A letter from Superintendent Creg Williams appeared in today‘s Oakville-Mehlville Journal. In the letter, titled “Which is worth more — a building or 600 students?,” Williams said he did not recommend closing Cleveland NJROTC High School — just to move the students.
“This discussion is not about closing schools,” wrote Williams. “It is about students who must sit in an environment that is not conducive to learning, and in classrooms that put their health at risk.”
For just about everyone else, the debate is about SLPS moving to close Cleveland High — without a clear plan for what to do with its students, or the building.
Williams just recommended moving Cleveland’s students at the school board’s May 2 administrative meeting (just three weeks before the last day of class), asking them to vote on the recommendation just seven days later. It is not likely that students would have been moved out of the building before the end of the school year.
Even now, four weeks later, questions still remain about where Williams plans to move the 600-plus students and what will be done with the NJROTC program. And the superintendent has offered no plan at all for what to do with the building.
Some have suggested that Williams, who openly supported the unsuccessful re-election campaigns of Darnetta Clinkscale and James Buford, has planned for some time to close Cleveland but held off bringing the proposal to the old board during the heated school board campaign.
A new group has been formed to begin organizing to keep the “old castle” alive. The Alliance to Save Cleveland High will meet tomorrow, June 1, at the Dutchtown office, 4204 Virginia Ave., to form a steering committee and “come together as a community to act now in unity, with one goal: save Cleveland High School!”
The Alliance will also be holding a press conference on Monday, June 5, to mark the official launch of the organization. That event will be in front of Cleveland High School at 10:00 a.m.
Visit their new website at www.saveclevelandhigh.org
