Achievement Matters

September is Attendance Awareness Month. 

Attendance Awareness Month is a nationwide recognition of the connection between regular school attendance and academic achievement. This month highlights the importance of mobilizing schools, families and community partners to promote regular attendance by developing tiered strategies and personalized interventions to reduce chronic absence. A student who misses as few as two days of school a month is considered chronically absent. Ohio’s chronic absenteeism rate for the 2018-2019 school year was 16.7% — or…

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Education (Department) released the "Return to School Roadmap," a resource to support students, schools, educators, and communities as they prepare to return to safe, healthy in-person learning this fall. The Roadmap provides key resources and supports for students, parents, educators, and school communities. 

The Roadmap includes three "Landmark" priorities that schools, districts, and communities are encouraged to focus on to ensure all students are set up for success in the 2021-2022 school year. These include:
(1) prioritizing the…

The Ohio Department of Health…

Several years ago, I was working with a district to increase cohesiveness amongst administrators and teachers and to improve the learning opportunities for all the students in the district. To that end, I created a survey for teachers and administrators about various issues they face. One area in the culture of the district demonstrated tremendous conflicting answers - teacher support. Administrators believed teachers were given tremendous support in instructional matters, but teachers responded there was little support for their work.

I decided we needed to dig deeper - I asked…

The Ohio Statewide Family Engagement Center has partnered with the A. Sophie Rogers School for Early Learning to create a series of webinars for…

I had an interesting conversation with a board member last week. As we discussed the events of this past year and all we've learned, she said we really need to take some time to look at the kind of a leader we were, and understand now - what kind of leaders we are. I spent some time thinking about the notion that it's quite possible our leadership style or type evolved over the last year. Certainly, we evolve every year, right? However, leading through a pandemic and through all that the pandemic dealt us - changed leaders. In another board conversation a member told his board…

Family, School and Community Engagement is a critical factor for nearly all educational issues. We've learned a great deal about how to effectively think about, talk about and promote Family and School Engagement to provide opportunities for all and to benefit teachers and students. In an upcoming Journal article, I've written about board members as community and political advocates and specifically about board leadership teams leading from the middle. This responsibility ties community engagement and systemic school improvement to advocacy.

Did you know that you can…

Ohio Department of Health Issues 2021 Prom and Graduation Event Guidance

In light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Ohio Department of Health recently issued …

The Ohio Department of Education recently published a new resource outlining Remote Learning Pathway Considerations for 2021-2022. It is hoped that the document will be informative and helpful as districts plan for next school year. Click the link above to review the document.

Lawmakers recognize that changes are long overdue for Ohio's current school and district report cards. While work occurs on a report card system to better reflect the important work of schools across the state, House Bill (HB) 200 looks to tackle some of the issues with the current report card structure. We are thankful that HB 200 will make the report more palatable for districts and will…