LEGISLATIVE UPDATES

by Barbara Shaner, OAESA Advocacy Specialist

With the focus in this issue on excellence in equity, it’s a good time to take a look at what’s happening at the statehouse. As you know, the decisions made by lawmakers on a regular basis have an impact on public schools. In fact, OAESA members are among the most affected individuals in Ohio by the education policies adopted by state policy makers. However, even when intentions are good, changes in law are not necessarily equitable for school districts and students.

For instance, in recent years, Ohio has changed its criteria for school district report cards, amped up the educational rigor for students and increased the state’s focus on teacher performance. While these changes may stem from a desire to help all students be successful in a competitive global economy, simply passing laws with new requirements and standards does not make it so. Beefing up Ohio’s accountability standards, while laudable in some regards, does not mean students will benefit equally. In fact, one could argue that we have not yet addressed the underlying reasons for why some students and districts struggle while others achieve excellence.

OAESA has recently been engaged in a number of discussions on legislative proposals and initiatives aimed at changing expectations on student behavior and academic performance. Yet in every instance, we learn more about the link between the emotional stability of students and their ability to learn, and between poverty, emotional health, and achievement. We often see legislative proposals aimed at eliminating the symptoms of these problems, rather than treating the underlying cause.

EXAMPLE There is currently a legislative proposal (not yet introduced as a bill) that will restrict an administrator’s discretion in student discipline options, such as out-of-school suspension for grades K–3. As it currently stands, the proposal does not include provisions for covering the cost of alternatives to the use of suspensions—things like additional staffing to oversee in-school suspension rooms; the one-on-one time with students involved with a comprehensive Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) program;

and the necessary counselors, social workers, and mental health professionals to support students’ emotional needs. Based on overwhelming feedback from OAESA members, it appears many districts lack the capacity to effectively implement the proposal’s alternatives to suspensions. Without providing adequate additional resources, simply removing suspensions as a disciplinary tool for school administrators is premature.

Students are presenting signs of stress and behavioral issues with increased regularity because of insecurity at home, mental illness, hunger, etc., many of which reflect larger societal problems. We believe that until these issues are addressed, those same students will continue to experience challenges as adults even without having ever been suspended from school.

Again, this is just one example where equity among students and schools is at stake when legislative proposals, while well-intended, need our expertise and input. We urge OAESA members to engage their own House and Senate members in dialogue regarding excellence in equity.

The following is a short list of pending legislation affecting OAESA members.

HB 200—VOUCHER EXPANSION Dubbed the “Opportunity Scholarship Program,” the bill proposes to combine the Cleveland voucher, EdChoice voucher, and EdChoice expansion voucher into one program, and it extends voucher eligibility to families based on household income, rather than the performance of the resident public school. The bill was recently amended to reduce the eligibility level from the “as-introduced” 400 percent of poverty, to an income threshold for families at, or below, 300 percent of the federal poverty level.

Voucher amounts would be $5,000 for students in K–8 and $7,500 for high school (prorated based on income). Recent amendments removed the bill’s Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) that would have set aside any unused portion of the voucher amount to be applied towards private school tuition for future K–12 tuition. The bill proposes to fund the voucher directly from the state (rather than being deducted from school district payments), but of course the voucher expansion would put a much bigger strain on the state budget and the dollars available for public school districts.

big implications for the state budget, so it’s unlikely its provisions (if passed) could be implemented before the next budget bill is deliberated in 2019.

HB 360—ANTIBULLYING AND HAZING HB 360 requires a public school student be suspended for up to ten days for the first offense of harassment, intimidation, or bullying and be expelled for up to 182 days for the second such offense in the same calendar year.

It requires mandatory community service for students suspended or expelled for such offenses and requires school districts and schools to provide tutoring and academic support for suspended or expelled students and to allow them to take all required state assessments. HB 360 requires districts and schools to provide counseling services, upon parental consent, for students suspended or expelled under the bill.

This bill requires districts and schools to offer counseling services for the victims of harassment, intimidation, or bullying. It also establishes advance-notice procedures, an appeals process, and return-to-school procedures for students suspended or expelled for harassment, intimidation, or bullying.

Exempted from the bill’s suspension and expulsion policies are students in grades K–3 and students who have developmental disabilities. The bill has had two hearings in the House Education and Career Readiness Committee.

SB 105—MONTH DESIGNATION-OHIO PRINCIPALS The bill designates the month of October as “Ohio Principals Month.” It specifies that the purpose of this designation is to honor the service of all elementary, middle, and high school principals, and to recognize the importance of school leadership in ensuring that every child has access to a high-quality education. The bill has passed out of the Senate Education Committee and is awaiting approval by the full Senate.

SB 216—EDUCATION DEREGULATION BILL This bill was developed by a group of public school superintendents from Northwest Ohio. The Senate Education Committee has held three hearings on the bill. SB 216 covers a range of education issues including the following:

• Enacts changes similar to those recommended by the Educator Standards Board for OTES • Narrows the licensure categories to two grade bands—K–8 or 6–12 • Allows the district superintendent to hire a teacher who does not hold the proper license • Specifies that educational assistants would not have to have a license or permit if they are not working under a program funded by the federal government • Removes the education, health, and character qualifications from the requirements of education aides • Increases the tenure requirement for non-teaching employees from the current two and three years to six and seven years • Makes changes to the requirements to be licensed as a substitute teacher • Prohibits the state board from requiring teachers to have professional development in gifted education when they are not certified • Eliminates the KRA and shifts the third-grade reading guarantee provisions to be based on grades 1–3 • Prohibits students from enrolling in a College Credit Plus course if the same course is offered at the high school level • Splits the cost of textbooks between students and the school district (50/50) unless the student is economically disadvantaged • Removes “excused absences” from the determination of a student being “excessively absent”

SB 240—REGARDING TEACHER/PRINCIPAL EVALUATION (OTES/OPES) This bill was introduced in the Senate in mid–December by Sen. Lehner and has several bipartisan cosponsors. It effectively codifies many of the recent recommendations for revisions to our OTES and OPES framework made by the Educators Standards Board. If enacted in the first half of next year, these changes could potentially be enforced as soon as the 2018–19 school year. Key components of the bill include the following:

• Requires at least two “high-quality” measures of student performance to be used as evidence in teacher’s evaluations • Maintains the flexibility to stagger formal evaluations of teachers rated as Skilled every other year, and those rated as Accomplished every third year, as long as the evaluator determines they are making progress on their professional growth plan • Eliminates the requirement that measures of student growth account for 50 percent of each evaluation, instead permitting that multiple measures of student progress can be used as evidence within the formal evaluation rubric • Prohibits the use of shared attribution of student performance data among teachers in a district, building, grade, content area or other group • Includes the development of a professional growth plan based upon the results of the evaluation process • Prohibits the use of Student Learning Objectives (SLOs)

For more information about the information provided here, or other legislative proposals not listed, feel free to contact Barbara Shaner at barbaracshaner@gmail.com.

One Knock= MANY Opportunities!

Meeting students’ and parents’ needs with an engaging community partnership

Nick Neiderhouse, EdD

How can school leaders champion for equity in their schools? One answer may be as easy as knocking on the neighbor’s door. This is what Wayne Trail Elementary, a fourth and fifth grade building in Maumee City Schools, did two years ago at All Saints Lutheran Church. However, before this life-enriching story is told, it is important to recognize the difference between equity and equality in our schools. With equity being providing each child with what a child needs and equality being providing all students with the same, I believe that if we want to close the achievement gap for our subgroup populations, we must first close the equity gap that exists in our schools. This is our daunting duty as leaders, and I advocate that we aim to do exactly what we want our teachers and students to do: take a leap of faith. We know that we learn and grow from mistakes and mistakes can come from risks. In 2016, Wayne Trail took a risk with All Saints Lutheran Church, and it has paid off threefold—parent information night, summer meal program, and tutoring program.

Similar to many districts, we know the statistics. In 2009, the dropout rate of students living in low-income families was about five times greater than the rate of students in high-income families (Chapman, Laird, Ifill, & KewalRamani, 2011). Furthermore, Finn and Rock (1997), in their study of more than 1,800 students living in poverty, found that school engagement was a key factor in whether students stayed in school. Understanding these statistics is one notion, but doing something about it takes an “improvement with a purpose” mindset.

In early 2016, at Wayne Trail, we asked ourselves, “What are we going to do differently athis year, not only to improve the entire school but to improve the achievement of our economically disadvantaged students?” We found one answer in the word engagement. Jensen (2013) cited seven engagement factors in his book, Engaging Students with Poverty in Mind. These include: health and nutrition, vocabulary, effort and energy, mindset, cognitive capacity, relationships, and stress level. With all of these factors in mind, our school has focused mainly on the three engagement factors of relationships, health and nutrition, and mindset.

RELATIONSHIPS To start this endeavor, we wanted to take one roadblock out of the equation for success: transportation. Families who struggle with transportation issues are typically less likely to come to school for a typical parent night. Therefore, instead of parents coming to our school, we went to them. Our school counselor and I located one of the farthest geographical areas in our district from our school and then jumped in the car. We were looking for a site to host our next Parent Information Night (PIN). While we did knock on one organization’s door without much response, our next knock has made all of the difference. We approached All Saints Lutheran Church with our plans to find a host site, and Pastor Brenda Piper answered the door with open arms. Her church was in a key location, not only because it was in a far northwest corner of our district, but there is also a dense population of district families and students who reside around her church and within walking distance.

In the fall of 2016, our first PIN hosted 35 families and consisted of free (donated) food for attending families, games (pumpkin/face painting, bounce houses, dancing, and yard games) for students, and four separate resource stations (reading, math, financial, and guidance) for parents. This is where the first engagement factor, relationships, not only started with the church, but with the students and families. While some teachers engaged in the outside games with the students and even broke out in dance, other teachers were inside providing valuable free resources and tips for parents.

For instance, the district math coach offered tips and practiced strategies with parents so they could practice the Common Core math at home with their children. The school librarian passed out free nonfiction books from the school library that were less circulated due to most information being available on the Internet. Parents also signed up for county library cards, and the reading coach offered literacy resources and tips on reading with students at home. We had a financial advisor discuss the importance of budgeting and savings and also share information about the state 529 plans for college. Lastly, our school counselor engaged in conversations on how parents can address students’ social and emotional needs at home to improve behaviors. All of these resources had students leaving with a smile because they had a chance to engage in play with their teachers, and parents were loaded with methods to help their students at home throughout the year. With 2016 being the first year for PIN, we also decided to offer it again this fall in 2017. This year, we had one less station to increase time spent in others and nearly doubled our family attendance with 65 families! With one of the main purposes of meeting parents where they are located geographically, a follow-up survey indicated that 38.9 percent of the parents attended because of the close proximity location!

HEALTH AND NUTRITION While we thought these nights at All Saints were successful as the teachers built stronger relationships with the students and parents in a deeper, more open, and authentic manner, we did not know that our first knock on their door would open other opportunities. In the spring of 2017, I received a call from Pastor Piper. She said that she had been contacted by an agency that offers free meals to students over the summer, and All Saints church was in an ideal continued on the next page...

the Math Strategies Station at PIN

the Guidance Station

location for students to walk to eat lunch every day. This excited both the pastor and me because we know that students’ health is paramount for their learning and development. This local agency called Connecting Kids to Meals has the mission: “To provide hot, nutritious meals at no cost to children in low-income and underserved areas throughout the entire year” (Connecting Kids to Meals, 2017). This agency then partnered with our school district and other agencies, such as the Maumee Rotary and other churches, to set up volunteer spots to pick up, serve, and clean up lunches every day in the summer at All Saints. Last summer, the church consistently served approximately 25 students daily (Monday through Friday) nutritious lunches from June to August. As I volunteered in the summer, it was a heartwarming experience to see my students eat a nutritious lunch that they may not have had if this program did not exist. In addition, students were surprised to see their principal serving them food, and it offered an excellent opportunity for me to continue to build my relationship with them in the summer!

54 MINDSET At this point, one may be asking—where is the direct correlation to students’ academic success since we discussed increasing parent support and relationships and meals for students? This solution once again lies in a church with open arms. 54

I was contacted by an All Saints board member in early summer of 2017, and he said that their board was interested in doing more service outreach and wanted to offer our school academic assistance through an already established tutoring program in the Toledo area called The Learning Club. This board member wanted to know if we could get approximately 25 students to attend regularly after school from October to May. Without hesitation, I committed my building and knew that if I partnered with the other elementaries, we could make this happen. An added benefit for these students and families is that our district transports these students to this free after-school tutoring service. The Learning Club, with the funding support from the church, offers students academic assistance in reading and math as well as prizes for improvement and a meal before returning home for the night. A February 2017 teacher feedback survey from The Learning Club indicated that 91 percent of the attending students improved their students’ math and reading skills. In addition, the students who attended at least 75 percent of the time, 83 percent improved at least one grade level in math and reading (Apgar, 2017). This organization aims to motivate students to improve their mindset so that they can learn and achieve. This program has the ability to shift struggling learners’ attitudes into, “positive attitudes about their own learning capacity, and when teachers focus on growth and

change, rather than on having students reach arbitrary milestones, student engagement increases” (Jensen, 2013, p. 13).

While the year is still young to track the direct success of The Learning Club, we do have some indication of improvement. As a partial byproduct of all of these efforts in one year, we have managed to increase our annual measurable objectives (AMOs) from 68.9 percent to 70.5 percent in English language arts and 68.9 percent to 73.4 percent in mathematics with economically disadvantaged students. While these gains may not seem significant, we feel that we are headed in a positive direction and are making gains that are not always reflected on a state report card. For instance, we have established an engaging partnership with All Saints Lutheran Church, and as Pastor Brenda Piper commented in November:

“I was so excited because this tapped into both my past calling as an educator and my present calling as a pastor. So, All Saints opened its doors to the parents and children who lived around the church. This collaboration gave me an opportunity to meet the people of the neighborhood and introduce myself. It also let the children know that there was a place in their neighborhood that could be seen as a ‘safe harbor.’”

As educational leaders, if we aim to be equitable for our students and families, where we provide and meet their needs, we must take risks. During a conversation in November, Pastor Brenda Piper graciously stated, “I am very appreciative to Wayne Trail for thinking outside of the box and including our church in reaching out.” This “box” may mean breaking out of the school walls and pouring out ourselves more into our community. As public schools, while we cannot necessarily control who comes into our schools, we can control how we choose to engage with our students, parents, and community. At Wayne Trail, we have discovered that if we start with building relationships and partner to provide one of the most basic hierarchy of human needs (nutrition), we can change mindsets of students and these minds are the most precious ones of all!

REFERENCES Apgar, D. (2017). The Learning Club of Toledo: Annual Report Fiscal Year 2016–2017. (Pamphlet). Sylvania, OH. Chapman, C., Laird, J., Ifill, N., & KewalRamani, A. (2011). Trends in High School Dropout and Completion Rates in the United States: 1972–2009 (NCES 2012-006). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/ pubs2012/2012006.pdf. Connecting Kids to Meals: Nourishing Families, Changing Lives. (2017, Nov. 9). Retrieved from http://www.connectingkidstomeals.org/. Finn, J.D. & Rock, D. A. (1997). Academic Success among Students at Risk for School Failure. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82(2), 221–234. Jensen, E. (2013). Engaging Students with Poverty in Mind. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

About the Author

Nick Neiderhouse, EdD, has been an administrator for the past seven years and is currently the principal at Wayne Trail Elementary in Maumee City Schools. He earned his doctorate from Bowling Green State University in Leadership and Policy Studies in 2013. Dr. Neiderhouse has also contributed to the Prinicpal Navigator previously with articles in the spring of 2016, the fall of 2016 and the spring of 2017 editions.

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