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Campbell city schools pilot two statewide programs
CAMPBELL
The Ohio Department of Education chose Campbell City Schools to pilot two of its programs this year: the State Personnel Development Grant and Quick Start programs.
Campbell is one of 16 school districts in the state to pilot each of those programs for the 2014-15 school year.
Michele Dimuzio, director of State Support Team Region 5 with the Mahoning County Educational Service Center, said SPDG is a training program for administration on leadership, process-coaching and equity practices.
“It’s all about training our administration to change so they can support our learners,” she said.
Dimuzio said Quick Start is a program with similar initiatives to SPDG. She said it was a coincidence that Campbell was selected to take part in both programs. She added that both programs seem to tie well together.
“We selected Campbell because they showed the initiative that they wanted to be on the cutting edge of strategies to improve their education,” she said.
Schools Superintendent Matt Bowen said Campbell will be involved with the SPDG program at least one more academic year. He said the closest other school participating in that program this year is in the Akron-area.
Bowen said long-term benefits to being a part of the SPDG program is that teachers are able to make more-appropriate decisions based on classroom data. He said he also wants to see students with more college readiness as a result of the program.
According to the Ohio Department of Education, SPDG began in 2012 to help at-risk learners. Bowen said at-risk students include anyone who seems to be performing below standard — not just students with disabilities.
He said the program will help the district “close the gap” between its at-risk and not-at-risk students in math, science, social studies, reading and writing.
Rachael Smith, the district’s special-services director, said the district moved from medium-risk to low-risk in the area of differentiated accountability this year, which means students in various subgroups are starting to perform at similar levels.
“Moving from medium to low risk is a big deal,” Dimuzio said. “You start to see progress in a school’s graduation rate along with other improvements with the students.”
Smith said Campbell schools are “closing gaps” between at-risk and not-at-risk students to “meet the needs of all students,” regardless of race or socio-economic background.
“We think it’s a move in the right direction,” she said.