Street
Cleveland, Ohio 44114
In the letter, state your name, affiliation with Tremont School, and why you do not want the school to close.

Any questions, please call the Tremont West office, 215-575-0920.

We can do this, but we need everyone's help, including you!

Pretend complete ignorance of all things social media...I suppose we can give them some credit for at least "getting" Facebook by now.

That said--I don't personally know Scott Rosenstein, but by all accounts, he's one of the good guys.

He just started a Twitter account and I am following it...not that I pretend to understand social media, either....I just want to know how my money, your money, our money...tax dollars get spent.   Too much to ask?

The Plain Dealer says it will run a story on the millions of dollars that will be squandered by CMSD's building and facility plan, especially if the proposed Sander's proposed Transformation Plan goes into effect and schools--like East High with a new gym built by the taxpayers--are mothballed after significant public investment.

For those in NEO with a short memory--East High was the site of the 2000 gym collapse and the poster school used to pass the CMSD's levy for warm, safe and dry building repairs.  Instead the District plowed through these funds tearing down perfectly good schools and building primarily on the east side of Cleveland, where population loss has significantly occurred as part of planned abandonment (see Opportunity Corridor).

Will anyone on the CMSD school board, please step up to scuttle this entire school closing plan, especially as Eugene Sanders and his henchman Dan Burns are being investigated for their combined fiscal malfeasance in the Toledo school system?

The  PD should run the story of the millions that would be squandered by this transformation plan before the plan goes to the CMSD Board. You give a good example, lmcshane, of East High and the waste if that school is closed and demolished. Here in my neighborhood, allegedly temporarily closed to demo and rebuild are the Paul Dunbar and Orchard Elelementary Schools. Orchard still has the sign telling us that it is a National Blue Ribbon School. Yet, it is on academic watch  as the CMSD let it slide on a downward path, from blue ribbon to academic watch.

Both of these elementary schools did not open this past fall, and people are under the illusion that they will end up with new schools. Under this plan, Dunbar will be demolished shortly, although much money was put into it for repairs. Kids have been shuffled over to another school, and under these conditions, Dunbar students must improve enough to warrant the CMSD considering building a new school.

Meanwhile, on W. 46th St., a huge Thomas Jefferson is under construction. The plan is to send Tremont students there, but if the Tremont School stays open, the students from Orchard will be sent there instead, and the area that formerly had two schools will have no schools. The "plan" shifts and changes, and the students that attend Dunbar and Orchard are from poor families. The families here do not have the political representation that Tremont School has, nor the time and energy to struggle against a system that has failed them so many times before.

My hope is that Sanders will be indicted in Toledo in the next two weeks, and then maybe the only print daily in Cleveland will run the story.....maybe.

I truly do not believe that the decision with Thomas Jefferson revolves around which school is going to be relocated there.  I believe the decision is whether TJ will be a specialty school or will reopen as a neigbhorhood school.  In the case of the later, I would assume the district would look at reassigning students based on their proximity to the school.  Students were likely dispersed to Walton and Clark when TJ closed - with Orchard being on the other side of the highway - I would doubt it would be the likely canditate to relocate to TJ.  Its my understanding that Orchard is a neighborhood school where the majority of kids are from that proximity.  It would not make sense to move those kids and increase bussing. 

And, do not underestimate the resolve of parents and neighbors.  You may find that people are being passive when it comes to Orchard and Dunbar, but probably only because their permanent closing is not an imminent threat. If the plan changes and they are slated to close, I would not be surprised to see the councilman, OCNW, neighbors, and parents rallying to save the school.  In fact, I looked at Orchard as an option for my child before choosing the Montessori program.  It has a great location and good support that would be hard to replicate.  If Orchard is already temporarily relocated, I would venture to guess that drawings for the school have already been completed and construction is imminent.

And, one final comment, please do not pit Tremont students against other schools in a haves versus have-nots argument.  I can assure you that the economic demographics of the student population is likely pretty similar to Orchard or Dunbar. 

 I've sat out on my front porch and watched kids at Dunbar on the playground. They are a stone's throw from my front porch.

I swore I would never send my kids there, because I would hear kids using the F word, the A word, the B word the C word the H word - basically all of them. I would watch kids being aggressive with each other. I would watch kids being destructive.

And - I would watch teachers - all within earshot and sight of this behavior - do nothing.

I've watched this year after year after year.

Where does this factor in? We 're portraying these schools as something meant for daytime drama and they're not.

How do we fix that?

 I appreciate your optimism, and believe me when I say that I do not wish to divide anyone on the issue. The division already has been done to us all, and I am trying to not participate in that Cleveland style gamemanship. 

Dunbar may already be history. The chair of the large block club for that area has told me that Councilman Cimperman has assured them that if Dunbar is not rebuilt, they will have a green space where the school is currently. 

Orchard is now in the ward of Matt Zone.

The CMSD is not looking at neighborhoods, and the transportation issues. There is a 2 and 4 mile limit each way before transportation becomes mandatory, and that fits in the realm of reassigning Orchard students to TJ if Tremont stays open. That is not pitting, that is the warped logic of CMSD.

CMSD should have brought the community to the table. Instead they brought an out of town consultant. What is happening in Tremont and the South of Lorain area is being repeated throughout this city, and as usual, it comes down to leadership and organizing parents. Since students have already been placed elsewhere as of this past fall, the opportunity to organize is much harder, and we are all suffering from lack of real information. By all, I mean you, me, the several councilmen, parents, and some of the community leaders that I have spoken with over the last two weeks.

It should not be this difficult to get information. I believe that this is because the CMSD is in such disarray that this information, & the dialogue is not there to be had.

 And to clarify: the is a plan to demo Dunbar. There is not a plan to rebuild it. 

Who is getting the contracts for the school demos in NEO...any demos in NEO?  DWebb who is your source on the Dunbar School?  I spoke with Thomas Ott at the Plain Dealer on Friday morning. 

Please call him and explain what you have seen in your neighborhood--just call 999-4800 and say "OTT."

I plan on going to the Whitney Young meeting this Tuesday night 1/26/2010 at 6:30 ---17900 Harvard Ave. just east of the intersetion of Harvard and Lee. 

I am going to try to go to as many CMSD meetings as possible, but in the meantime, I think we all need to lean heavily on the Plain Dealer, because they have promoted the MAN and the PLAN and it has cost us all dearly. 

The Plain Dealer needs to do the honorable thing and not allow more children and neighborhoods to suffer the devastation wrought by the corruption coming to light about the administrators and the facilities plan at CMSD. Thomas Ott covers education and Sharon Broussard is one of the education editors--ask to speak to either one.

To help the Plain Dealer--here's another example of the gross waste of tax dollars by the CMSD...tearing down and rebuilding one K-8 school Buhrer, immediately adjacent to another K-8 school, Luis Munoz Marin --resources squandered.

http://realneo.us/blog/lmcshane/whats-wrong-with-this-picture