How Do You Measure A School District?

Last week the Ohio Department of Education released simulations for the new district and school report cards.  You can view the simulation for school districts as well as for individual schools here and see the explanation from the Columbus Dispatch here.  The department explained the change in the following way,

“Ohio is changing how it evaluates and communicates the academic performance of its schools and districts. Schools and districts will no longer receive labels like “Excellent” or “Continuous Improvement.” In its place, they will receive letter grades on several measures in the same way a student receives grades for his or her classes.

The new report card will be phased in over several years, starting this year. Beginning in August 2015, schools and districts will receive grades on measures like the four-year graduation rate. The grades for measures will be combined into six broad categories, called components, which also will receive a grade. Finally, the component grades will be combined into an overall grade for the school or district.

The six components that will be on the new report card are:

1. Achievement: This component measures absolute academic achievement compared to national standards of success.

2. Progress: This component measures the average annual improvement for each student (i.e., whether a student gained more or less a year of knowledge and skills each year).

3. Gap Closing: This component measures how well a school or district is doing in narrowing gaps in reading, math and graduation rate among students according to socioeconomic, racial, ethnic or disability status.

4. Graduation Rate: This component measures the percentage of students whom entered the 9th grade and graduated in four and five years.

5. K-3 Literacy: This component measures the improvement in reading for students in kindergarten through grade three.

6. Prepared for Success: This component measures whether students who graduate are prepared for college or a career.

The transition to the new report card begins right away. In August 2013, the report card will have nine measures that receive grades. There will be no component or overall grades until August 2015.” 

As you can see in the simulation Worthington, at our current performance levels, is expected to receive either an “A” or a “B” in each measure.  As we begin to better understand how these measures are calculated we will have a better idea of what these grades are telling us.  Today, I’m not willing to say whether these grades are good or bad.  Just that they are a starting point for our continual quest to get better.

These grades are an important measure for Worthington Schools.  But, I don’t believe they are the only measure that is important in our schools.  Friday night I attended the Worthington Elementary Warrior Run with roughly 300 4-6 grade students and a few somewhat crazy staff members and parents.  Friday night in Worthington was 46 degrees and damp.  A perfect (not really…. man was it cold and windy!) night to run and crawl through mud and water.

As I spent the evening at this event I was struck by several observations:

1.  We have incredible staff members at Granby and across the district.  We had teachers from Liberty, Wilson Hill, Bluffsview, Slate Hill, Worthington Park, Worthington Estates, Brookside and a physical education teacher who traveled from Marysville schools, working to make this event possible.  They created a course with obstacles, they brought in Jeff Henderson and Fleet Feet Polaris Parkway to make it a real race, they passed out race numbers and medals to finishers, they publicized the race, and then they spent three hours outside in the elements, cold and damp, to make this event possible.  They didn’t get compensated financially for their time or efforts.  They didn’t ask for compensation.  They gave selflessly of their time (not just any time, Friday Night Time!) to help students build life-long wellness skills and to help Worthington build a unique community that is a great place for parents to raise their children.  I appreciate their investment in kids and their extra efforts.  I’m honored to be associated in a small way with staff members who continually go above and beyond to make a difference for kids.
2. The 300 students who participated in the event were awesome!  It was cold: they didn’t care.  There was lots and lots of mud: bring it!  They dressed in costume, they painted their faces, and they competed.  The sixth grade boy who won his age group ran the mile in 6:02.  6:02 running through mud, crawling through tunnels full of muddy water, crawling under barbed wire, and hurdling obstacles.  That’s fast, and that kind of determination builds grit.  By the way, that young man was Conner McDermott from Evening Street.  His younger brother Cole won the 4^th grade race.  The boys can run, but their dad runs Evening Street’s chess club.  Awesome!
3. I survived the event and was pulled along the three-mile course by Granby teacher Tyler Hollinger.  I may be sore for a week!  If you’re on Facebook you can see pictures, results from the event, etc… here.

There are multiple ways to judge a school district.  The new Ohio report cards will provide a solid measure of academic performance.  The dedication of our teachers and community volunteers to provide extra opportunities for kids like the Wellness Warrior Run may be another measure.  In Worthington we strive to be a “Both / And” school district.  Both measures are important to us!  One or the other is never enough.

Teach Ohio

I spent Tuesday at (and tweeted from) the Teach Ohio event hosted by The Ohio State University.  Teach Ohio is a teacher recruiting fair where prospective teachers from Ohio State, Capital, Otterbein, Ashland and Ohio Dominican gather to interview with school districts from across Ohio and from as far as Florida and Alaska.

Teach Ohio is part of the larger Buckeye Bonanaza teacher recruiting week.  The week began at Ohio University in Athens on Monday (we had recruiters there who completed 36 interviews).  Teach Ohio was on Tuesday (we completed almost 200 interviews and brought 18 recruiters to two interview locations).  Ohio Northern was on Wednesday (we had recruiters complete 22 interviews).  Today is Bowling Green where we will hope to complete over 30 interviews and the week ends tomorrow in Toledo where we will complete 15-20 interviews.  This week alone Worthington will interview close to 300 teaching candidates.

As we look to replace a large number (large number for us) of retiring teachers, we are investing as much time as is needed to bring the best and brightest teachers to Worthington students.  Not only did we maximize our exposure at the Buckeye Bonanza, but we also attended teacher recruiting fairs over the past month at Capital, Ohio Dominican, Miami of Ohio, Dayton, Kent State, Akron and Xavier.  Furthermore, our HR department is interviewing candidates looking to move from their current district to Worthington.

In our mind recruiting is about effort and volume.  With 300 interviews completed this week we may only find 20 % who we would want to bring back for further interviews. From those 60 candidates, if we hired 10 teachers it would have been a great week.  Some believe we don’t need to recruit like we do.  We have an online screener that provides us with a data point and we sit in a great school district in the best location in Ohio.

That said, putting the right teacher in the classroom is the most important thing we do!  A teacher who is hired this year and teaches their entire career in Worthington is at least a 3  million dollar investment by the community in today’s dollars.  Even more importantly, that teacher may be the one person who has a life-long positive impact on your child or mine.  If we have to work hundreds of extra hours and drive all over Ohio to find the best teachers and talk with them face-to-face, we believe it is worth the effort.  If we have to interview 10-15 candidates at a school level before finding just the right fit, I can’t think of a better use of our time.

Teachers make a difference!  We want the best teachers to come to Worthington!  This week we’re working hard to find great teachers and to bring them to Worthington where they will impact kids in a positive way.

Worthington Wellness Warrior Run

A week from today it is on…..!  Seriously I mean it is on like Donkey Kong!  The Worthington Elementary Wellness Warrior Run will take place Friday, April 12^th on the grounds of Granby Elementary, 1490 Hard Road.  Students from all elementary schools in Worthington in grades 4-6 are encouraged to participate.  At 6:30 P.M. Worthington Families and Staff will begin.  (I’m registered!  You should be too!)

The website used for registration (www.WorthingtonWellnessWarriors.com) describes the event like this… This Worthington Elementary Wellness event is bound to be like no other - Are you up for the challenge???  This “Mile of Mayhem” adventure will push each individual to the limits with a unique course filled with multiple obstacles and challenges along the way.  Whether it’s climbing over barriers, ducking through tunnels, or crawling through mud - everyone is guaranteed to have a blast.

Remember, what you wear is going to get muddy (this is NOT your typical race – if you don’t like getting wet or muddy, don’t come!).

Did you catch that, not only do you have to run/walk, you have to climb over obstacles and crawl through mud.  It’s a typical night for a balding, 40 year old, Assistant Superintendent in the suburbs, right????

Credit Granby physical education guru Rick Armstrong and his partner in mayhem teacher, Tyler Hollinger for making this event a reality.  As part of being a “Both/And” school district that values academic achievement results and impacting the whole child in a positive way, events like this engage students in positive physical activities to hopefully build life-long habits around a healthy lifestyle.  Events like this also help engage and build the larger Worthington community.  Kids from all schools can interact and compete.  Parents will get together, they will get muddy, and they will be laughed at by their children.  It promises to be a good evening!

Start Time by Grade Level:  This will be a staggered start race and each student’s start time will depend on their grade level and gender.
4th GRADE BOYS = 5:30 pm
4TH GRADE GIRLS = 5:40 pm
5TH GRADE BOYS = 5:50 pm
5TH GRADE GIRLS = 6:00 pm
6TH GRADE BOYS = 6:10 pm
6TH GRADE GIRLS = 6:20 pm
WORTHINGTON FAMILIES & STAFF (1 MILE AND 3 MILE) = 6:30 pm

If you survive, this T-Shirt awaits!

“How Children Succeed” by Paul Tough

In this blog I’ve written several times regarding “Grit.”  However until last week I had not actually read the book How Children Succeed:  Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character by Paul Tough from cover to cover.  Over Spring Break I made it a point to get this read.  After reading the entire book it provides me with significant questions both as a parent and as an educator.  In the Introduction to the book Paul Tough argues that in the United States we are committed to the “cognitive hypothesis.”  From the book p.xiii:

…the cognitive hypothesis: the belief, rarely expressed aloud but commonly held nonetheless, that success today depends primarily on cognitive skills—the kind of intelligence that gets measured on IQ tests, including the abilities to recognize letters and words, to calculate, to detect patterns—and that the best way to develop these skills is to practice them as much as possible, beginning as early as possible.

One indication described in the book of our commitment to this hypothesis is that if a person can demonstrate certain cognitive knowledge, they can “skip” the process of High School and get a G.E.D. (or in Ohio, test out of courses through Credit Flexibility).  But the outcome of this is that many people with the G.E.D. are, in fact, not “prepared” to function in the real world of ever-more-demanding work environments.  Even though the cognitive ability is there something is missing. (This proved true with many high IQ students as well.)

Paul Tough’s premise is that cognitive skills are not enough!  What actually matters more is character.  In particular, there are seven key non-cognitive traits that are much more important in helping children succeed.  These traits are optimism, zest, curiosity, social intelligence, gratitude, self-control and “grit”.  ”Grit” is defined as “persistence in pursuit of a passion.”  Angela Duckworth of the University of Pennsylvania identified these seven traits.  She has shown that these character traits (and self-control in particular) are better predictors of success than IQ scores.

To reinforce this concept Tough refers to the findings of the economist James Heckman p.xix:

What was missing from the equation, Heckman concluded, were the psychological traits that had allowed the high-school graduates to make it through school.  Those traits—an inclination to persist at a boring and often unrewarding task; the ability to delay gratification; the tendency to follow through on a plan—also turned out to be valuable in college, in the workplace, and in life generally. As Heckman explained in one paper: “Inadvertently, the GED has become a test that separates bright but nonpersistent and undisciplined dropouts from other dropouts.” GED holders, he wrote, “are ‘wise guys’ who lack the ability to think ahead, persist in tasks, or to adapt to their environments. (Obviously that is a generalization, but it serves to make a point that is valid statistically across the general population.)

Examining these traits, I believe they can be taught in public school:

• an inclination to persist at a task;
• the ability to delay gratification;
• the tendency to follow through on a plan

Tough argues that these “so-called” soft skills are every bit as critical to life and work success as are any cognitive skills.

Furthermore there were two things that Tough’s research identified that adults could do to bolster children’s character.  One is supporting secure attachment in early childhood. The second thing Tough said we need to do to develop our children’s character is to let them fail.  Tough explained that what successful parents and teachers do is help their kids see that failure is an opportunity to improve. Tough identifies two types of mindsets – “growth” and “fixed”.  The “growth” mindset is one that believes that a person can grow and improve and learn with effort.  The “fixed” mindset believes that talents and abilities are mostly innate.  Unfortunately, the cognitive hypothesis, with its emphasis on IQ, aligns itself with a “fixed” mindset.  Yet it’s the “growth” mindset that has been shown to produce better results.

So, what does all that mean for Worthington Schools.  I think it means that school matters.  I think it means that Worthington schools must be a “Both/And” school district.  A district that values academic achievement based upon all measures, but also values the development of the whole child.  We can’t be an “Either/Or” school district that only measures our success by ratings in a newspaper or by college admittance   In addition, I think it means that we need to make certain we are spending time helping students and families develop the necessary “soft skills” that most students will need to be successful in the 21^st century.  Finally, I believe it means that we need to look hard at programs such as Worthington Estates’ “The Leader in Me” that works to create these skills through a common language and determine if they should be generalized across the district.  If nothing else I think the book is important reading for all parents and educators.  We should all be thinking about, talking about, and working together to help our students develop: Optimism, Zest, Curiosity, Social Intelligence, Gratitude, Self-Control and “Grit”.

Spring Break

We spent spring break in Ft. Myers, Florida.  When my parents retired they moved south and eventually my sister and nephew migrated that way as well.  Thus, for the 14th consecutive year we have spent at least one week in Ft. Myers.  Certainly there are more difficult places to spend a week in late March.  To alleviate our guilt for getting to spend time in the warm weather (and to reduce cost) we make the drive each year.  It’s roughly 1,2oo miles door to door and takes us between 18 and 19 hours.  Years ago the week allowed me to spend hours reading and reflecting while sitting on the beach or by the pool.  At this stage of life, the reading is more difficult and the time for reflection is usually in the car.  However, again this week I come back to work with a better perspective on our work and my role in Worthington Schools.

This has been both a great school year in Worthington and a very difficult school year.  We’ve seen great success with increasing student achievement (Excellent with Distinction) and we were successful with both a fall levy and bond issue.  School districts across Ohio would love to be in our position.  But, this has also been a challenging school year.  We are working to redesign our entire curriculum with the implementation of Common Core State Standards, we’re developing a new teacher evaluation system (WoTES) that  uses student data as a significant measure of teachers evaluation and we’re preparing for the implementation of the Third Grade Reading Guarantee.  Our work is always urgent in public education, but this year it has felt like we are running up hill on the treadmill at full speed and we’re holding on to the bar as tight as we can.

Right before spring break the principal at Wilson Hill Elementary (Cindi Montgomery) announced that she planned to retire at year-end.  Cindi was new to Worthington this year and we had anticipated a long and successful tenure for her as the principal at Wilson Hill. Unfortunately, for completely understandable personal reasons she has determined this is the year she needs to retire, and thus, families at Wilson Hill are left wondering how they can recapture the stable leadership they had when Pat Reeder served as the principal for ten years.  Families at Worthington Estates and Granby can relate to this as they experienced similar principal turnover in a short time before falling in love with Mr. Forsgren and Mrs. Schlaegel.

Before vacation I was getting wound, tighter and tighter in trying to turn difficult challenges into positives.  In my role I desperately want things to work well for students, families and staff members.  We want to implement standards with fidelity, we want to treat teachers with fairness in evaluation, we strive to make sure every child can read, and that every school is led in a positive manner.  As I worked harder and harder to try and do the right thing, I found myself becoming easily frustrated, worrying more about final product and less about the important process.  After stepping away for a week, and spending 37 hours driving, I am able to reflect on our work and am confident that we’re making progress in each of the above mentioned areas.  Are we where we want to be?  No, we are not.   And we likely will never be.  We’ll always strive to get better, to serve students better, to improve our work force, and to be the very best school district in Ohio.

As I return from break I’ll strive to be patient.  I’ll work to listen before I speak.  I’ll work to try to provide positive leadership both when all is positive, and when all is not.  I vow to work with students, teachers, and parents, together, to create the community we want to create.  I am refreshed mentally and ready to start a new pot of coffee for the work week.  More than anything I am thankful that I was able to spend a week with my family and I’m thankful to return to work in a place that is a good place and a place I care deeply about.  We have lots of work to do this spring, but….Onward!

P.S.  In the 14 years we have been going to Ft. Myers I had never set foot on the campus of Florida Gulf Coast University.  However with their recent run to the “Sweet 16″ in basketball we made the pilgrimage to the FGCU campus bookstore to share in their excitement.

Personal Financial Literacy

In January of 2011, Worthington Board of Education Member, Marc Schare, wrote the following piece on Personal Financial Literacy on his blog.

“At the January 21, 2011 work session of the Worthington Board of Education, we had an in-depth discussion about Personal Financial Literacy. At the heart of the discussion was whether or not Worthington should require a semester class in Personal Financial Literacy as a graduation requirement.

There is little doubt that the lack of personal financial literacy is a societal problem. Surveys show that kids graduating high school lack the skills and knowledge necessary to make good decisions with regard to personal finance at the very time in their lives when they need to start making those decisions.”

I learned Wednesday night that personal financial literacy is indeed a problem with at least one of my own children, and I’m thankful she’ll grow-up in a school district that helps her learn some of the important concepts she does not yet understand.  Please let me explain.

Wednesday night I was at the WEC in a Community Technology Team meeting (working to determine how technology bond money will be wisely used over the next six years).  In the meeting I glanced at my email and realized we had two emails from parents in my daughter’s kindergarten class.  Soon a third email arrived, then a fourth.  My curiosity was peaked, and I had to read them.  Yikes!

Each parent was writing to apologize because their child had come home from school with money my daughter had given their child.  They wanted us to know that they would return the money (in some cases five dollars or more) at school the next day.  I appreciated the emails but immediately wondered where my kindergarten daughter had gotten this money from, and why was she giving it out?

While still engaged in the technology meeting, I sent an emergency text for action to my wife.  Turns out, my daughter was given a large sum of money by a good friend from pre-school in another class.  (Why?  No one really fully understands the kindergarten brain, but it seems like it was a gift, and I’m fairly certain there was no shakedown.)  After receiving the money, instead of following sound financial literacy principles and saving a percentage for a rainy day, my daughter just freely gave all the money away to her classmates.  And, thus she came home and told mom and dad nothing about it.

A few years ago I wasn’t sold that financial literacy should be a graduation requirement in Worthington.  Today, I’m sold!

Student Learning Objectives

I’ve written recently about our new teacher evaluation system WoTES, that we plan to implement fully next school year.  One piece of this plan is Student Learning Objectives (SLO’s).  This time last year I had never heard of SLO’s.  Now I think about them night and day.  Here’s the challenge:

HB 153 requires 50 percent of the teacher (and principal) evaluation framework to include measures of student growth.  For the purpose of use in evaluation systems, student growth is defined as the change in student achievement for an individual student between two or more points in time.

The challenge for measuring student growth is that there is not a single student assessment that can be used for all teachers. Worthington must use data from the state Ohio Achievement Assessments when available. If those are not applicable for a given subject or grade, Worthington is free to choose to use other assessments provided by national testing vendors and approved for use in Ohio (we will use MAP). For subjects without state assessments or approved Vendor assessments – such as art or music – We must establish a process to create Student Learning Objectives (SLOs) to measure student progress.

The Ohio Department of Education defines a SLO as a measure of a teacher’s impact on student learning within a given interval of instruction. An SLO is a measurable, long‐term academic goal informed by available data that a teacher or teacher team sets at the beginning of the year for all students or for subgroups of students. The teacher(s) and students work toward the SLO growth targets throughout the year and use interim, benchmark, summative, and formative assessments to assess progress toward the goal. At the end of the year, the teacher(s) meet with a principal to discuss attainment of the SLO and determine the teacher’s impact on student learning.

In Worthington ALL teachers will create a single SLO focusing on vocabulary acquisition of Academic and Content Vocabulary (Tier II & III). This SLO covers a single preparation or content area for the majority of the students the teacher teaches.  We’ve chosen this path because vocabulary acquisition of academic and content vocabulary is a high yield instructional strategy for all students and has it’s highest yield for our targeted student populations.  Likewise, vocabulary acquisitions cuts across all content areas and all grade levels.  Finally, vocabulary acquisition is measurable.

There are several significant challenges that we are working through with implementing SLO’s.  The first is that we would like to have common pre and post assessments at all grades and in all content areas so that student assessment is as reliable and valid as is possible.  Our curriculum leaders are currently in the process of creating the framework for these assessments and will spend much of the spring and summer months working with representative groups of teachers to devise the actual tests.

The second significant challenge with SLO’s has to do with setting the correct growth targets for each child.  The state tells us that growth targets should be informed by baseline or, in some cases, trend data.  They should include specific indicators of growth that demonstrate an increase in learning between two points in time. They should be tiered whenever possible and appropriate and should be set so that all students can demonstrate developmentally appropriate growth.  We agree that All students must be expected to demonstrate growth and that the expectations captured in growth targets should be rigorous yet attainable. And finally we believe growth targets should articulate a specific minimum expected performance.   Determining how this number will be calculated, at least in years one and two, without trend data, is the trick.

While SLO’s present significant challenges, we are excited about the broad-based impact that a district-wide focus on academic and content vocabulary will have on student learning in Worthington.  To learn more about why Worthington has decided to focus on building academemic and content vocabulary see this article from the ASCD.  If you’d like to learn more about how Worthington plans to implement SLO’s, you can view our Powerpoint slide show here.

Talent Abounds!

One of the many benefits that I enjoy working in central administration in Worthington is that our office often overflows with student artwork.  Our Worthington Education Center serves as the central office for our school district as well as the office for Worthington Youth Boosters, Care After School, Leadership Worthington, The Circle of Grandparents and The Worthington Education Foundation.  The building is truly a community building and the hub of education in Worthington Schools.

Our building is also an art gallery.  Each month throughout the school year art teachers from across the system bring student artwork to display on the first floor of the WEC.  Sometimes the work is elementary work, sometimes it is detailed high school work.  Currently there is a high school display of pottery and automotive design.  Last month we had elementary mixed media from Colonial Hills.

If you’d like to view the student artwork our building is open officially from 7:45 A.M. until 4:45 P.M.  Although often it is open well into the evening with community meetings and events.  Another way to view elementary artwork is to attend the Young Artist Exhibit at the McConnell Arts Center in Worthington.  The elementary art exhibit will be on display from March 14th – April 7th and is free to the public.  This would be an outstanding opportunity to embrace the arts and support Worthington students over spring break.

As a high school student in Worthington I attended art class in what is now the McConnell Arts Center.  When I was in school we referred to the building as the “Anex” and students from Worthington High School walked across the parking lot to take classes in art and theater.  It was in that building, on the third floor, where in a drawing class I was asked to draw a self-portrait and a hand.  When I was finished, the teacher, lovingly, and jokingly, asked me, “which one is which?” It was a fair question.  I have zero artistic ability and I think that is why I am so often amazed by the artistic talents of our students.

In Worthington we strive to provide an education that develops the whole child.  In addition to rigorous academics we want students to have opportunities to learn, grow and experience many different co-curricular and artistic experiences.  Make some time over the next few weeks to check out the artwork both at the WEC and at the Arts Center.  (When you’re at the WEC, stop in and say “hi”, I’ll pour you a of coffee.)  You’ll be amazed at what Worthington students create!

2013-2014 School Calendar

At Monday evenings (3.11.13) regularly scheduled Board of Education meeting the calendar for the 2013-2014 school year was approved by the Board.  This calendar is essentially the same as the calendar that we are on for this school year.  School will begin on Monday, August 19th and will end on Thursday, May 29th. 

Creating a school calendar is a complicated endeavor.  There are various factors that play into the creation.  The State of Ohio sets the number of school days that students must attend, our contract with our Worthington Education Association dictates certain days will be granted to teachers for grading of exams, completing report cards and conferencing with parents.  In Worthington this process is managed by a “Calendar Committee” that is made up of teachers, administrators, parents and community members.  This committee meets each winter to try to embrace the diverse needs of all stakeholders and create a calendar that meets the needs of the greatest number of people.

This year the calendar committee’s first recommendation was for a radically different school calendar.  School would have begun on August 14th and would have ended right at Memorial Day.  The shift to an early start date was recommended so that first semester would be complete before the Winter Holiday break and students would not have to spend the break studying for finals that begin a week after they return in January.  This shift would also permit more instructional days for students before students take state assessments in March and April.  Finally, the recommended calendar did a better job than our current calendar in creating instructional blocks of time (5 day weeks) and tied teacher grading and training days to existing holidays so parents could take advantage of the time for vacations and family time.  Surrounding districts such as Olentangy and Westerville have already made this shift.

In the end, the Board of Education determined that the new calendar was the right move, but at the wrong time.  They felt comfortable adopting it as the tentative calendar for the 2014-2015 school year so that families had a chance to plan for this shift, but asked that we continue with our current calendar for next school year as some families had previously planned vacations, etc….I would have liked to see us make the switch now for academic reasons, but I understand that sometimes discretion is the better part of valor, and smarter people than I are in charge of this school district.

The 2014-2015 school calendar will represent a significant change from the status quo in Worthington.  We believe it is the right move for students and, after timing adjustments are made, we believe that parents will see the benefits of this schedule.  In a school district where our tag line used to be “Where Excellence is a Tradition” change is sometimes hard.  Tradition can be positive and it can create challenges.  The calendar always creates emotion.  Hopefully by providing families a year of notice before our calendar shifts we will all be ready in August of 2014.

Communicating Important Messages

Normally a report of teenagers with spray paint or purchasing hundreds and hundreds of disposable cups will make people cringe.  Within the boundaries of Worthington Schools this is not out of the ordinary.  I’ve written before about “the Rock” and the messages that students and alumni will paint on “the Rock’s” at Thomas Worthington High School, Worthington Kilbourne High School and at Worthingway Middle School.  Likewise in an age of Social Media, Blogs, Websites and other electronic communication, the most important messages in Worthington are often left in the fence or on a bed sheet.

Communication is a natural process for humans, and we communicate messages verbally and nonverbally to the outside world on a daily basis. Without communication, our lives would be very different because communication is vital to developing and maintaining everything around us. Communication, directly and indirectly, plays an important role with our students in Worthington Schools.

At Thomas Worthington High School students often write important messages with disposable cups along the fence line of the stadium complex.  Likewise, at Worthington Kilbourne High School students will hang bed sheets complete with messages on posts specifically designed for such a purpose.  Nothing is more meaningful for some of our students than to congratulate their sports team, or wish a happy birthday to a friend, by peeling Mom and Dad’s bed sheet right off their bed and spray painting an important message on it.  Similarly, students will toil in the cold, dark night along 161 to make certain their cup message is perfect when students begin to arrive at first light the following morning.

As an old guy, I love this communication.  There are much easier ways to ask a young lady to the dance or to wish a friend good luck, but easier is not the point.  In 2013 the effort is still important, and this generation of high school students, just like generations before them. are still proficient in creating unique messages for their friends.

In Worthington if a message is important we still paint it or make it out of cups.  We’re old school!