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Ohio Superintendent of Public Instruction Paolo DeMaria discusses his ideas for Lorain Schools.

Ohio Superintendent of Public Instruction Paolo DeMaria is gathering a sense of the community as he decides on next actions regarding Lorain City Schools.

In academic distress since April 2013, the district needed to show grades of C in both performance index and value added for two years in a row to be released from a current level of state oversight.

But school district report cards released Sept. 15 dashed those hopes. The report cards are found on the Ohio Department of Education website.

“Our function is really spelled out in law,” said DeMaria, attending a stakeholder meeting sponsored by Philanthropy Ohio regarding Every Student Succeeds Act on Sept. 28 at Lorain County Community College, 1005 N. Abbe Road, Elyria.

“We’re at the point where given the issuance of the report cards, there is now sort of a process lined up. The reality, though, is there’s some time,” DeMaria said. “The superintendent (Dr. Jeff Graham) and I are meeting sometime at the end of (October). Part of what I want to do, and this is also because I’m new at the job, is just meet with people, understand some of the circumstances, some of the history. Understand the good things, because I think there are some good things happening here. Make sure we’re informed by that kind of information. Look forward to having that conversation.”

DeMaria intends to learn about the community and its needs before taking the next steps in appointing a new Lorain Academic Distress Commission, which will hire a chief executive officer to replace the superintendent.

“The law gives a little bit of discretion, I would say, in the statute, but not a lot,” DeMaria said. “This is not a trigger that got pulled the day the report cards came out. So I think any time there is a sense of time, that’s always a benefit, because it allows people to think through some of the opportunities that exist. That’s why we want to take the time to get a sense from the community, get a sense from others about things that are happening here, context, these sorts of things.”

The Lorain City School District was not able to show enough academic growth while state test rigor increased annually.

“The fact that so many things changed on the report card makes it challenging for improvement to show. I’m a believer improvement is happening in many parts of the state,” DeMaria said. “It’s very challenging when the tests are changing and the kidders are changing. A number of various elements of the report card are changing. So, I’ve been

saying the report cards have to be understood in context. They shouldn’t jump to conclusions about what they see on the report cards. But they do reflect newly established expectations for students and for our system, and they have value. They play a role and they will continue to play a role.”

DeMaria said it is not his role to decide whether Graham will stay in the district or whether he will be replaced by a CEO hired by a new academic distress commission.

He also has not begun interviews of new academic distress commission members, he said. Rather, he’s gathering information from the community.

“Listening,” DeMaria said. “Wanting to listen and wanting to understand.”

“This is not a trigger that got pulled the day the report cards came out.”

— Ohio Superintendent of Public Instruction Paolo DeMaria

MORNING JOURNAL FILE In this May 11, 2016, file photo, Paolo DeMaria, center right, greets members of the Ohio State Board of Education after board members named him the state’s schools superintendent in a 19-0 vote, during a meeting in Columbus, Ohio. As the Ohio Department of Education prepares to publish ratings of charter school sponsors by Oct. 15, 2016, Ohio Superintendent of Public Instruction Paolo DeMaria sent a Thursday, Sept. 1, 2016, memo expressing confidence in the state’s current method of evaluating as few as 10 percent of a sponsor’s charter schools, a sampling method criticized by some state lawmakers.