But those three school districts are also the lowest performing in the area when evaluated by the Ohio Department of Education, while schools like Oakwood, Centerville and Kettering, which have significantly more white students, perform much better.
“Our children’s education is on life support,” said Derrick Foward, president of the Dayton Unit NAACP.
The forum split into groups to discuss topics like chronic absenteeism, student life in middle and high school, advocating for kids and how schools and families can work together. Participants were asked to identify problems, then brainstorm solutions.
For example, a challenge to parent advocacy might be the complicated bureaucracy of a school system, but a solution might be having a parent advocate in each school to assist parents.
At least one candidate for DPS school board, William Bailey, attended the forum as did Elisa Hoffman, founder and executive director of School Board School, which finds and trains people who want to be school board members, and was previously a member of the Cincinnati school board.
“At every school board meeting, we would have these parents and community members coming to the mic and talking to us and being so frustrated,” Hoffman said. “They wanted to help their kids, but they just didn’t know how to navigate this system to make change.”
Trotwood superintendent Reva Cosby and DPS interim superintendent David Lawrence, along with several of their respective districts’ executive team members, attended the forum.
Cosby said she had found the conversation in her small group helpful and had gotten some ideas for how the district can improve.
“We talked a lot about parent engagement, accountability and customer service and how we treat people,” Cosby said.
Lawrence talked about improving school culture, which is what his focus is right now as the interim superintendent of DPS. His specific plans to do that include improving the way people work and learn in the district.
“I don’t talk a lot about testing right now,” he said. “I talk a lot about culture. And that’s what we’re trying to do.”
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