February has been a busy month! I wrote to Columbus Board of Education members again, see my letter below. If you have an opinion, I encourage you to share it, because no one can tell your story but you!
"February 24, 2018
Dear Columbus Board of Education Members,
gbakerii@columbus.k12.oh.us,
mcole@columbus.k12.oh.us,
ebrown@columbus.k12.oh.us,
mhudson@columbus.k12.oh.us,
Dominic J Paretti <dparetti@columbus.k12.oh.us>,
ramona_reyes13@yahoo.com,
wshawnagibbs@columbus.k12.oh.us
I
feel hopeful after attending the community forum at Marion-Franklin; however
some explanations given to me are concerning. I continue to be exhausted, when
looking at the recommendations and considerations to save money for our
district and I feel that the best interest of student’s is being lost. Let me
explain, Columbus Downtown High School fits the Career Academy model, meaning
an 11th and 12th grade high school for students
to focus on their career program of choice while completing academics needed
for graduation. In neighboring districts this modeled is followed, actually the
only other career center in Ohio that doesn’t is Fort Hayes Career Center. The
benefits of our students to be at their career center all day is as follows;
-Students
are able to miss academics, no more than once a week to focus on real world
internship experiences. This is very important to the Career Education& Training
students because they have an expectation to earn 480 hours experience with
young children by March of their senior year. They would lose this time if
academic teachers are cut from CDHS, because their time at CDHS would be
shortened. Also, Cosmetology students currently stay in career courses during
the 1st half of their lunch to get required hours for their
coursework pathway, if academics are cut from CDHS, the cosmetology students would
be unable to meet pathway expectations.
-Career
and Academic Teachers are able to collaborate to offer the best plan of study
for student’s to earn Career Industry Credentials that are a pathway to
graduation.
-Students
are able to focus on their learning and not traveling on buses 4 times per day.
This bussing could be an additional cost to the district.
-Many
current students and 10th grade students who visited my program over
the last couple weeks have stated the following;
“I
need to come here all day.”
“I am
so excited to come here.”
“I’d
like to stay at my home school for certain classes can I come half a day?”
“I
can’t go back to my homeschool, I am doing better here.”
“I
want to return to my homeschool, I miss a teacher there.”
-At
the Starling K-8 community forum, Mrs. Karen Burgett, parent of a Briggs &
CDHS graduate 2017, spoke about how CDHS was the best thing for her child and
children. She is assisting her 10th grade son with applying to CDHS
for the fall of 2018/2019, with the intent of him attending all day.
Thus,
at the forum I attended, I asked about 3 items relating to Career Tech; 1.
Career Dev Teacher (Recommended) 2. Classroom Teachers -CDHS -8 FTE
(Recommended) and 3. Reallocate FY19 FTE to FYI21- Career Tech (Considered). Pegean Cleary and a man who she introduced as
her supervisor, begin to respond to my questions. First, the Career Dev Teacher
is at South for a program that will no longer exist. Long story short, they began to explain to me
that CDHS is at building capacity and cannot support the space for new career
programs to open so that we can keep current staff and add to and or start new
career programs that the state wants and or would fund for us to offer. I
brought up the following points; so we cannot add new career programs, like the
EMT course that they had to pilot at Marion-Franklin, and keep some academics
at CDHS, would the district actually be cutting 8 FTE if half of CDHS students
returned to the homeschools, CDHS offers AP courses and wouldn’t the district
have an increase in transportation cost. They explained that by phasing out
academics at CDHS, 8 FTE would be cut district wide, we could serve over 900
students in career tech similar to Fort Hayes
and the buses that are already going to Fort Hayes half a day would just
come to CDHS so no additionally cost. Lastly, they said the community has
stated that career tech students need to be connected to home schools they
graduate from, including AP courses and etc.
After
reflecting on their responses and looking at CCS High School enrollment
numbers, I now want to know why we are not discussing school consolidation or
closings, or is the district avoiding this tough discussion. Cutting 8 FTE from CDHS with the eventual
plan of eliminating academics at CDHS; this will not help fill all CCS High
Schools to capacity. Let’s look at the numbers, CDHS’s current enrollment of
546 students being redistributed to the 17 home high schools equals approximately
32 students being added to each location. Next, let’s discuss graduation rates,
CDHS is at a 93% graduation rate. Why would you change a school that is shown
to be effective? I brought up at the forum,
which I believe we can keep some academics at CDHS and offer students a choice,
that way we can consolidate classrooms and offer these new career courses. The
busses can come and pick up the student who chose or are recommended to return
to their homeschool, so approximately 300 students would be half a day CDHS
Career Tech students and then keep approximately 600 students at CDHS all day.
Our current academic teachers have enough open seats to offer academics to
approximately 600 students.
I am
not a building capacity expert, but I taught at Briggs whose current enrollment
is 957, and many teachers shared rooms and used carts to travel with materials
while hallways were full for class changes. Thus, my other thought is, we need
to look at out of date buildings and buildings that are unenrolled with low graduation
rates. For example, why are we not considering closing CAHS and moving it to
Linden-McKinley or Closing Eastmoor for consolidation with Africentric. I am alumnus
of East High School, which has been historically renovated, but is under
enrolled, so why is not being considered to be the new CAHS or CDHS for that
matter?
Dominic
Paretti brought this up at the February 6th Board meeting. The
Deputy Superintendent referred to research and presentations that were already
told to the community about 3 years ago. I attended the west side meeting at
that time. There was discussion of closing Briggs and West to consolidate into
a new school located in an abandoned retail space. Community feedback was
taken. Brookhaven was closed and the community was told that they were just the
1st of many.
Thank
you for listening to my thoughts, as a teacher who is a proud CCS graduate, who
chooses to stand up for and represent Columbus’s youth, believing in our
mission to prepare students to be productive members of our society. I'm patiently waiting for your reply."
Well, I am trying to be patient!
We will see what the future holds. I am also concerned about the mental health of our students and families. These school shootings and threats of, in my opinion are directly tied to lack of mental health support. I am working on contacting Ohio politicians on this matter very soon.
All I want to do is to teach the subject that I'm so passionate about, little did I know that there is so much more to it.
