I talk about “Raising the Bar.” I have always felt Fort Cherry has the potential to be anything it wants to be. We have many assets – our small size, strong sense of community, tranquil location, centralized campus, and close proximity to a major metropolitan city, to name a few. And I’ve been told that colleges give preference to students from small schools because typically small schools outperform large schools in academic achievement. To me it seems we are in a unique position. It is not unrealistic to use these assets to transform our district into a high ranking school that attracts families, grows the tax base, and increases property values. This is what I want to focus on when I am elected to school board.
There is lots of work to do. I’ve attended countless school board meetings and the best word I have to describe what I have seen is “distracted.” The board is getting better for sure, but it still frustrates me that any real discussion of academic improvement is not on the agenda. I hear “Fort Cherry is ranked fourth in Washington County” when what I’d like to hear is “We are ranked fourth but here is what we are doing to increase our ranking next year.”
Why aren’t we “Raising the Bar?” I’ve come to realize that it is hard to address problems when you never talk about or admit there are problems. Take, for example, 8th Grade Test Scores. This is a page from the 2013-14 Proposed Budget which you can find on the district website. My thoughts after looking at this report are “We are totally failing our 8th graders and I sure hope I am wrong. Why are they ranked dead last in Washington County in math and reading?” Ok, one could argue they are second last in reading but the spread is only two tenths of a point. What is really scary is math. Fort Cherry 8th graders are 15.5 points behind the school in front of them. These students would be our current 9th graders because these test results are a year old.
I wonder:
- Why wasn’t this a school board agenda topic in the past year?
- What caused this problem?
- What was done (and continues to be done) to fix this?
- Where are our 8th graders going to rank this year?
The Pittsburgh Business Times recently published their 2013 School Guide. The Post Gazette has done the same. Here is a snapshot from the Post Gazette report … FC Math Scores – Grade by Grade Performance. What this report shows me is that our students are coming out of the elementary well prepared in math. Seventh grade starts a decline and in 8th grade our students fall off a cliff and limp along until they graduate. Bash me, but I’m just calling as I see it. And the reason I am doing this is because we need to acknowledge our problems in order to start a dialogue in the community about how to fix them. This isn’t a blame game. This is a shared responsibility between the community and the school. We can solve these types of problems by developing collaborative relationships and working together, not ignoring them or fighting about them. This is what I mean by community engagement.
Does anyone else feel like we owe our high school students an apology?
Whether I am elected to school board or not, one of the priorities needs to be a overarching SWOT analysis. This is an assessment of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. It is a tool routinely used in the business world as part of strategic planning. The beauty is that it helps set the priorities. Once the priorities are set and realistic goals are established then progress toward those goals is measured. Measurements as simple as a red, yellow, green traffic light are effective – not achieved, somewhat achieved, achieved. I would encourage input from all viewpoints – admin, faculty, students, parents, taxpayers, board, etc. because we are all in this together.
I’d love to hear your ideas on how we can work together for our children. Someone mentioned the other day about starting Jr High PTA. I’d like us to see if we can retain Mr. Motte and make him Principal of the Jr. High.
Chime in!
Dear friends and neighbors:
JoAnne Wagner 