Category: Uncategorized

Story by Johnathan Duffie

Sawdust, strange sounds, discomfort, curiosity and joy are just a few words that illustrate what members of the Cleveland Transformation Alliance Community Engagement Team experienced during a recent team building exercise.

In the middle of a workday in early February the School Quality Ambassadors who connect with Cleveland’s neighborhoods and families about public school options were instructed to dress in clothes they were unconcerned about getting dirty. Together, we left the office and headed to nearby Soulcraft Woodshop. Only two members of the group knew what was planned for the afternoon.

Soulcraft Woodshop is a hidden gem in Cleveland. In addition to allowing residents to rent shop space and woodworking equipment, Soulcraft offers hands-on workshops to meet a wide range of educational needs, including Soul@Work team building program, an innovative partnership between Soulcraft Woodshop and Sangfroid Strategy, designed to help teams strengthen rapport and problem-solving ability. By entering a new environment and crafting a project by hand, participants collaborate and exercise problem-solving skills in ways a conference room doesn’t often elicit.

Upon arrival, the group gathered in a circle for a briefing. Peter Debelak, the founder of Soulcraft Woodshop, and experienced Soulcraft instructors revealed a woodcrafting team challenge and provided safety training. Heather Lenz, the co-founder of Soul@Work, encouraged the Alliance team to “lean into the discomfort of the unknown” and to challenge themselves to embrace new things. By becoming ‘novices’ again, teams overcome the psychological barriers of approaching unfamiliar tasks and developing new skills.

For the next three hours, each member of our team created a woodcraft project of their choice. Unsurprisingly, their finished products were a remarkable display of the natural talent that members of the Alliance’s Community Engagement Team possess.

“Soul@Work was a great choice for a team building program,” said Catherine Smith, Program Director at Cleveland Transformation Alliance.  Smith believes that hands-on group activities such as woodcrafting help build confidence, strength of character and problem-solving capabilities that are useful in the workplace. The grassroots leaders who make up the Alliance Community Engagement Team grumbled, laughed, and supported each other as they accomplished the skilled tasks of woodworking. They also left with a sense of accomplishment and connection that will likely carry over into their support of Cleveland families navigating public school options.

The Cleveland Transformation Alliance understands the need to accelerate the pace of positive change in our city’s public schools. Created through Cleveland’s Plan for Transforming Schools, the Cleveland Transformation Alliance is a public-private partnership that brings together a broad group of stakeholders working to reinvent public education in our city. We track and report on the progress and impact of the Cleveland Plan, and through our engagement team help families to find and use resources about quality school options.

Lakayla Eberhardt and teacher, Carolyn Khouri at Lincoln West School of Global Studies.

Story by Justin Glanville     Photos by Julie Van Wagenen

This story is part of a series about how families chose their schools.

Lakayla Eberhardt was not impressed when she learned that students at Lincoln West School of Global Studies had to wear red.

“I was like, ‘The whole school is red? I thought in high school you could wear whatever you wanted,’” she remembered.

Lakayla was further disinterested when she learned that Lincoln West maintained a year-round academic schedule of 10-week terms followed by three-week breaks.

“I opened each one of them up and compared how the schools I was interested in were doing over time,” she says. “I wanted to see how they were changing from year to year.”

“That sounded like I wouldn’t have a life outside school,” she said.

Still, Lincoln West’s global studies angle compelled her. She liked that students could take school-led trips to countries such as China and Costa Rica, and that students learned about cultures from around the world. Plus, it was close to her house on Cleveland’s near west side.

It was enough to make her list Lincoln West as her third-choice high school. However, Lakayla considered Lincoln West a very distant third, behind two other high schools where most of her friends were going. 

But when her top two choices fell off the table—one school was too far, and the other was full—Lakayla found herself becoming a reluctant wearer of red.

“I was really disappointed,” she remembered. “I barely knew anyone here, and I came in here with a closed mindset that took me a while to get over.”

During her 9^th grade year, she perceived the other students as rude and unfriendly—though in retrospect she believes they were only responding to her own standoffishness. She also felt intimidated by the fact that some students could speak multiple languages.

Her days were long, unhappy slogs. She sat in the back of all her classes and rarely spoke. The only saving grace was an unexpected one: the year-round calendar. She found the sporadic three-week breaks rejuvenating.

Finally, in art class, she met a student who knew some of her dad’s family. Through him, she met a few others, including a student who ate lunch in the classroom of one of the school’s English teachers. Intrigued, Lakayla tagged along.

Teacher, Carolyn Khouri, remembers Lakayla as exceedingly shy at first.

“She was clearly having a really hard time connecting with anyone,” Khouri saids. “But that’s why I leave my door open at lunch—to give kids a place they know they’re safe.”

Lakayla credits the intimate, low-pressure environment with helping her find the confidence to speak in other settings.

“Ms. Khouri was talkative herself, and I think that helped me talk more, too,” she said.

Now in 11th grade, Lakayla revels in the school’s global approach to education.

“Where I went to elementary school, it was mostly black and white,” she said. “Now, I know Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, Lebanese, Nepalis. They’re part of my family.”

She’s not sure of her post-graduation plans, but is considering studying medicine in college, perhaps after working first as an emergency dispatcher.

She can’t picture herself at another high school. It’s been a lesson, she said, in staying open-minded even when first choices don’t work out.

As for wearing the dreaded red?

She smiled. “It’s actually my favorite color,” she said.

The Cleveland Transformation Alliance is launching its new School Quality Navigator initiative, in partnership with Cleveland Central Promise Neighborhood.

The navigator initiative, modeled on similar programs in Washington, D.C. and New Orleans, as well as similar work in housing and health care, will provide one-on-one guidance to help families in Cleveland’s Central neighborhood find and enroll in the public school that best fits their children’s needs.

“We are very excited with this new opportunity to ensure traditionally underserved families benefit from the improvements that are happening under Cleveland’s Plan for Transforming Schools,” said Piet van Lier, executive director of the Transformation Alliance. “We want to support families as informed decision-makers in the education of their children.”

Three navigators will begin working with families in January, and continue outreach throughout the school enrollment season. The work of the navigators will complement the ongoing outreach work of the Transformation Alliances School Quality Ambassadors, who distribute information about school quality and options and engage families across the city.

The navigator initiative is supported by the Sisters of Charity Foundation and the William J. and Dorothy K. O’Neill Foundation.

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Proposal by the Cleveland Transformation Alliance

to the Cleveland Metropolitan School District

for criteria to select community schools as formal partners

Summary

At the request of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, the Transformation Alliance convened a working group to create a set of criteria that CMSD could use to select partnering community schools. The working group, comprising representatives of the school district, community schools, and the Transformation Alliance, met six times, from September 17, 2018, to November 15, 2018.

The process was facilitated by Kris Putnam-Walkerly of the Putnam Group in close collaboration with the Transformation Alliance. The working group used as a starting point the document “Cleveland Community School Partnership, Request for Proposals: New Partner Schools 2017-18,” found on the CMSD website.

This proposal to CMSD was approved by the Board of Directors of the Transformation Alliance at its December 3, 2018, meeting, and provided to the CMSD Board of Education for consideration at its December 4 work session.

The intention of this process has been to take an inclusive approach to partnership while holding partnering schools to high standards of practice.

The documents submitted to the CMSD Board of Education are available at the following links:

Charter Partnership Proposed to CMSD

Charter partnership addendum

Working group participants:

• Jessica Baldwin, CMSD
• Mark Baumgartner, CMSD/Cleveland Teachers Union
• Kevin Burtzlaff, CMSD
• Mark Comanducci, ACCEL Schools
• Nicholas D’Amico, CMSD
• Christine Fowler-Mack, CMSD
• Robert Heard, CMSD/Transformation Alliance Board
• Tom Hutton, CMSD
• Brooke King, The Intergenerational Schools/Transformation Alliance Board
• Stephanie Klupinski, CMSD
• Shana Marbury, Transformation Alliance Board
• Rick McIntosh, CMSD
• Mary Moore, CMSD/Cleveland Teachers Union
• Jacqui Miller, Stonebrook Montessori School
• Ann Mullin, Transformation Alliance Board
• David Quolke, Cleveland Teachers Union/Transformation Alliance Board
• Erin Randel, Transformation Alliance Board
• Alan Rosskamm, Breakthrough Schools/Transformation Alliance Board
• Victor Ruiz, Transformation Alliance Board
• Deb Rutledge, Transformation Alliance Board
• Piet van Lier, Transformation Alliance Staff
• Helen Williams, Transformation Alliance Board
• Peggy Young, Buckeye Community Hope Foundation/Transformation Alliance Board

CLEVELAND, November 6, 2018—Today, the Cleveland Transformation Alliance released its 2018 report on the impact of Cleveland’s Plan for Transforming Schools. Overall, the report shows the positive impact of the Cleveland Plan.

“Our community is making progress,” says Piet van Lier, Transformation Alliance executive director. “It’s encouraging that a diverse group of stakeholders is still focused on our shared goal of ensuring all Cleveland children attend quality schools. Few cities across the country can point to the level of enduring commitment we’re seeing in Cleveland.”

The report highlights the following data for the city’s K-12 schools:

• Another increase in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District’s four-year graduation rate, up 22 percentage points since 2010;
• An increase for all public schools in Cleveland in the percentage of students meeting requirements for promotion to fourth grade;
• CMSD students’ performance on state tests improved for the second year in a row. Average scores for Cleveland charter schools declined, although they remain higher than the district average;
• CMSD also improved on the state’s measure of academic growth. The average for Cleveland charters declined, but remains well above the district average.

The Transformation Alliance continues its work to update the strategies and goals of the Cleveland Plan to ensure it remains responsive to the needs of the community.

“Our work to update the Cleveland Plan is driven by the need to accelerate improvement in our city’s public schools,” says van Lier. “We also are prioritizing collaborative work to improve teaching and learning in schools that serve children in kindergarten through 8th grade.”

View the 2018 report here.

View previous reports here.

###

On October 29, 2018, the Board of Directors of the Cleveland Transformation Alliance voted to recommend to the Ohio Department of Education that the Cleveland Metropolitan School District continue to sponsor charter schools in Cleveland.

Our role is described in Cleveland’s Plan for Transforming Schools and codified in law through H.B. 525, passed by the Ohio Legislature and signed by Governor John Kasich in 2012. Through that legislation, the Transformation Alliance is granted the authority to review sponsors seeking to open community schools within CMSD boundaries and to make a recommendation to the Ohio Department of Education based on that review (ORC Sec. 3311.86(E)).

Alliance letter to ODE regarding CMSD as a sponsor

CMSD supplemental sponsor data

Zakiyah Munashe and her child Zyaire, an eight-year old attending Clark Elementary in the Clark-Fulton neighborhood in Cleveland.

Story by Justin Glanville     Photos by Julie Van Wagenen

This story is part of a series about how families chose their schools.

Zakiyah Munashe is a collector.

In a big filing cabinet at her house, she stashes away papers, clippings, and reports she thinks might be useful one day — especially if they have anything to do with her kids’ education.

So when Munashe decided, this past winter, that she needed to find a new school for her eight-year-old son, Zyaire, her cabinet was the first place she looked.

“I have like three years of School Rating Guides on file,” she says, referring to the book-length document published every year by the Cleveland Transformation Alliance as a resource for parents to decide where to send their kids to school.

“I opened each one of them up and compared how the schools I was interested in were doing over time,” she says. “I wanted to see how they were changing from year to year.”

The School Quality Guide includes objective, comprehensive information for every school located within the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. It provides ratings, community reviews, demographic data, and contact information for every school—all to help families choose a school for their students.

At the end of her research session, one school stood out for Munashe: Clark School, in the Clark-Metro neighborhood. She was impressed not just by its consistently high student achievement indicators, but also by its focus on the arts and creativity. That emphasis, she believed, would be a good fit for Zyaire, whose natural energy and curiosity had been perceived as unruliness at his previous school.

When she visited Clark with her son and met the teacher he’d have, her feelings were confirmed.

“We watched her teaching a class, and I could tell she enjoyed her job,” Munashe remembers. “And we liked the culture of the school — it felt very welcoming.”

Because Clark is located on the other side of town from Munashe, who lives in the North Collinwood neighborhood, she knew she would need to drive Zyaire to school every day. (Although families can choose any school in the district, transportation eligibility may not apply when enrolling in a non-neighborhood school.)

But for Munashe, the inconvenience was no obstacle. She already drove her daughter, now in 9th grade, to the Cleveland School of Science and Medicine in University Circle. Dropping off Zyaire would be just one more stop.

“What’s going through my mind as I drive is just that my children are going to get the best education I can give them,” she says. “It’s that simple.”

Zyaire has enjoyed his experience at Clark so much that he started nagging his mother to be on time every morning. He plays on the chess team, and joined the poetry club.

“I’ve seen him light up,” she says. “He’s inspired to want to learn again, and that’s my greatest responsibility to my kids — putting that smile on their faces.”