Gadfly Bites 11/7/25—Your legacy

News stories featured in Gadfly Bites may require a paid subscription to read in full. Just sayin’.

1. Only one story to talk about today, but it’s a good one. Cleveland Metropolitan School District, as promised, released its list of proposed school consolidations and closures on Wednesday. It’s big, resulting in at least 23 fewer buildings being operated by the district by the start of the 2026-2027 school year. It’s an ambitious plan and an accelerated timeline, likely to beat pokey Columbus City Schools by at least a year—if those guys ever do succeed in closing any buildings. Pushback in The Land seems limited so far, but let’s see how it all plays out. (Cleveland.com, 11/5/25)
   
   

2. Despite what seems like a pretty unobjectionable plan, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb is bracing for negative reaction anyway. What will folks object to, I wonder, since no staff will be terminated and no specialty programs will be closed? I figure someone will get to the safety/dead kids argument eventually (because they can’t ever stop themselves from doing so, no matter how ridiculous), but out of the gate I say it’ll either be neighborhood pride (“You can’t close Steve Harvey’s alma mater! That’s our legacy!”) or those dastardly charter schools getting first crack at any buildings put up for sale. We’ll see what happens, but if this plan is to actually help the district eliminate its massive budget hole, CMSD can’t just close the buildings and then hold on to them for decades. If they do that and don’t cut any staff, there will be only minimal operational savings. Leaders are going to have to overcome the naysayers and they’re going to have to sell. (Signal Cleveland, 11/6/25)

Did you know you can have every edition of Gadfly Bites sent directly to your Inbox? Subscribe by clicking here.