Just let me Teach; Continued

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 11^th and 12^th 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 1^st 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 10^th 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 10^th 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 6^th 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 1^st 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.