The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Working together in different ways on shared goals
Lorain City Schools Chief Executive Officer David Hardy Jr. toured 10 school buildings on the first day of school.
He also met for lunch Aug. 23 with community leaders at Lorain Performing Arts Center at 2600 Ashland Ave. in Lorain.
As an example of his vision for the Community Business Schools Partnership working through district issues, Hardy used a word picture of toddlers at a science center in Cleveland playing in a ball pit and loading balls into a bin — by tossing them, placing them in a bucket, or shooting them up through a tube — so the balls would drop on their heads.
“You see these kids pulling together in a way to accomplish this goal of filling it up so they all could sit underneath and see all the balls come down,” Hardy said. “Some of them liked it more than others; they were toddlers. Some of them didn’t like it hitting them in the head. But the activity was of them working together, which is a symbol of what I see this meeting producing: Us coming together and thinking what we could do as a community.”
He wants CBS to be an organization that creates action, rather than meeting, eating and leaving with no drive for accomplishment.
Lorain City Schools Superintendent Dr. Jeff Graham said usually CBS meetings are planned with more notice provided to attendees.
However, House Bill 70 requires the district to follow an “incredibly ambitious” timeline for community engagement, Graham said.
Hardy said he is accustomed to very old, leaky school buildings and doing the best they could with what they have. But in Lorain the buildings are all new.
“Coming here and seeing the beautiful buildings, how did we get here in academic distress?” Hardy said. “What is happening? Hopefully all of you can fill in some of the gaps.”
Hardy specifically asked participants about their dreams and aspirations for the district.
Lorain City Council President Joel Arredondo said a city depends on great schools to spur economic development.
Arredondo worked as a salesman for 30 years, and his children attended Lorain Schools.
“If you don’t believe in
what the school district is offering, that’s a tough sell,” Arredondo said.
Cecelia Render, executive director of the Nordson Corporation Foundation, said her hopes for the district are that students in Lorain would have the same opportunities as those in other communities.
Tony Gallo, executive director of Lorain County Chamber of Commerce in Elyria, said he wants the type of education now that he experienced as a child growing up in Lorain.
“We had teachers that cared; parents that cared,” Gallo said, “and we had students who wanted to learn. Somewhere there’s a disconnect somehow. I don’t know what part of that is the disconnect. What (Arredondo) said about businesses coming in here, the first question always is the schools. Businesses want to know if there is a workforce ready to take on these jobs, whether it’s the ones graduating from high school or ones graduating from college. We need reasons for them to come back to Lorain to raise a family and get a job and even a next generation to lead our schools, our hospitals and the businesses that are here.”
The Rev. John Jackson, pastor of Friendship Baptist Church at 2160 Reeves Ave. in Lorain, said he believes the disconnect is financial.
A student who should be finishing homework in the evening instead serves as a caretaker of younger siblings while parents work, Jackson said.
In his generation, parents paid for school supplies their children needed, but now they’re required to buy extra supplies for teachers, Jackson said.
“Things are just hard financially,” Jackson said. “I think the disconnect is there.”
Hardy said he met a student
who does not like missing school, but she takes care of her mother who is disabled.
Lorain Police Chief Cel Rivera said funding is fundamental.
“I don’t think something is wrong with our schools,” Rivera said.
“The teachers are great; the kids are great. The kids are our future, but we don’t support them with our policies, with our funding. There’s no recommendations here. Those kids have to go home to being hungry, being abused, drug use and violence, nobody there to help them with their homework or show them how to do it. I don’t think any of these things are school related. They’re all funding issues. I don’t think these are things you can solve in your capacity. I hope that one day these kids will really believe they can be somebody and make a difference in Lorain.”
When Jackson said he hopes the schools would become family life centers, Elyria YWCA Executive Director Jeannine Donaldson said they were designed for it.
“To do that, you need a culture that is inviting,” said Victor Leandry, executive director of El Centro at 2800 Pearl Ave. in Lorain.
Many times he hears complaints of schools not welcoming families.
“I don’t think you have a culture,” Leandry said. “Our community doesn’t have working and collaborating like they should have.”
When Leandry brought his daughter from Amherst to Lorain Schools, he was shocked by lack of a supportive culture in Lorain, he said.
“Sports is big here,” Leandry said. “But when the Titans team won the football championship, they did not even announce it in the schools so all of the kids could celebrate together. I brought my daughter in this morning, and not any, ‘Good morning, how can I help you?’ There is a part of a conversation we need to have with the staff.”
Rivera said a newly formed Lorain Alumni Association was created to foster a community spirit.
“We don’t have that,” Rivera said. “We lost that.”
Amherst police cars are green and gold, he said. He would like to paint at least a couple of the Lorain Police cruisers Lorain blue and silver.
“I want to see signs saying, ‘Go Titans,’ ” Rivera said. “We have one at the police station. I want to see them in the neighborhoods. I want to paint that street blue and gray. I want to adopt blue and silver as city colors.”
Gallo said the school district needs alumni to work on those changes.
“I’m from Dayton,” Jackson said. “Dayton believes in Dunbar High School. Those kids believe they can grow up not only to become engineers, they can become teachers and return to be teachers at Dunbar High School. They can be owners.”
Arredondo said people in the district need to ask why they live in Lorain, send their children to Lorain Schools, and teach there.
“To me it’s all about building value,” Arredondo said. “You have to be invested.”
The demographics of the community are different now from when he attended school in the 1960s, teachers visited homes and families invited them in for dinner.
“We still learned,” Arredondo said. “I can’t recall one single Latino teacher. People say now, ‘They didn’t look like me.’ I still learned.”
Leandry said he wanted a guidance counselor to help him with his daughter, but he felt little support. Perhaps there are too few counselors for the needs of the district, he said.
Public transportation emerged as a chronically frustrating issue not solved by Lorain County communities, but reflecting on schools if families cannot find and maintain employment without it.
In five years as Hardy and the academic distress commission leave the district because of jobs well done, he asked, what would characterize the schools?
Render said the students would leave school college or career ready, with social skills to back up the academics.
“And the coping skills of resiliency,” said Caroline Meister, associate program director for Elyria YWCA.