Columbus schools to use $8.2 million grant to build leaders, address equity
Columbus City Schools has been awarded an $8.2-million, multi-year grant from the Wallace Foundation to develop effective school leaders and address equity issues.
The five-year initiative starts this fall and benefits current and future principals in the district. It also includes new partnerships with Ohio State University, Ashland University, Battelle for Kids, and the Ohio Department of Education to pilot an equity-centered leadership tool designed for school districts across the state, the district said in a news release.
“This collaboration with The Wallace Foundation’s Equity-centered Pipeline Initiative allows us to empower principals in their work to build layers for supporting the whole student,” Superintendent Talisa Dixon said in the release. “Over the next five years, we’ll continue to use data-driven practices to impact student achievement, make meaningful change in school communities, and build culturally responsive school leaders.”
Columbus was selected by the Wallace Foundation because of the district’s strategies to have school leaders be people of change in their communities.
Columbus is one of the eight school districts to receive a grant from the Wallace Foundation, an independent, New York-based national foundation dedicated to improvements in learning and enrichment for disadvantaged children as well as the vitality of the arts.
“As we look at the next 5, 10, or even 25 years, we have an opportunity to be leaders in the fight against racism and systemic oppression in education, and that starts with principals leading the charge in their schools and neighborhoods.”
Talisa Dixon, Columbus City Schools superintendent
The Wallace Foundation’s Equitycentered Pipeline Initiative will also include school districts in Baltimore; Washington, D.C.; Fresno, California; Jefferson County, Kentucky; Portland, Oregon; San Antonio; and Winston-salem, North Carolina.
“As we look at the next 5, 10, or even 25 years, we have an opportunity to be leaders in the fight against racism and systemic oppression in education, and that starts with principals leading the charge in their schools and neighborhoods,” Dixon said in the release. mhenry@dispatch.com @megankhenry