Cleveland dumps

Investigation: District Dumping Nearly-New Textbooks
Dumpsters Found Filled With Books From Closed Schools

POSTED: 2:49 pm EDT September 21, 2005

CLEVELAND -- Did Cleveland's public school system throw away valuable textbooks?

In a 5 On Your Side investigation, chief investigator Duane Pohlman looked into claims made by people who said they found hundreds of books, many of them nearly new, at a warehouse trash bin.

The undercover investigation went to the downtown warehouse to find if the financially-struggling district is really throwing money away.

Pohlman: These school textbooks, on subjects ranging from science to reading, writing and arithmetic, are as good as new. Most look like they've never been used. But you won't find them in Cleveland's classrooms where they're needed. The textbooks were found in the trash bin.

Workers say they were thrown away by the Cleveland Municipal School District.

Frank Gentile - Neighbor: "They're stealing from us. They're taking this stuff and throwing it away."

Pohlman: "In one of the poorest cities in the country, Cleveland school leaders have often complained about not having enough money. That's why they say they had to close schools across the city. And they've been vocal about not having the basics, like supplies and books.

Don't take my word, see what Cleveland School's CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett said in November last year after a school levy was defeated."

Bennett: "We are really at the bare bones. Teachers are working under conditions that are challenging -- no textbooks, no technology."

Pohlman: Sandra Green, a second-grade teacher in Cleveland's public schools, was shown some of these books found in the trash.

"You like those? These books could be used?"

Green: "Oh yeah!"

Pohlman: Her surprise turned to shock when I told her where the books came from.

"These were in the Dumpster."

Green: (Makes a face.)

Pohlman: "These books were thrown away."

Green: "Oh my!"

Pohlman: "Where did you get these books?"

Gentile: "Out of the Dumpster."

Pohlman:Frank Gentile rescued the books and showed me hundreds of other books and supplies he pulled out of the Dumpsters on a loading dock.

He took pictures, too, showing thousands of books in Dumpsters. He and other workers say the Dumpsters were filled with books every day for nearly two months.

Many of the books are still stamped with the names of the now-closed-down Cleveland schools where they came from.

Gentile: "I think it takes away any credibility the city would have when they say that they don't have money for the schools when they're throwing stuff away."

Pohlman: Gentile works in the same building where the Cleveland School District has rented warehouse space to sort books, supplies and equipment from nearly two-dozen schools that have been shut down.

In a 5 On Your Side investigation, we went undercover,sending our hidden camera inside to reveal a huge operation.

It's where workers sort books and other supplies. On this day, our camera captured hundreds of workbooks in a Dumpster. They, like countless other books, are on their way to the landfill.

Workers told our undercover photographer they're constantly tossing books and other valuable items.

Worker: "Desks, books, scrap. They're not sellin' it. They're throwing out all this stuff."

Pohlman: I tried to get answers, including filing a public records request, asking for a list of all textbooks at the warehouse and an index of books that were thrown out.

The response was a list only three pages long, with no mention of the books that were tossed.

Many of the books in our pile did not appear on the list, either. No one from the Cleveland Municipal School District would sit down with me in front of a camera. So, I went to them.

"Can you address why they would be thrown away?"

Byrd-Bennett: "Not right now."

Pohlman: I caught up with Byrd Bennett during lunchtime outside the Ritz Carlton in downtown Cleveland.

"Why would these textbooks be thrown away?"

Byrd-Bennett: "I don't know that they were."

Pohlman: But the school system's own public information officer admits the district did throw out some textbooks, but he insists only books that were out of date and no longer useful in the classroom were tossed.

Of the books Gentile pulled out of the trash, one was copyrighted in 2004. Many were only five or six years old.

Gentile says all the books have value.

Gentile:"Give them to other kids -- kids that need them, kids that want to learn.

Pohlman: And most of the books in the pile are still being sold on Amazon.com.

We found this math assessment book for grade seven still selling with a new book price of $19.95. And a science teaching book rescued from the trash is listed for $75.

That means Cleveland schools, which have been desperate for cash, threw money away when they tossed the books in to the bins.

For Green, the conclusion is elementary.

Green: "If we're not using them anymore, there should be somewhere they could go, other than the Dumpster."