Catalyst is launching a sister publication in Cleveland this month, with Charlise Lyles, a veteran journalist who attended Cleveland’s public schools, as its editor.
Catalyst: For Cleveland Schools debuts on the first anniversary of Cleveland’s first mayor-appointed school board and 10 months after the school system received its first mayor-appointed chief executive officer, Barbara Byrd-Bennett, a former community school superintendent in New York City.
The first issue of the publication features a profile of the board, an interview with Byrd-Bennett and ratings from community activists.
Catalyst: Cleveland will be published six times a year and augmented by a web site and a biweekly faxed calendar of events and resources. Initially, the newsmagazine will be distributed free of charge to some 5,000 school, community, city and state leaders. Chicagoans and others outside Cleveland can sign up through the publication’s web site: www.catalyst-cleveland.org.
Lyles previously served as the religion writer for the Dayton Daily News and before that as a columnist, editorial writer, ombudsman, reporter and feature writer for the The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va.
The Cleveland publication has been made possible by grants from The Cleveland Foundation, The George Gund Foundation and The Joyce Foundation.
The Community Renewal Society, which also publishes The Chicago Reporter, has created a separate non-profit organization, Urban School News, to serve as the institutional base for Catalyst: Cleveland.