GARFIELD HEIGHTS, Ohio — A Garfield Heights family claims they’re facing ongoing harassment from students at a nearby charter school, despite complaints to school administration, police, and the city.
“It’s just made it hard with the school being here,” said Matt McClure.
The Garfield Heights native lives with his girlfriend and their 4-year-old daughter in a home McClure’s parents purchased in 2008. The backyard of the property and its neighbors back up to one side of North Shore High School.
In the three years since the former Catholic school became a charter school, McClure claims students have shouted at his family through open windows, jumped the neighbors’ fences, and threatened their safety.
“Just constant yelling and gawking out the windows,” he said. “I’ve gotten verbal threats, I’ve gotten spat on. They threatened to do stuff to our daughter.”
The couple said they’ve reported the issues to the police and school administration. At one point, their city council representative helped facilitate a meeting with the school. But the family said any time there was relative peace, a new incident would spark more conflict.
“There’s a million things they could’ve done. But nothing was done,” Gainer said.
McClure said frustrations boiled over when several students threatened to harm his 4-year-old daughter. He shared a cell phone video of one encounter with the school principal.
“I’m not going to be harassed in my backyard. You promised this wasn’t going to happen this year,” McClure says in the video.
The principal responds, “I didn’t make any promises to you.”
During the argument, a student standing behind the principal can be heard saying, “Let me whoop his [expletive].”
Before the video ends, McClure replies, “Come do it.”
Other neighbors told News 5 they haven’t experienced the same level of conflict with the school, but noted the students often jump their fences. One neighbor believes a group of students mistook his home for McClure’s house following an argument.
“I guess they got the wrong house. They threw a branch on the porch. My wife had flowers on the steps,” Bob Grzyowski said. “They took the flower pots and whatever and threw them in the front yard.”
According to Garfield Heights Police, both McClure and the school have filed reports, claiming the other is the antagonist.
McClure also believes the school is behind several complaints to the city building inspector about equipment on the property he uses for his landscaping business.
For its part, the North Shore High School registration team gave the following statement to News 5:
“The school values our neighbors and works closely with many community partners including neighborhood non profit providers such as Boys Hope Girls Hope, Opportunity House, and the local parish.
We work closely with both city council and local police and do not have any reports or complaints filed on our school.”
McClure, Gainer, and their neighbors would like the school to pay for a privacy fence between their properties and the school. McClure believes the city also bears some responsibility to help the parties find common ground.
“We’ve been here, we’ve tried to clean up this city, we actually care about the city. It just hurts. It feels like something doesn’t add up,” he said.
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