The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
WORKING THE PLAN
Time is near for action, CEO says
Lorain City Schools staff and supporters are working to push The Lorain Promise academic turnaround plan from paper and talk to action, said schools Chief Executive Officer David Hardy Jr.
At least 35 people came out Jan. 17 for the Community Business Schools partnership meeting.
Hardy hosts the monthly gatherings for local residents and leaders in commerce to share their ideas about how Lorain Schools can get out of the state’s academic distress rating.
In recent months, the group has been brainstorming about The Lorain Promise, the document that outlines the commitments and strategies needed to improve education for Lorain’s young scholars.
“Now let’s put this plan
“Now let’s put this plan together, let’s put this plan in action.” —Lorain Schools CEO David Hardy Jr.
together, let’s put this plan in action,” said Hardy, who recounted the history of the last six or so months.
Since August, when he was new coming to Lorain, Hardy said the group has shaped initial goals with key performance indicators to shoot for and objectives to accomplish to reach the goals.
“Which is huge,” he said. “That took a lot of work, it took three or four meetings to get to this place.”
Some of the suggestions, such as professional development about equity for teachers, are “school lifts” that the district will handle internally, Hardy said.
But Lorain Schools will need the help of the community and businesses to achieve others, he said.
For example, Lorain Schools could use outside help for students to get access to books through library cards, Hardy said.
The planning and implementation process already is evolving to deal with the commitments, strategies and results, he said.
New administrative team
Hardy will hire new administrative team members and said there is a chance the new chief family officer and chief schools officer could be in place before the next school Town Hall meeting.
That meeting starts at 5 p.m., Feb. 8, at Lorain City Hall, 200 W. Erie Ave., and Hardy invited the community and business leaders to attend and bring anyone
interested in Lorain City Schools.
The school district will build a new data dashboard with measures of performance available to teachers, parents and the public, Hardy said.
On Jan. 16, the district inked a contract with Schoolzilla to provide the data dashboard for Lorain Schools and students, he said.
On Jan. 11, Hardy unveiled prototypes of the computer data screens that people will see for Lorain Schools.
A hope is for the Lorain data dashboard to exist in a draft by spring.
The challenge now is for Lorain Schools to get the necessary numbers and information to Schoolzilla to create the program, Hardy said after the meeting.
The dashboard will cost $37,194 for the first year, which includes a six-month subscription, implementation cost and services cost, according to the company proposal.
It will cost $31,654 for the second year.
Group sessions
On Jan. 17, the Community Business School Partnership meeting format was similar to that of previous ones, with participants dividing into groups based on which of the five commitments they aimed to work with.
Hardy first asked participants to discuss how they implemented projects in their own businesses.
Group representatives talked about the needed steps to determine feasibility of a project or goal and having a product that people could buy into.
Other representatives
mentioned the importance of communicating to intended target customers and partners and the importance of discerning whether data is true and relevant to goals.
The group members received worksheets with rows to make lists of tasks to be completed.
In the next month and a half or so, Lorain Schools will hire senior project managers who will work with the groups and then connect the tasks to school faculty and staff, Hardy said.
In the Lorain Promise, Commitment 4 is to create schools where adults and scholars thrive.
The first strategy to implement was to define the vision for instructional excellence “and focus our resources on supporting that vision.”
In the small group discussion, participants suggested having a community liaison or communicator between families and schools to make it work, Hardy said.
“That literally was a district position that we’re creating anyway,” he said, referring to the new dean of scholar and family engagement in Lorain Schools.
Because of that change, the discussion group for Commitment 4 was merged with that of Commitment 5, which is to prepare scholars for the world of tomorrow, Hardy said.
The next Community Business Schools Partnership meeting starts at 8 a.m., Feb. 21, at Lorain High School.
The meetings take place in the Performing Arts Atrium on the west side of Lorain High, 2600 Ashland Ave.