On May 8th Greater Cleveland Congregations held an 185-person education action at New Tech Collinwood High School with Cleveland public schools CEO Eric Gordon.  The action was co-chaired by two 11th graders from Collinwood.  

At the action CEO Gordon committed to establish a jobs pipeline to connect unemployed Cleveland public school parents to entry-level jobs within the school system.  He also made school-specific commitments with four of the schools where GCC has been organizing: support for a new after-school initiative, help to upgrade classroom technology, improve access to healthy food options, upgrade an aging gym, and help to paint and beautify one of our schools.        

Mr. Gordon also provided an exciting update from our 2017 action about the Downtown Education Center (DEC), the CMSD school housed within the Juvenile Justice Center. During the summer months the youth who are incarcerated at the DEC have no access to learning opportunities.  They are essentially locked down on their units the whole summer.  Last year GCC fought to have summer school at the DEC.

Mr. Gordon managed to go farther, having just successfully gotten agreement to turn the DEC into a year-round school so that those young people will have access to education throughout the entire year.  This is a big victory, and GCC’s persistence played an important part.