No Substitute for First Hand Experience

I was in classrooms last Friday, they just were not Head Start classrooms. I was invited to tour two high-performing community schools in Cleveland. One was Kindergarten through 8^th grade, the other a 9 through 12 high school. Sponsored by the Nord Family Foundation and the Elyria/Lorain YWCAs, the day was an opportunity to focus on the education of low-income and minority children. 

At the schools, we met with senior leadership, teachers, staff and students. Throughout the day, I felt a sense of kinship with our hosts. Both schools and all levels of staff had a deep passion for making sure children learn. I especially appreciated that they were candid about their challenges and efforts to act on what experience is teaching them. They were clearly not willing to settle for less than the best that can be achieved for every student.

At the high school, St. Martin de Porres, it was clear that EVERY student was being prepared to attend college. Everywhere I looked and everything I heard fed into that message. Nowhere was that more evident than at the College Counseling office. Located at the end of a busy hallway, the entry to the office was decorated wall-to-wall and ceiling-to-floor. Surrounding the door was the path of all the steps it takes to be successfully admitted to college. The counseling entry door stood right in the center of that powerful oversized instruction guide. As a student, I would feel good about the help available through that doorway.

At the grade school, a Breakthrough school, there was an energy that reminded me of our Head Start centers this year. Teachers there were focused on lessons and responding to student needs. They even had team teaching for grades K through 3. One first-grade teacher said she is a big advocate of team teaching and appreciates how it allows her to work individually with children and share in managing the classroom.

Hamilton 2014 Bridging Ceremony

Today’s Head Start is about school readiness. Of the 3,147 children who entered Kindergarten in Lorain County this year, approximately 375 of them were center-based Head Start children—slightly more than one in ten. Another 200 or so were part of a Head Start collaborative with Lorain City Schools, Elyria City Schools, Horizons or Little Lighthouse Learning Center.

Throughout the county, we have 44,000 K-12 children enrolled in district and community schools. According to Ohio Department of Education reports, approximately 19,200 of those children are economically disadvantaged. That is enough children to nearly fill Quicken Loans Arena.

Poverty and lower academic achievement may correlate, but they are not synonymous. The low-income students attending high-performing district and community schools prove that. It was so good to see that first hand. For me, Friday was a big reminder that all children need an advocate and we at LCCAA must focus on doing our best for the children our funding allows us to reach.  My thanks go out to two of the day’s organizers:Jeanine Donaldson and Tony Richardson.

 

Between the Cleveland tour and a trip to Columbus today, my classroom visits are done for this year. By my calculations, I made it into all but three of our center-based classrooms. My intent at the beginning of the year was to get to know staff, see what their jobs are like first-hand, and shine a bright light on all the good work being done in Head Start and Early Head Start. 

I also wanted to see the impact of our decisions – intended to improve quality – on our center’s day-to-day operations. Like those high performing schools in Cleveland, we have our challenges. We are acting on what we learn and are working to keep getting better. Our amazing, dedicated staff help make that possible. Working beside them has been a pleasure, and I am justifiably proud of what they regularly accomplish on behalf of children and families.