Gadfly Bites 8/7/26—The first step to fixing the problem…

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Discussion of Columbus City Schools’ unplanned $40 million insurance overspend continued this week, with competing explanations of what happened, who was responsible, and where the additional money came from. In this coverage, we learn that one elected board member (yes, that one) was very quick to formally request the state of Ohio step in to the mess, saying that the district’s willingness to police itself in this and other fiscal matters is lacking. No word yet on whether state leaders are planning to respond to the ask. (ABC 6 News, Columbus, 8/7/26)
Meanwhile, Columbus City School leaders say they are working to reverse decades of ongoing student enrollment loss, but don’t seem to even understand the problem. They say that “focusing on quality educational programming in neighborhood schools” is their plan to boost enrollment. I question whether they can compete on quality (I’m sure you’re shocked by that admission…not); but even if they could, that presumes competition from charter, private, and STEM schools is the problem. Unfortunately for them—and most other non-suburban schools of all types—the real culprit is the baby bust. And the only proper response to that ongoing reality is to close buildings, consolidate schools, and right-size the workforce to the amount of kids they actually have…not the unrealistic amount they can’t stop dreaming of. (Columbus Dispatch, 8/7/26)
Speaking of closed school buildings, here’s an interesting and informative story from Cleveland, where three former CMSD buildings will soon be demolished after sitting vacant for years. Let’s not rehash the “should have sold to a charter” argument; while the district may have initially held on to them to keep them out of the hands of the competition—or because they dreamed of hordes of kids returning to them someday—it seems clear that no one has wanted these particular buildings for whatever reason (age, location, condition, etc.) over time. What’s most instructive here is the astronomical cost of dealing with closed and unsold school buildings. Ken Prendergast of the NEO-Trans development blog tells us that demo for all of these buildings will cost the district nearly $3 million. And that is on top of the unspecified environmental hazard remediation costs already incurred to make demolition possible. Combine that with the security, landscaping, and maintenance for the buildings and grounds over the years (one of the schools has sat empty but still on the books for an astonishing 21 years), and you are looking at…well, an unbelievably huge chunk of money that could have been better spent on literally anything else over those years. This information should be very instructive to the handful of districts across Ohio who are ~~smart~~ motivated enough to close their un- and underused buildings right away—don’t let ‘em sit! An additional lesson: There still doesn’t seem to be any buyers lining up for the vacant lots that will result in Cleveland, either. Thus, CMSD will be on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars of additional security and upkeep every year until they are finally offloaded. And whatever sales figure will eventually be achieved is guaranteed to be a fraction of a fraction of what ~~the district has~~ taxpayers have spent on them to sit empty. (Cleveland Magazine, 8/6/26)