After the smoke cleared from the shit-show that pretends to be a school board meeting last night, a week after they hired The Ohlmann group to manage their marketing starting last Wednesday, there was one really important new program launched by DPS, led by Dr. Markay Winston.
You didn’t see it in the Dayton Daily news, because the story was the controversy over buying out former Chief of School Innovation David Lawrence for “over $200,000” because Rhonda Corr is our own version of Donald Trump- if she doesn’t like you- you’re fired (except as much as they try to turn their board meetings into reality TV- this is a government organization that actually enters into legally binding contracts that have to be honored. Corr and the board will have to deal with this issue again when either this board or the new one, decides to dump Corr and she wants her contract bought out).
So what was this big news that didn’t make the news, or get a proper PR roll out? The program that isn’t on the DPS website, the one that can’t even get the meeting time published correctly?
[1]“Marketing” via Dayton Public Schools
DPS is starting a home school e-learning program where students can enroll in DPS and get a DPS diploma, and participate in DPS extra-curricular activities, get a DPS supplied computer, and even get free wi-fi.
Wow.
The rest of the students, who are using their new 1 to 1 computers in school, and may be able to bring them home next year (I’m on the technology steering committee and have been pushing for this from day 1), will not get free wi-fi. However, Dr. Baguirov who likes to take credit for rolling out the program in record time, under budget with amazing success says they are still looking at costs for providing mobile hot spots to students who don’t have wi-fi at home, but the costs are high.
Winston had a lame deck Dayton Innovation Virtual Academy Board Presentation Feb 21 2017 [2] which was clearly not done by a professional marketing firm. Had the board known what an ad agency does, this would have been rolled out in a way to get free press, and make a big splash- instead of the headlines being about another Rhonda Corr failure. See the provided slide image- does that look like an exciting new program you’d want to enroll your kid in? Does it look like it’s run by professionals? None of the other slides in the deck could stand on their own as an explanation of what DPS is doing.
E-schools as they are run in Ohio are a scam. If they were compared to the worst public schools, and the worst charter schools, comparatively- they make the worst public schools look like Harvard. Virtual schools are virtually unregulated and the results are a mixed bag. The largest, ECOT- the “electronic classroom of tomorrow” is bigger than Dayton, but has graduation rates that make DPS look awesome:
With its most-recent graduation rate of 38 percent, few districts in the state rank lower. Only 35 of the roughly 700 traditional school districts and charter schools that serve high-school students have a worse outcome, and most of those are other statewide e-schools and charters that exclusively serve dropouts.By comparison, Columbus schools’ most-recent graduation rate was 77 percent. Cleveland’s was about 64 percent.
Phillis said it’s astonishing that ECOT continues to escape the scrutiny of lawmakers despite meeting only three of the 24 possible state testing and graduation standards, receiving F grades in all but one category. ECOT got a D in the performance index, which is an index of state testing performance.
Source: Popular ECOT poor performer [3]
However, while DPS keeps bragging about their single non-F grade, an A in annual yearly progress, at least ecot has a D in state testing performance. We all know the saying “when you’ve hit bottom, the only other direction is up” is the true meaning of that A- not that they are successful.
Even though my firm didn’t win the marketing bid- I think I’ll still do the job that the people they hired didn’t do- properly promote this new program.
The information sessions for Parent Information Sessions DPS Virtual Academy will be as follows:
- Northwest Library: 2410 Philadelphia Dr
Feb. 27 from 10 am – 12 pm (West) - Board of Education Community Room
Feb. 28 from 4-6 pm (Central) - Burkhardt Library: 4680 Burkhardt Ave
March 7 from 10 am – 12 pm (East) - Madden Hills Library: 2542 Germantown St.
March 9 from 4-6 pm (West)
Make sure you tell them where you heard about this new program if you chose to go.
Wow.
When it comes to gross mismanagement, ineptitude, and shady dealings, the DPS folks never disappoint. This mess will probably go on for years and years, as it is painfully obvious that (aside from David E. and a few others) there is no real demand for change. This deplorable situation has persisted for years, and as best I can tell will persist for years to come. It’s become a self-perpetuating CF.
While there are a few DPS success stories (Stivers et al) most of the school system is a disaster, narrowly avoiding state takeover in recent months.
At this point, most parents with the means to do so have gotten their kids out of DPS. Most of the best teachers work elsewhere. And most competent administrators have zero interest in working for DPS. Even the bus drivers keep quitting.
I think it’s entirely possible that an 18 year old DPS student graduating this spring could could live to collect their first social security check in 50 years or so without seeing their alma mater offer their grandchildren a decent education.
This is outrageous! I would LOVE to see the data on the students who transfer to these virtual home schools, and because I’ve talked to some of the parents, I know it is students whose parents are sick of them getting suspended from school, bullied, or who have no access to transportation, so instead of being hauled down to the truancy office, they choose to homeschool their children. While I am an advocate of homeschool, the way in which parents choose to do it, Is not because they feel that it’s a better educational option, but often times they are sick of the treatment that their children are receiving in school. So instead of striving to improve the culture of the district, which is the main issue, DPS decides to offer a homeschool option, which has shown no better results in educating poor or disadvantaged students. Especially if you don’t have a robust culturally relevant curriculum and a thorough plan for instruction. Let’s see how this goes….
This really mirrors what is happening in our local government.
Negligence and incompetence rules over efficiency, playing by the rules, old fashion common sense getting back to basics. It means spending time with the students, however that cannot hold as government believes they can legislate education which is impossible. you cannot fudge numbers and pretend your child or student is learning. when the teacher cannot do their job and they are the ones that get blamed. Unruly or behavior students cannot learn with bad settings and family core values are rooted with a stable home life. Often, in most cases, there is only one parent role model but often then not there are step parents or broken families with divorce which is why a child or student is confused because there is no stable core family values anymore.
Sadly politics gets involved and in the way; not only can teachers not perform their job students act out with bad behavior because no one is allowed to discipline bad behavior putting extra stress, overworked school staff and faculty, the system breaks down like we see today. This goes all the way from a local classroom in a school district all the way to the state DOE dictating numbers that get manipulated and do not add up by a runaway government bent on putting profits before learning and need to get of this line of work and let the teachers do their job they so desperately want to do in the first place.
TEACHERS are number one in education!
Please can anyone let the state Department of Education know to let teachers have the freedom to do what they need to do to better our future today!
A number grade is a us
HERE’S A LITTLE GEM FROM DPS:
Dayton Public Schools officials are reviewing possible disciplinary action for a substitute bus driver that is accused of flipping off and arguing with a parent in front of a bus full of elementary students.
A video, which was posted to the Facebook page “School Bus Drivers” on Tuesday, shows the driver flipping off the parent.
Rich Gomez was the parent who filmed the video, which was shot while his 7-year-old daughter and 12-year-old stepson were boarding the bus on Phillips Road Monday morning.
Gomez said his daughter boarded the bus and the driver asked her name, but his daughter didn’t hear the bus driver. The driver then grabbed his daughter’s backpack and asked her name again and that was when Gomez began filming the incident, he said.
In the video you hear the parent tell the driver that she should not being yelling at his stepson, who is a student and was boarding the bus after Gomez’s daughter. The driver asks the child to sit down and turns to the parent and makes a vulgar gesture.
“I hope you got a good picture of it,” the unidentified driver told the parent in the video and then closes her bus door.
The parent told the driver “enjoy your job.”
The driver then tells reopens her door and yells at the parent saying, “You get your CDL, learn how to drive a school bus, and learn the laws, then come and tell me how to do my job.”
Dayton Public Schools said the substitute driver, whose identity was not released, has been referred for disciplinary action. The district said they are unable to release additional information, since they don’t discuss personnel matters in detail.
Gomez said the bus picked up students that attend Eastmont Elementary, a pre-K through eighth grade school.
In 2010 I sat in front of Lori Ward and the board of education and asked them to look at creating a hybrid school option. E schools were their greatest competition at that time. Not brick and mortar charters. If they could create a program that allowed me to teach English and math two days a week and they taught all the other stuff three days a week I would enroll my daughter and go public with a declaration to encourage other home educated families to enroll. My daughter excelled at English and math so why let her get bored in a classroom? The idea here was to increase enrollment by pulling students away from Ohio Virtual Academy and Ecot and giving them access to things that e schools don’t offer. Such as gym, science labs etc. Pulling home educated students from e schools would result in better test scores for certain schools creating an illusion of success in those schools which would encourage increased enrollment in those schools which in turn would improve education eventually creating a reality of success. It was a strategy toward improvement. Parents home school for many reasons and some of them won’t go near a public school. Some just don’t want government involved. Some like us used OHVA because it was a lifestyle choice. We could travel anywhere and as long as we could access WiFi, my daughter could take her online lessons. There are no sick days or weekends off. She didn’t have to go through a metal detector to get to her classroom. At the following meeting Lori Ward announced that they could actually create a hybrid option but they didn’t. My daughter was 7 years old in 2010. She is 14 next month and attends DECA Middle School now, where she has a 4.0 GPA and her lowest score is 98%. When Nan Whaley went around campaigning against me between 2010 and 2013 on the basis that I didn’t support DPS because I home educated my child she was totally wrong. Beside the fact that she has no children and therefore… Read more »
THIS IS RIDICULOUS:
From DDN – Here are four fast facts this newsroom knows about Dayton Public Schools bus accidents from August to December of this current school year, according to the school district:
There were 40 bus accidents recorded from August to December 2016 in Dayton Public Schools, and we’re working on getting the latest numbers for January.
Of the 40 incidents, 11 involved a collision with another vehicle and six of those specifically listed the other vehicle at fault for striking the bus.
26 accidents involved stationary objects, such as the bus driver hitting a parked car, tree or sign.
Only 1 accident of 40 involved injuries, according to the school district.
Interesting, not directly related to this topic, however would make a great story for you Dave E. articles Dave C. brings up here show the thinking of our elected leaders. Just recently, we saw the front page article at in the DDN on page B1 under local & state section about how Dayton is ROARING BACK as Nan boasts about being Mayor. The article goes on about the so-called pre kindergarten school for all of DPS students and the new housing area surrounding the new ground breaking luxury library, [which by the way is now a no poor zone area]. Others she claims a success the increased tax plus the lighting assessment and how 40% the dilapidated, empty housing has been demolished and how the city eliminated 400 structures from this slush fund with housing of 1300 downtown with 630 more to come. In this world of illusion this tax that is to pay for these 1930 individuals in the new housing downtown and to achieve what? Is it to make smart children to be ready to go to the worst schools in Ohio when entering kindergarten? The article directly above this is the DPS article. So we are going to have student ready children around the library go to school at DPS and really learn now? The rest of Dayton is suffering all around with people from the surrounding area that are being driven out by these new taxations all around that Nan and her world only want to focus on the downtown area. She must believe this is the future of people in Dayton in the world of illusion in this selected discriminatory individuals that they see fit to live in Dayton. Most of us are the forgotten ones in the rest of the surrounding areas in Dayton while we suffer with the new taxes. It is fair to say when Gary Leitzell mentions what will work by example for her daughter do we hear about it from our elected leaders; not a peep out of them. He proves his point by the learning demonstrating it hear. A… Read more »
FROM DDN FEB. 25:
Dayton Public Schools had the worst performance index in Ohio on last year’s state tests, according to the school report cards released Thursday. Last year, Dayton was second-worst among Ohio’s 610 school districts.
Performance index measures the actual test performance of every student, adding credit for very high scores and penalizing very low scores.
Dayton’s Index was 62.95, good for a “D” in Ohio’s system, as no school district was given an “F.”
[…] where she didn’t ask my team anything. Her one public presentation that I remember was her introduction of the virtual academy introduction, and it sure could have used some help from a m…. She also managed to get embroiled in the Dunbar thrown game mess– and presented the new plan […]