Warren board discusses district goals | News, Sports, Jobs

Photo by James Dobbs
Lori Ludwig, director of curriculum, gives a presentation on building priorities within the district at the Warren Local School District Board of Education meeting on Monday.

VINCENT — At the Warren Local School District Board of Education meeting on Monday, Lori Ludwig, director of curriculum, discussed building priorities.

After receiving the Ohio State Report Card, the assessment team conducted an in-depth analysis of the 2020 to 21 school year, said Ludwig.

She said the district performed well, and the state found significant evidence that students made more progress than expected compared to all of the schools in the State of Ohio, when analyzing growth data. Ludwig said she went to each of the buildings in the district to discuss the results of the report card. She then met with the district leadership team to determine how to move forward and figure out what areas to focus on.

The building priorities list contains two academic areas of concern, and one goal to address voting culture, social emotional learning, or student mental health, for each school in the district.

“So the high school would like to focus on three things, dual enrollment courses, ACT preparedness, and social emotional learning,” she said.

The first goal is to increase participation in dual-enrollment courses to 30 percent by the end of the 2021-22 school year. The second goal is to increase the number of students deemed remediation free to 30 percent. The third goal puts supports in place for the social /emotional and mental health needs of all students.

“Moving on to the middle school, they’re going to focus on the achievement gap component of the report card on all three areas,” said Ludwig. “Reduce the achievement gap of all students in the area of math from 78.5 percent to 85 percent, as measured by the report card, reduction in the achievement gap when focusing on the special education subgroup in the area of reading, from 56.4 percent to 64.4 percent, and then same thing reduction in the achievement gap for the special needs subgroup in the area of math from 48.8 percent to 55 percent, as measured by the report.”

Ludwig also discussed Warren Elementary School and explained the K-3 literacy component of the report card puts students in two different tracks. She said in terms of passing the third grade reading guarantee, students are either on or off track.

“So we’re going to increase the amount of students that move back on track from 32 percent to 55 or 60 percent, as measured by the K-3 literacy component,” she said.

Ludwig said the second goal, building alignment, will help increase vertical alignment of assessments, standards, and monitoring of students by using focus groups to make sure the students have mastered the skills they need in order to move forward. The third goal of the elementary school, parent/community engagement, is to increase community outreach by at least 50 percent during the 2022-23 school year.

“And what she’s saying here, these are realistic goals,” said Superintendent Kyle Newton.

Newton said the big picture is if the district can make these goals in one year, think what will be possible in the next five years.

Ludwig said she applied for a competitive grant, the Each Child Reads grant, in October through the State of Ohio. She said a new law, called the Dyslexia law, is going to affect nearly 80 percent of students in the district. She said it will increase the literacy instruction that students are given, including those who are dyslexic. She said the district was awarded nearly $70,000, and the grant will help do a comprehensive needs assessment of the district to determine what type of literacy supports are needed for students. Ludwig said she will go more in-depth about the funding and the Dyslexia law during a learning committee meeting in February.

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