Interim CCS chief says she wants post long term
Chapman’s focus is on improving the district
Columbus City Schools interim Superintendent Angela Chapman said she’s interested in remaining in her job when the district begins accepting applications for the post next week.
But her top priority, Chapman said in an interview with The Dispatch, is improving the district and developing the vision the school board has crafted over the past several years. The application process for the superintendent’s post is “in the background,” she said.
“I am committed to our district; I am committed to the work that we are leading,” Chapman said. “And I would love to have an opportunity to serve in a long-term capacity.”
On Monday, the Columbus City Schools Board of Education opens its application process to fill the superintendent’s role after former Superintendent Talisa Dixon announced in December she planned to retire at the end of this academic year.
Who is interim Columbus City Schools Superintendent Angela Chapman?
Chapman began her career as a teacher and administrator in Ohio, Tennessee and Washington, D.C.
Chapman took over Jan. 1 as interim superintendent for Columbus City Schools, Ohio’s largest district, with about 45,000 students. Dixon brought her into the administration in 2019 and until recently served as chief transformation and leadership officer.
In her former role, Chapman oversaw many of the district’s administrators and academic leaders, such as principals and regional area superintendents. That office also oversees school improvement and school leader recruitment, selection and development.
Since assuming the district’s top
post, she said her biggest challenge has been “fighting the clock to see how much I can squeeze in the day.”
“Time — there’s not enough of it. You’re pulled in so many different directions,” Chapman said. “And I certainly want to be everywhere, but I can’t.
“How can I maximize the time that I have with teachers, maximize the time that I have with parents, maximize the time that I have with principals? Because there’s never enough, you know?”
Chapman says she is focusing on school district vision, board goals
Chapman told The Dispatch that as interim superintendent, she is focused on fully developing the district’s strategic plans including its “Portrait of a Graduate.” The plan was developed under Dixon’s leadership with input from the community, and Chapman said the district was just beginning to implement some of it.
“That’s the foundation for the work that we will be leading ahead in the next couple of years. And there’s no need for us to pivot from that work,” Chapman said.
Chapman is also prioritizing the three other areas the Board of Education identified as academic goals the district should improve on in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic: early literacy, graduation and attendance.
“We exist so we can support our students so that they can be successful,” Chapman said. “I always say that our
students only have one year to be a third grader, or one year to be a ninth grader. We owe it to them to make sure that we stay focused, even during this transition.”
Early literacy initiatives showing success, Chapman says
While Columbus City Schools received a one-star rating in early literacy last year, it saw a 10.5% improvement in overall state reading scores in 2021-22 compared to the previous school year, and to the state’s 7.9% increase, The Dispatch previously reported. At last
week’s board meeting, Chapman reported that CCS second graders are reading 13% better than when they ended first grade and are outperforming last year’s second grade class by nearly 10%.
Chapman credited much of the success to the district’s pivot over the course of the past several years to a “science of reading” education.
In the education community, an intense debate has spanned for decades about how children learn to read. The science of reading focuses on phonics and teaching students to break words down into their phonemes or sounds. The other approach, balanced literacy or whole language, gives children strategies to decipher unfamiliar words like looking at a picture or context of the known words in a sentence. These are called cues, and while sounding the word out can be one, it’s only supposed to be used as a measure of last resort.
The district has been implementing the science of reading approach since 2020 and is aiming to fully implement it by the 2024-25 school year. Chapman said elementary school teachers and administrators have been tirelessly working on professional development skills to teach children on an “evidencebased” approach to reading.
“This is not what we’re doing here in the central office — the magic happens in the classroom,” Chapman said. “And so I’m incredibly grateful to our teachers for their work and their efforts in this area.”
Ohio Gov. Mike Dewine recently asked lawmakers to spend $162 million over the next two years to retrain teachers in the science of reading, put 100 literacy coaches in the field, screen all kindergartners for dyslexia and replace what he called “second-rate” reading programs.
Chapman said CCS is ahead of the curve for a potential statewide pivot toward emphasizing the science of reading.
“What’s really exciting is that our classrooms can serve as a model for other schools and districts across the state of Ohio,” Chapman said. “If the science of reading and teaching with evidencebased programs is new to other districts, we welcome them to come join us.”
@Colebehr_report Cbehrens@dispatch.com