Our Community! Our Schools!
End School Closings in Columbus City Schools.
In 2024, we reached a fork in the road for Columbus City Schools. There are two paths forward. One path is business as usual, like this hand-picked task force deciding which schools to close behind closed doors. The other path is planning for growth, transforming and revitalizing CCS, engaging the community and rebuilding trust.
Our Demands:
PAUSE SCHOOL CLOSURES. With no school closures actually slated until the 2025-2026 academic year, an aggressive city growth plan in the works, and vital school district transformation initiatives underway, we demand that the Board not act prematurely. More work must be done to align CCS planning with the city’s current and future growth, and neighborhoods must be given ample time to consider what’s best for their communities before making any decisions.
TRUE COMMUNITY-LED DECISION MAKING. We demand that the district create community-specific task forces for each school building on the Facilities Task Force list, spearheaded by the families, students, and staff who would be impacted by closures — and who know the needs of their neighborhoods best; this time, no developers, politicians, or other special interests involved.
PLAN FOR GROWTH. At the end of 2023, Columbus was the fastest growing city in the United States. Columbus City Council just announced a new housing plan which creates 88,000 new homes in phase 1 alone, and CCS has stated recently that district enrollment has grown for two consecutive years. We should not base our school district’s plans on the last quarter century of decline, but instead on our current and forecasted rapid growth – and actively recruit families back into the district.
DON’T SELL OUR SCHOOL BUILDINGS. In the state of Ohio, charter schools legally get first right to any public school buildings up for sale, and developers usually buy up the buildings that charter schools don’t want for higher-income housing. Keep our CCS school buildings out of the hands of individuals and organizations who don’t have our communities’ best interests in mind. With a booming population, the Board should not ask taxpayers to build new buildings in the near future after hastily closing and selling off existing schools.
Reinvest in our schools.
Columbus is one of the fastest growing cities in the United States, and yet the district wanted to close schools? Student enrollment has increased 2 years in a row. Columbus students deserve safe, equitable, fully-resourced, engaging schools. We should be planning for growth and working to transform and revitalize Columbus City Schools.
The passage of the school levy was a signal that Columbus residents want safe, equitable, fully-resourced schools, and a bigger and brighter future for CCS. We expect district leadership to plan for growth, and focus on transforming and revitalizing CCS, not to ask us for more money and then close schools. After helping CCS pass a much-needed levy to move our district towards the transformation our community wants to see, the parents, students, educators, and community members of the Columbus Education Justice Coalition (CEJC) demanded that the Columbus Board of Education now make good on their promise to stop accepting the decline they deem inevitable, and instead adopt a strategic plan that centers our communities – and will transform Columbus City Schools into the premier education destination for the increasing number of families who choose to make Columbus their home.
East High School Alumni & Staff gather at the June BBQ at the BOE
Nothing About Us Without Us!
Because of our hard-fought efforts in the spring of 2024, CEJC won the pause on school closings in Columbus City Schools.
In April of 2024, we initiated our first community-led board of education accountability in collaboration with our partners at All in for Ohio Kids and Columbus Parent Impact.
Through our Board Watch, a record number of parents, students, educators, and community members attended and participated in school board meetings. Students spoke about their experience and the impact that school closings have had and will have on their lives.
Board Watch members engaged in fact-finding and asked questions about the financial impact and social harm that closings could cause.
BBQs at the BOE
Through June, we continued to fill the seats in board meetings by hosting the first-ever school board tailgating events! Three consecutive board meetings began with food, fun, sign-making, and speakers in the parking lot! Providing food allowed parents to attend with their students without skipping or rushing meal times.
Minimizing Harm
While our ultimate goal of stopping any and all school closures in Columbus City Schools did not happen, we fought a good fight and minimized the amount of harm caused to over 20 schools. The initial Task Force recommendation proposed the closing of 20 schools. Through student, parent, and educator voices, 20 soon became 9.
A Pause for Community Engagement
June 25, we won a hard-fought pause in the decision to close our schools. Board members took more time, though not enough, to begin engaging our community and actually visiting our schools. While only 5 out of the 7 board members toured our schools in October, these tours marked the first time that many of them had visited these schools. You did that! You made our board members step inside our schools, see our school communities face-to-face, before making their decision.
Board President Christina Vera announced, after only two community engagement sessions, that the board would make it’s final decision on December 17th. What did you do? You showed up and showed out! You wrote op-eds and letters to the editor. Your donned antlers and jingle bells and showed up to the board meeting with school closing carols, heartfelt stories, facts on school closing harm to our communities, hot cocoa & donuts!
The Final Decision
While the decision to close and realign 5 of our schools was not easy to swallow, the work of transforming our schools as community-led hubs has begun. YOU changed the narrative. You showed our board members that CCS students, families, educators, and community members WILL LEAD THE WAY! The fight for true authentic relationships, substantial reinvestment, and transformative reconstruction has begun and they know now more than ever before - we shall not be moved!
This year, you were deliberate and afraid of nothing! We have so much work ahead of us, but I hope that this small journey in photos reminds you of where we started.
We saved 75% of the schools they tried to close! Parent voices were prominent in over 50 different media & news articles, across 10 local and regional outlets since April!
We have a sojourn school board. A school board that has now come to realize the power of parents, families, students, educators, and the community. A united power. Our time is not temporary, however. Our students shall lead us; education justice & liberation will be won!