The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Students get chance to participate in plan
Lorainites are well aware of the academic woes that have become a struggle for the city’s students, parents, teachers and school administrators.
Even so, a group of Lorain High School students said they appreciate the education they are getting.
The Lorain Community Business School Partnership convened Nov. 15 to work out ways to implement The Lorain Promise, the education plan drafted by Chief Executive Officer David Hardy Jr.
The meeting included participation by six members of the Key Club, a group dedicated to community service opportunities for Lorain High scholars.
They had a chance to add their voices as school, business and community leaders work out an academic improvement plan.
Participants included seniors Trevon Morgan and Manuel Brown, both age 18, and juniors Kaitlyn Ramey-Rowland, Marlena LaBoy, Gabi Rufo and Vianka Vega, all age 16.
After the meeting, they gave high marks to the Lorain High building and its technology.
It was clear they have adopted Hardy’s term “scholars,” instead of students, to raise expectations for the district.
The Lorain Promise includes five commitments that will be the foundation for school district improvement.
Morgan worked with Commitment 3, “promote equity,” with a goal of raising achievement of all scholars.
“It was a great experience because this is stuff that I’ve always been thinking about, things that I’ve always been saying to myself,” he said. “I just never found the right people to talk to. But today, I definitely found the right people.”
Brown, Rufo and Vega worked with Commitment 4, to “create schools where adults and scholars thrive.”
“We talked about creating an environment where all students are welcomed and everyone wants to learn and is motivated,” Rufo said.
“What I liked about they were saying is, just talking about how from elementary school even up to high school, you should slowly start to have a career plan, have a career backpack, as they said, so everybody has an ideal or idea of what they want to do after high school,” Brown said.
It was important to ask the students’ opinions because the schools are where they thrive, Vega said.
“It was very helpful to explain so they could understand our point of view, because not a lot of scholars get to come to these meetings and go ahead and give their opinions because they don’t ask us,” she said. “They ask the people who work here.”
Ramey-Rowland and LaBoy worked with Commitment 5.
It is the directive, “Prepare scholars for the world of tomorrow.”
“What we talked about was, the main goal is to get the students through high school and prepare them for real life after; it could be college, jobs or helping out the community,” LaBoy said.
Participating makes the students feel involved and making a difference, Ramey-Rowland said.
“I think that it helps them when they’re making their decisions and trying to keep us on the right path,” she said. “Because in the end, it’s all about the scholars. So, being involved is something that’s really important right now.”
All the students said they have younger siblings in Lorain Schools and they were confident their sisters and brothers would get a good education.
“I think that Lorain has always prepared me for the best and it will continue to prepare my brother for the best,” Ramey-Rowland said. “I know that we don’t have the best reputation going around, but I don’t think we should judge a book by its cover.
“I think that we are making great strides to get to where we need to be to look better on the outside. But yes, I do believe my brother will have a great education.”
Science teacher Lauren Zimmerman is the Key Club adviser and an alumna of Amherst Marion L. Steele High School.
“Coming into it, I had been asked a lot of questions of, why Lorain? Why Lorain?” Zimmerman said.
“For me personally, when I leave my place of work every single day, I feel not only successful as a teacher pushing curriculum across, but successful as a mentor or an adviser to the scholars because our students here truly need more than the curriculum,” she said. “My students come to me more than I ever got to go to my teachers at high school.”