Toledo Public Schools board members have taken the push to end state school takeovers to the state government. Board member Christine Varwig and I testified to the Ohio House Primary and Secondary Education Committee April 30 about our district’s recent successes and the failure of the grade card to take this into account. Additionally, we invited and then hosted a visit May 3 from our State Board of Education district representative and board president.
In 2015, the state undercut locally elected Boards of Education with H.B. 70, which called for state takeovers based on their flawed grade cards.
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Toledo Public Schools has increased graduation rates since 2014, from 64 percent to 79 percent overall, from 60 percent to 80 percent for African-American students; from 59 percent to 77 percent for economically disadvantaged students; and for students with disabilities from 54 percent to 70 percent. Our voters see a district where we have improved third grade promotion rates from 71.9 percent to 85 percent since 2015. In that same time, we have increased enrollment in TPS schools by more than 1,700 students.
We at Toledo Public Schools have worked productively with our board, our administration, and our bargaining units on innovation and additional supports. We implemented freshman clusters to add support for ninth grade students, at the most critical time of risk in their high school career. We opened the Aerospace and Natural Science Academy of Toledo, where we graduate licensed airplane mechanics and urban agriculturalists who become a part of Toledo’s food-production industry. This year we reinvented two elementary STEM schools from struggling schools. We embrace partnerships with local industry, faith-based partners, and wrap-around service providers to create the best opportunities for our students.
TPS has 32 Career Tech paths to an over-90 percent graduation rate, and our Advanced Placement and College Credit Plus enrollment has more than doubled over the past four years. We instituted new gifted programming in fourth through seventh grades.
Just last month, we announced Toledo SMART Academy charter school will close and become a Spanish language bilingual school within TPS. The board of a local charter school has opted to become a Toledo public school.
We’ve done this even though we have more than 2,700 homeless students — the most of any Ohio district — and 86 percent of our students qualify for free or reduced lunch. Our community recognizes this and backed our last two levies.
Yet Ohio’s school report card awards Toledo an “F”, and tells Toledo Public Schools our students are failing. I know what I see, and I know what Toledo sees, which is impressive improvement. It is the state’s metrics used for implementing the state takeovers that do not recognize our successes. This is bad for the community on many levels, but most of all it is wrong for our students who have found increased success.
I urge the state to keep the repeal of the takeover language in the budget bill so that our district may flourish as we carry on with our positive strategy.
The author, of South Toledo, is president of the Toledo Board of Education.
First Published June 1, 2019, 4:00 a.m.
