ECS State-Of-The-Schools Address Highlights Value Of Bond Issue

Euclid City Schools’ Assistant Superintendent Charlie Smialek gives the State of the Schools

At the Wednesday, May 18, state-of-the-schools address and luncheon at Euclid High School, Euclid City Schools’ Assistant Superintendent Charlie Smialek introduced two Euclid High School juniors who sang “Glory” by John Legend. Both have grade point averages of 3.6 or higher and are part of the College Credit Plus (CCP) program. Through CCP, they each have already earned 15-20 hours of credits toward college.

Smialek then presented what he calls, “a story of inspiration and bonding together as a community to ensure that we continue to remain a viable educational choice" and the District's three goals:

1. Fiscal Responsibility (closing Forest Park to consolidate three schools into two due to structural issues, declining enrollment, and declining revenue)
2. Student Achievement
3. Credibility in the Community (including but not limited to partnerships with organizations such as Lincoln Electric for a welding lab and HGR Industrial Surplus for a robotics program and scholarship) 

He mentioned that additional career tech programs will be added in 2017 to address the three-million manufacturing jobs that will be open in the next 10 years. It is anticipated that 2 million of those will go unfilled. With the creation of the program, the school hopes to meet the needs of its students, their families and employers looking for a skilled workforce. According to a statistic in his presentation, there is a 92-percent graduation rate for students who participate in career tech programs versus the 70-percent current Euclid High School graduation rate. The school also plans to work with HGR on its STEM learning lab since half of all STEM jobs do not require a degree and pay an average salary of $53,000.

Phase II revolves around campus achievement, which depends upon an 8-mill, $96.3-million bond issue to create a secondary campus housing grades 6-8 and 9-12 on one site, turn the Forest Park site into an Early Learning Village for preschool and kindergarten, make stadium improvements, move the culinary arts program to the secondary campus, and repurpose the Central site as a Metropark. If passed, potentially on the November 2016 ballot, this work would take place 2017-2019. For more information visit www.euclidschools.org.