Larger classrooms divided by glass partitions and garage-door style doorways? Does anyone really believe these will improve our children's education? Sounds like another fad designed to line the architects' pockets (they are paid a percentage based on total project cost) at the taxpayer's expense.

"University Heights Mayor Susan Infeld told the Cleveland Heights-University Heights School Board that if they decide to close Gearity Professional Development School, it will “kill our city.”"

Don't worry, Mayor. That brand spankin' new WalMart in SE, just 1/8 mile down the street, will kill your city *long* before your city's housing changes over enough hands for the SD to kill it.

This is what "ME! ME! ME! and the heck with the other guy" gets you when you don't think regionally.

Forgive me if I shed no tears.

I have to agree that a lack of regionalism is destroying our communities and, in fact, Cuyahoga County.

Infled sounds like she would throw South Euclid & Cleveland Heights under the bus for UH, and what people need to understand is that if one of those communities does poorly- all of them will suffer. University Heights is not alone on an island.

And Wilcox, while possibly being blunt, was trying to point out exactly where Infeld was leading people: The District is not going to keep Gearity & Canterbury both open.

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Where is the money for this downsizing coming from??? This is why people are leaving Cleveland Heights and University Heights. I love the Heights but am afraid that I can't afford to live here anymore. Wasn't it just a year ago the Board was broke? If renovation made better students why hasn't anything changed in East Cleveland where in the past 8 years they have built a new junior and senior high school? I wish everybody would wake up and realize this is 2012 and not 1995.

What I find amusing and ironic is that the most vocal voices coming from UH leadership over the closing of Gearity are they themselves examples of those who move to UH with little to no intention of using the public schools. After 20 years of either ignoring the public schools or vilifying them, I fear this protestation may be little more than political cover, an easy excuse to not support an effort to improve our public school facilities for the next forty years.

I applaud Mayor Infeld for her courage and her advocacy. I am proud we have chosen a Mayor who stands up for us and does not let Heuer and the School Board bully her. Regionalism is a great idea, but it starts with communication and demands collaboration. Let's not forget that Heuer and the Board rolled out their plans without EVER speaking with Mayor Infeld. This was clearly intentional and showed absolutely no respect for her or her office. Thank you Mayor Infeld.

One must remember that UH has shown absolutely no regard to the public schools. Mayor Infeld herself while a council rep came out against school levies. UH going away will not hurt the region, actually it may be better. If UH merged with CH, it could bring back sorely missing federal dollars. Let's look at it another way. UH uses the SH court system and ice rink, it uses SE recreation dept, and the CH schools. What does UH bring to the table? As far as I can tell nothing but dead weight.

Infeld should try telling the district what she wants to happen, instead of what she doesn't want to happen. Does she want the district to close Cantabury instead? Turn Wiley into a K-8 school? She has the right to not like the plan, but she should counter proposal, or at least take the opportunity to tell the school board what she thinks her residents would like to see.

Why is everybody ok with any of this. Why are we debating closing Gearity when the real subject that should be debated is why we feel we need to go in debt for 38 years to do something that ultimately changes nothing. This is a dream brought on by sending our school representatives to conferences that promote total physical restructuring of buildings. The only ones who will be enriched by this are architects and construction companies. Leave Gearity alone. Sale Milliken. Hire the best teachers you can. Don't shorten days or the school year. Making a better student is about working with that student, not putting that student in to a confusing world of moving walls and whatnot. Fellow residents of UH and CH.- don't let them steal the system away from us.

I hear the UH mayor tightened the city's policy regarding jet travel.

You know, the Infeld Fly Rule.

My family will be leaving the CHUH district at the end of the school year and I can tell you the reason we’re leaving has nothing to do with the quality of the education or the condition of the school buildings. I grew up in Shaker and the CHUH buildings I have been in are every bit as nice and well maintained. The custodial staff, teachers and support staff do a tremendous job.
We tried private school and decided it wasn’t for us. We felt it didn’t contribute to the sense of community we longed for. After living in the same house for 9 years we didn’t know many neighbors and our children didn’t have friends in the immediate area. Our daughter entered CHUH and we enrolled our son in the preschool program. We found the community we were missing and were blown away by the programs offered before, during and after school.
The reason we are leaving has more to do with property value, low interest rates and the perfect time to buy up. We listed and sold our house within weeks of plan C being announced and I have to say it’s hard to second guess our decision to leave.

The Board is looking to spend close to 300M to restructure the facilities. Why not take the 300M and hire teachers. Reduce all class sizes to 1 teacher and 5 or less students. That way they could use every building they currently have including Coventry, Millikin, Gearity and Taylor Rd. Academy. The kids would almost have the status of a private tutor. They won't have to lease or sale Millikin or close Gearity. This undoubtedly would result in better educated kids then disrupting the whole teaching process due to construction.

Please consider signing this petition essentially asking the CH-UH Board of Ed to allow a year of honest community dialog before asking our community for $130 Million.
http://www.change.org/petitions/cleveland-heights-university-heights-board-of-education-remove-plan-c-from-consideration-for-the-november-2012-ballot