CLEVELAND -- For the next four weeks, Cleveland voters will get a brief, low-key crash course in why they should approve Issue 4 to finish the job of upgrading Cleveland's public schools.
Lately, most of the attention's been focused on implementing the school transformation plan to improve what happens in classrooms. Cleveland voters know they just approved a levy in 2012 to enable that plan.
Issue 4 will be sold as a brick and mortar component of the plan, making the case that better surroundings make for better students and more learning. It would enable the sale of $200 million in bonds. The money would go to build 22 new schools and refurbish. It would also include $2.5 million a year for maintenance.
It's not a tax hike and would cost the owner of a $50,000 a year the same $44 dollars they are paying under the previous bond issue. That monthly amount could increase if schools decide to pay back bonds early, but would be less money in the long run. The state will provide matching dollars, $2 for every eligible local $1.
Safety is one issue.
John F. Kennedy High School is almost 50 years old. It has an outdated heating system. Last winter's brutal cold wreaked havoc on it, bursting pipes and spewing scalding water. Thankfully, it happened at night.
CMSD Chief Operating Officer Patrick Zahn said, "It's scary."
The school is need of a new roof and many other repairs. But Zahn says band-aid fix-ups are "throwing good money after bad."
The school is also way too big for it's present enrollment.
If Issue 4 passes, a right-sized more modern JFK school would be built on nearby property involving a land swap with the city.
Special Education teacher Sherree Ray Dillion thinks heating issues impair learning:
"In the winter, it's too darn cold. When the weather changes in spring and summer. It's too hot. Those kind of intolerable conditions are not good trying to do the student achievement piece... If we were to go to another school in the suburbs , they would have all that. We need all that for our children in the city of Cleveland," she said.
Some Cleveland voters may be confused. They just passed an operating levy for the Transformation Plan two years ago. And they see the final schools built under the soon-to-expire last bond issue.
Issue 4 Campaign Chairman Terry Butler said, "The job is not done... I think we started out at challenge in polling because people did not know about it."
It will be a brief, low-key crash course campaign to convince voters better classrooms enable better students to learn more. It's the brick-and-mortar part of the transformation plan.
Butler explained, "It's more than just providing an environment for students. It shows the adults in charge of supervising their future, supervising their education, those adults care about where they learn , how they learn and what they learn."
If the levy does not pass, the school will likely lose state matching funding. Republican lawmakers seem unlikely to renew similar additional funding in this budget-conscious environment.
And schools would likely put a tax increase on an upcoming ballot.
Follow WKYC's Senior Political Correspondent Tom Beres on Twitter:@TomBeres
