TOLEDO, Ohio — The Toledo Public School district saw positive growth despite scoring below average on annual school district report cards that were released by the Ohio Department of Education Thursday.
In general, many area school districts received high marks, including Perrysburg, Sylvania, Ottawa Hills, Oregon and Anthony Wayne.
At first glance, you wouldn't think TPS received good scores, with an overall average of 2.2 stars out of 5. But, the district received 4 stars out of 5 in the "progress" category.
TPS showed "Significant evidence the district exceeded student growth expectations," according to ODE.
Amy Allen, the TPS chief of support, oversees the district's counselors, psychologists, behavior support and more.
She said the main priority for TPS is student success.
"We use a process called multi-tiered systems of support and we tier our instruction and support for all students based on their needs," Allen said. "Everyone gets tier one instruction, and then, based on the need, we provide additional support called tier two and sometimes even more intensive support which we call tier three."
Allen said the multi-tiered system is introduced when students struggle and it includes introductions to new environments like tutoring and after-school programs, as well as counseling.
"What we look at is whether or not they are grasping the concepts," she said. "Some kids take longer than others to grasp the concept so what we do is give kids the time they need to grasp the concepts and when they're not is when we introduced those additional tiers."
The Center of Hope, a Toledo-based family services organization, provides education support to students and adults. CEO Tracee Perryman said the COVID-19 pandemic changed the way students learn. If a student struggles to grasp a concept, that student may struggle emotionally down the road, she said.
"There's a lot of loss of social-emotional skills, how to co-operate, how to work in a group, how to manage emotions and how to manage anger and then just also learning loss in terms of the benchmarks they should be meeting," Perryman said.
She said that's why the Center of Hope's Elevate program looks at students' individual needs and makes their teachings more diverse so every child feels like they can contribute to a classroom.
"We use music, we use movement, we use cooking, we use critical thinking skills, all of those," Perryman said.
Factors outside of the classroom also impact a student's school year.
Allen said families should be making sure students:
- Come to school every day on time,
- get a good night's sleep,
- complete their homework
- and eat healthy meals
Any concerns a parent may have should be communicated to the teachers, too, she said.
"We have the kids for 6, 7, 8 hours of the day and parents have them for the other part of the day, so we all have to do our part," Allen said.