Alliance Schools sought peer feedback, undergoes academic review
ALLIANCE − Students likely noticed some curious guests with clipboards in their classrooms Wednesday.
The guests were educators from other school districts.
Alliance City School District underwent a statewide academic review to get feedback and suggestions, in partnership with Ohio Mid-Sized Urban Districts Leadership Collaborative, Inc., which includes 21 Ohio school districts.
Alliance and Canton City school districts are members of this organization from Stark County.
Superintendent Rob Gress said the last time a review of this nature − also known as instructional rounds − happened was before COVID, but it had never happened in Alliance. The other reviews occurred in other Ohio districts.
There were nine observers − in teams of three − in all the buildings, going from classroom to classroom. They took notes on teachers, students and content. All of that information will be turned into a report.
"(They'll) give us suggestions and recommendations, as to the practices they may have that may help us," Gress said.
Here's the reason it was done
In general, district officials sought the review to improve all aspects of the educational experience in Alliance. But the district has a complex issue, which stems from COVID, that officials wanted help to tackle.
Shawn Jackson, the district's director of secondary education, said that since the COVID pandemic, the number of students below grade level has grown, and the district has sought some strategies to improve the situation.
"How do we scaffold and what strategies do we use to enable kids to learn and master grade-level text," he said.
Jackson, formerly Alliance High School's principal, has participated in four academic reviews for other districts in the past. The last one, for him, was in 2018. He said these reviews have always offered some good ideas.
"Every single one I took something back that we ended up implementing. Every single trip," he said. "I think it is a valuable experience."
Here's how it helped other districts
As Jackson said, Wednesday's observers found some Alliance practices they plan to take back to their districts.
For example, Shay Price, principal at Maple Heights High School, observed a social studies classroom at Alliance Middle School. She took interest in a bulletin board that mixed social media with history lessons.
The board featured Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, and Joan of Arc as Instagram posts. Price said the presentation was a good, relevant use of social media to draw attention to historical figures. The material was delivered in a medium students like.
"This is something we could do (at Maple Heights) to make learning more relevant to our students," Price said.
Here's how it benefits students and families
Price and the other observers were expected to coalesce as a group and put together a report based on what they saw. The report will be given to Alliance school officials for their review.
"We'll go over that with our team here," Gress said, "figure out which one of those we can, want to and should implement. And then we'll get together with those leaders down the line and tell them how it's going."
Gress said district officials also will meet with the Ohio Department of Education to discuss the academic review, sharing with the state, "how the process went and what gains hopefully we're making."
For families, he said the bottom line of this process was to improve academic achievement within the district, providing a better education experience and opportunity for students.
"We want to get better," Gress said, "and we know all these educators have great experiences and great skills who can see things that we might not be aware of."
Reach Benjamin Duer at 330-580-8567 or ben.duer@cantonrep.com. On Twitter: @bduerREP.
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Alliance Schools sought peer feedback, undergoes academic review
