Akron students need school leaders to address issues | Holly Christensen

Akron Public Schools has a leadership crisis.

In response to the pandemic, Akron schools remained remote for all students — with no exceptions — from March 2020 until March 2021. Yet by August 2020, well-publicized reports concluded that the educational costs of not allowing any students into the buildings for instruction were far greater than the risks presented by COVID.

The month after finally allowing students back into the buildings, the district hired a new superintendent, Christine Fowler Mack. Soon thereafter, and for several months, public disagreements among the superintendent, the school board and the teachers union left them all looking like cliques in a cafeteria food fight.

The dysfunction of those making important decisions for Akron’s students escalated and in January 2023 a teachers strike was narrowly averted. Days later, Superintendent Fowler Mack resigned.

The leadership deficit in Akron’s schools could not come at a worse time. Students in poorer districts have always fallen behind their richer counterparts, which was exacerbated by the pandemic. Researchers at the Education Recovery Scorecard have analyzed data from more than 7,800 communities in 41 states, resulting in some grim findings as reported in the New York Times:

“In 2019, the typical student in the poorest 10 percent of districts scored 1½ years behind the national average for his or her year — and almost four years behind students in the richest 10 percent of districts — in both math and reading.

“By 2022, the typical student in the poorest districts had lost three-quarters of a year in math, more than double the decline of students in the richest districts. The declines in reading scores were half as large as in math and were similarly much larger in poor districts than rich districts.”

I am a substitute tutor in an APS elementary building with some of the district’s most disadvantaged students. I am also a parent of a student in an APS elementary building with a population that is, on average, middle class. In both roles, I have witnessed some of the district’s most pressing issues.

Attendance

Post-pandemic attendance in Akron schools, like many urban districts nationwide, is devastatingly abysmal. Ohio requires 180 days of instruction each school year. I have students who have missed 50, 60 or more days this year. And when you break it down by hours per school year, it’s worse because chronically absent students routinely arrive late on the days that they do attend. Some of my students would not need tutoring if they attended regularly, while others exhibit learning disabilities. Yet because of the chronic absenteeism, the district is resistant to testing this second group of students for additional supports. Teachers, building administrators and staff in ancillary programs, such as Project Rise, which provides support for families experiencing housing insecurity, reach out to guardians in multiple ways. If attendance doesn’t improve, eventually the cases are referred to the courts where they typically languish.

Nothing being done now demonstrably addresses chronic absenteeism. This is a dire problem the next superintendent, school board and legal system need to prioritize with the utmost urgency.

Discipline

Yes, Akron schools have a discipline problem. For the most difficult cases, there are three go-to solutions: Temporary placement in the SOAR (Student Outreach Alternative Resources) program, moving a child to another building in the district and, if all else fails, placing the child at the Bridges Learning Center.

Bridges

Of the three, only the Bridges school seems to have any beneficial impact. According to the district’s website, Bridges “is an alternative school for students in grades K-12 that provides enhanced support for children with emotional or behavioral needs.”

However, and not surprisingly, Bridges does not have enough spots for the students who qualify. Are there federal pandemic dollars available to expand Bridges? Are there other resources the district can tap into to expand Bridges placement? All potential possibilities should be investigated and pursued, again, with the utmost urgency.

SOAR

The SOAR program, located in the district’s Conrad Ott building, is an independent organization staffed by its own employees who are not APS teachers. Theoretically, students with behavior problems are sent to SOAR for several days to address behavioral issues with counseling and academic supports. In reality, the many students sent to SOAR whom I know simply spent their days doing school work online. They received neither assessments to determine why they have behavioral issues nor coaching or counseling to improve their behavior. Essentially, teachers and classmates in the home schools are given a few days’ break from a child’s behavioral issues before the student returns and the disruptive behaviors inevitably resume.

A new superintendent might consider replacing the SOAR program with something run by the district where students learn appropriate ways to manage frustrations. This would benefit not only these students, but the instructional time of all students.

Placement in a different building

Finally, moving kids with severe behavior issues to different buildings is a lose-lose scenario. Let me be clear — these students are going from one standard school to another standard school, not one that specializes in behavior issues. They are taken from everyone and everything they know and shipped off to an entirely new environment.

I’ve witnessed these students arrive at my building and promptly express understandable fear and anger. One 8-year-old threw desks and chairs on his first day. Another was suspended for fighting on her first day.

According to the National Institutes of Health, “Youth who switch schools are more likely to demonstrate a wide array of negative behavioral and educational outcomes, including dropping out of high school.”

Why would anyone believe switching a student’s placement from one standard school to another standard school magically solve behavioral problems? It only makes them worse.

Chromebooks should stay at school

For every elementary student who does homework on their district-supplied Chromebook, 100 or more use them to stay up late playing video games, watching YouTube and scrolling social media.

Young children regularly fall asleep in class or during tutoring and state testing. Every day, every classroom.

The default should be for the computers to stay at the school where there is plenty of time to do the assigned Chromebook work, known as iReady. Exceptions can be arranged between guardians and teachers. Never in our lifetimes have students needed the best possible programs to address systemic deficits that were made significantly worse by a year of remote learning. The search for a new superintendent is underway and three school board members are up for reelection this fall. Yes, Akronites need to demand the hiring of the best possible leaders for the schools. But the gravity of today’s issues require the robust cooperation of our courts, our city officials as well as state and federal representatives.

To rescue an entire generation of students from inadequate preparation, which is a setup for a lifetime of struggle and — too often — failure, requires the implementation of documented successful educational practices. It won’t come easily or cheaply, but we must do better. The alternative is a future nobody wants.

Links:

Education Recovery Scorecard link: https://educationrecoveryscorecard.org/

NIH report on school switching: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4279956/

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Akron students need school leaders to address issues