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Dayton schools still debating Charity Adams becoming co-ed

District hasn’t made final decision, per open meeting board conversations.
Students at Dayton's Charity Adams Earley Girls Academy helped build raised garden beds to grow a variety of vegetables over the next few months. With assistance from Five Rivers MetroParks and parent volunteers the first through fourth grade students experienced first hand the smell of manure in compost mixtures and the feel of earth worms in the palm of their hands. FILE PHOTO

Credit: Lisa Powell

Credit: Lisa Powell

Students at Dayton's Charity Adams Earley Girls Academy helped build raised garden beds to grow a variety of vegetables over the next few months. With assistance from Five Rivers MetroParks and parent volunteers the first through fourth grade students experienced first hand the smell of manure in compost mixtures and the feel of earth worms in the palm of their hands. FILE PHOTO
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April 21, 2023
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Dayton Public Schools is still discussing whether to make Charity Adams Earley Academy, located in northwest Dayton, co-ed next year.

The district announced in March that the building would no longer be only for girls beginning next school year, to alleviate overcrowding at surrounding elementary schools in northwest Dayton, including Valerie, Belle Haven and Fairview. At the time, the district said not all details were finalized.

Given recent discussions at Board of Education meetings, the board hasn’t made a final decision yet, though changes are still expected to happen at the all-girl’s school.

Some of the changes discussed at board meetings include adding a seventh and eighth grade classroom for girls and making the school co-ed.

“I believe there are many parents who prefer a single gender early education for their children,” DPS superintendent Elizabeth Lolli told the board.

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Board president Chrisondra Goodwine said the district needed to make the co-ed announcement to get plans for the next school year in case that change did occur.

Lolli said at a recent school board meeting another concern with overcrowding is that there are a lot of boys in northwestern Dayton. The ratio is about 1.5 boys to each girl in the area, DPS officials said. Lolli said she isn’t sure why that has happened.

The district said 221 students are currently enrolled at Charity Adams, and 84 of those students live outside of the quadrant. Valerie has 553 students, Belle Haven has 455 students, and Fairview has 494 students.

Charity Adams has a capacity of 473 students, according to the district.

By opening Charity Adams to male students next year, those nearby elementary schools will have fewer students and enrollment will become more balanced across the quadrant, a DPS spokesman said.

Charity Adams is among the schools in DPS’s system that got better marks on their most recent report card than the district at large, scoring better on achievement, progress, and gap closing than Dayton Public School’s report card. Compared to Valerie, Belle Haven and Fairview, Charity Adams also scores better on achievement and gap closing.

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Two women from the community, Mama Nozipo and Olabisi Olakolade, spoke at the most recent DPS school board meeting in favor of keeping Charity Adams as an all-girls school.

“We’re looking for learning environments to accommodate learning styles,” Olakolade, a retired educator, said. “As we do that, sometimes the learning styles and culture and climate for girls is overlooked but it’s one of the niches that community families find to be very, very important.”

DPS previously had an all-boys school, but that was closed in 2019 due to low enrollment.

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About the Author

Eileen McClory is the education reporter for the Dayton Daily News. She grew up in the Dayton area and returned to cover her hometown.