The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
DRIVING IMPROVEMENT
Priorities, questions punctuate Town Hall concerning district
In Lorain City Schools right now, priority No. 1 could be to create a system of excellent schools, said CEO David Hardy Jr.
Along the way there, it became apparent Jan. 10 that Lorain parents, residents, teachers and school leaders will have questions, suggestions and criticism to drive improvement.
Hardy’s first Town Hall meeting of 2019 was lively, with a capacity crowd circling tables of the cafeteria of Longfellow Middle School, then lining the back wall and hallway along the room.
The meeting lasted two hours
“We can figure this out. It’s a conversation around this community, not the outside.”
— Lorain Schools CEO David Hardy Jr.
and included surveys, data presentations, small group discussion and large group questions and answers with Hardy.
Lorain City Schools’ administration has drafted priorities of the 2019-20 school year and whittled down the list to the state the most important issue is to create a system of excellent schools.
“What do I mean by that?” Hardy said. “Thinking about the right direction led to The Lorain Promise, the academic turnaround plan to help Lorain shed its rating of “academic distress.”
Among its priorities is to create spaces where scholars and teachers and leaders can thrive,” Hardy said. “In order to do that, we have to create schools that do that across the district.
“So those systems, those schools need to operate as one, because right now we see excellent in schools, but we don’t have an excellent system of schools, and that’s where we need to move,” he said.
That does not mean privatizing Lorain with charter schools coming in from outside, Hardy said.
“What we need to do is figure out the challenges our schools have, breathe life into those schools and give flexibility to those schools to realize the greatness that lives within them,” he said. “We can figure this out. It’s a conversation around this community, not the outside.”
The presentations and data included questions and figures about student performance and college readiness based on ACT college entrance exam scores. In response to an audience question, Hardy acknowledged the ACT is a measure not ideal for all students but that offers a standard common enough to talk about.
But the parents and teachers had questions about lingering issues and concerns, so the latter part of the session included exchanges about the data and the practical situations that happen in the classroom.
When asked about teacher attendance, Hardy cited a statement from August last year about teachers missing an average of 18.2 days of schools.
Lorain Education Association President Jay Pickering stood up to dispute the figures for at least the second time publicly, citing information supplied by the information through a public records request.
When a Lorain alumnus and business owner asked about vocational training, LHS Early College Academy Director Amanda Haney explained about career technical programs available at the high school. Hardy said the question indicated the district should advertise those options, inform students at lower grades and not use adults’ influence to push students on academic or career tracks they don’t want.
There were questions about student attendance on the half days with early student dismissal, allowing time for professional development for teachers; and how teachers could be rated or evaluated on student attendance, a factor teachers in the classroom cannot control.
People from the audience commented on a school district survey that had too many indicators about the respondents, leading to a low response rate from teachers who did not want to answer for fear of repercussions.
One participant said teachers can use tools ranging from chalk boards to smart boards, but the basis of education is the interaction to teachers and students. He questioned part of Hardy’s presentation, which included a video of a speaker discussing a business model for schools instead of an educational model.
“I think what I take away more than anything from tonight, is that we have a tremendously passionate community and we have a lot of work collectively to do,” Hardy said.