Officials to meet with state superintendent

Lorain City School Board President Tim Williams will accompany Superintendent Dr. Jeff Graham at a meeting this week with State Superintendent of Public Instruction Paolo DeMaria.

“This will be the first opportunity as the leadership of our district to meet with the newly appointed state superintendent,” Williams said of a meeting Oct. 20 in Columbus.

“It’s hard to describe,” Williams said. “We have some anxiety. We know that based on the current conditions we are approaching a change in terms of the responsibility, the local control versus the nonlocal control based on our electoral process. This would be a major change on the educational process and that is huge.”

The Lorain School District entered academic distress in April 2013 based on previous consecutive poor performances on state standardized tests.

A Lorain Academic Distress Commission was appointed by the state to oversee academic improvement. Basically each month, the LADC and officials from Ohio Department of Education met with district administrators to hear reports about progress and to direct changes.

But at the same time the ODE changed the tests three times and increased the rigor of the tests the district needed to pass to climb out of academic distress. The state legislature agreed to hold other districts harmless from entering academic distress, but did not grant Lorain Schools the same grace.

Months ago state officials knew Lorain Schools did not substantially demonstrate improvement on the tests. And Sept. 15 when the results were released by ODE, the public also knew.

Unless DeMaria grants Lorain more time to demonstrate sufficient growth, the next phase of academic distress follows that of Youngstown City Schools: A new academic distress commission is appointed, and the commission hires a chief executive officer with more farreaching powers than a superintendent.

“There’s nothing to compare to,” Williams said. “We have been getting to this stage. This is our first meeting with him. It’s important for us to get a sense of what (ODE officials) anticipate in the next year. And what are the things we can do to have a more optimistic outcome for our students and for our community?”

Williams declined sharing specific questions he hopes to ask DeMaria.

“We want to know what are their thoughts on Lorain City School District going forward,” Williams said. “How can they help us reach the milestones? I want to share concepts of not just where we are this one year, but where we started when we got the distress commission, changes in state law during that time. We’re trying to include the institutional memory.

“We’re excited. We’re looking forward to having conversations with the leadership of Ohio Department of Education. Nothing is hostile here. Based on my tenure here, we were here before the distress commission. We were part of the appointments. From the onset of going into academic distress, appointment of commission members, the changes in state legislation, we have had our recovery plan and our modifications.

“It’s very sensitive,” Williams said. “We don’t want to create any negative atmosphere, but it’s safe to say we’re very concerned.”

DeMaria