Master Plan Moves District from Surviving to Thriving
The plan to right-size Cardinal Schools may be implemented by the time school starts next fall.
The plan to right-size Cardinal Schools may be implemented by the time school starts next fall.
Superintendent Jack Cunningham provided more details at the Cardinal Schools Board of Education meeting Sept. 13 on how the district can become more fiscally viable for the long term.
The administration and the board started moving the ball down the field in 2022.
“We are moving from surviving to thriving as a district,” he said.
They set goals in January 2023 and have been putting things in place to secure the district’s existence, Cunningham said.
“One goal is we don’t want to ask for new money from the community until we absolutely need to,” he said. “We want the community to see we have been trying to become efficient and provide opportunities for our kids. We are doing that now.”
An evaluation of the district’s facilities clearly showed a lot of unused room in the three academic buildings — high school, middle school and A.J. Jordak Elementary School.
“At one time we had 1,500 kids. We are around 800,” Cunningham said.
The plan, not yet approved by the board, is to move students out of Jordak, which is nearly 75 years old, into the middle school on Almeda Drive, which will accommodate grades kindergarten through six, he said.
Grades seven through 12 will be housed in the high school on Thompson Avenue, Cunningham said.
“We will not be using Jordak as an academic building,” he said. “Next year, we hope to make the decision and move to two buildings.”
Although the district sold the intermediate school on East High Street several years ago, it had not been used as a regular school building for some time before that.
“We can’t keep paying for things we don’t need. Jordak is a building we don’t need,” Cunningham said, adding maintenance of the elementary building is a huge cost.
“There will be substantial savings for the district by moving into those two buildings,” he said.
Along with the reorganization of classrooms comes a need for fewer teachers and staff, Cunningham said.
Cardinals’ current average class size is 13 students to one teacher.
“Our student per teacher goal is 19-20 per teacher,” he said.
Right-sizing may require the loss of some teaching and staff positions and attrition may occur as the plan moves forward, he said.
“We’re trying to do this with minimal job loss,” Cunningham said, adding he wants to keep offering the high quality programs now in place.
“The best instruction provides the best results,” he said, adding one goal is to avoid salary freezes in the future.
“We hope to offer our staff (salary) increases when we have the opportunity to do so,” the superintendent said.
The board and administration has been working on other possible money-saving ideas.
In the last year, the board and administration jettisoned plans to build a new bus garage and, instead, contracted with Chardon Schools for maintenance of the transportation buses and vans, but Cardinal staff is still driving the fleet, he said.
They also brought many of their special education students back to the Middlefield Village buildings instead of paying the educational services center to manage the students’ placement, saving the district significant money, Cunningham said.
The board offices next door to Jordak may also be repurposed and the administration offices relocated to the high school where room is probably available with minimal renovation of the building, he said.
The high school had about 560 students at one time and, with the changes planned, that number will be closer to 400, he said.
In order to make the decision before the end of 2023, Cunningham said the public is welcome to attend the Sept. 27 and Oct. 25 board meetings to ask questions and provide input about the master facilities plan.
A summary of that input will be presented to the board in December. If the board approves the plan, teachers will be told by May 6 where they will be in the fall and the move will be completed by August, he said.
“We are hoping there will be no construction — just moving,” Cunningham said.
