There has been a great deal of attention focused recently on critical race theory across the country, across the state and most recently in our community. Because of this attention, it is important to know what is happening in our schools.
The Perrysburg Board of Education has not and will not be voting to adopt critical race theory. Perrysburg Schools teaches the approved Ohio standards in its curriculum and does an excellent job of doing so. Ohio’s Learning Standards may be easily reviewed by the public and may be accessed on the Ohio Department of Education’s website under the section titled, “Ohio’s Learning Standards.”
The school district operates with a great deal of transparency on all matters, including adopting any new curricula.
The Perrysburg Board of Education has a subcommittee for the purpose of discussing curriculum, called the teaching and learning board committee. Two board members are assigned by the board president to the committee, which meets every month. There is a report given at each board meeting by the board committee members.
Also, at every monthly regular board meeting, detailed minutes of the committee’s meetings are posted to the school district’s website for the public to access. Members of the public, through the district’s website, may access the official minutes of each school board meeting and board committee minutes going back to 2014.
The school district has not approved, nor is it planning to adopt, a critical race theory curriculum. Any proposed curriculum changes would be presented first to the teaching and learning board committee for discussion, and then to the entire board for approval. There have not been, nor are there any, current or proposed curriculum changes planned in the immediate future to the K to 12 social studies curriculum at Perrysburg Schools.
Also, the 1619 Project has not been adopted as a social studies text. The last update to the Ohio K to 12 social studies standards by the Ohio Department of Education was in 2018.
Several years ago, Perrysburg Schools adopted the mission statement, “Ensuring all students achieve their greatest potential.” This mission drives all that we do. In 2018, through its strategic planning process, the school district developed the “Portrait of a Jacket,” which identified six competencies that the school district focuses on developing in its students. They are:
•Empathetic citizen
•Lifelong learner
•Persistent innovator
•Purposeful communicator
•Respectful collaborator
•Thoughtful problem solver
The school district’s focus has been on developing the whole student and ensuring all students achieve their greatest potential. Some students come to school with different barriers in place to learning. Some may experience poverty or hunger; others may face barriers based on other factors.
In looking at a random classroom of 27 students, for example, we are typically able to do excellent work with 25 of the 27 in the class. However, our mission states all students. We must remain focused on doing all that we can for students No. 26 and No. 27 as well. Our goal as a school district is to understand all students and meet them where they are. This is important because we know that students who feel safe, valued and cared for are better learners. As a staff, we are challenged to look at each student’s unique needs and take steps to ensure they feel supported in the classroom and in school.
Considering we all recently celebrated Memorial Day, we understand at Perrysburg Schools that military families face significant barriers. On average, active military families move every three years and during those years, a parent or family member may deploy for months at a time. We have educated our staff through professional development training about the challenges these students and families may face. Our staff now better understands the challenges this may create for these students in the classroom. We have built supports to help these students.
Considering another example, through the same professional development training opportunities, our staff was made aware that Muslim students during Ramadan are required to fast from sun up to sun down. This, too, creates challenges in the classroom for students observing this holiday. Training our staff members to become more culturally intelligent (CQ) affords them a better lens to see the needs of their students.
We are very proud that Perrysburg is home to international companies and businesses. Perrysburg Schools is a destination district. As a result, the makeup of students we serve has changed, as has our community.
Nine years ago, Perrysburg Schools’ student demographics were 89 percent white. Today, it is 80 percent white. Our teaching staff today is 96.5 percent white. In Ohio today, 31.9 percent of Ohio students are students of color and 49.9 percent of Ohio students live in poverty and qualify for federal assistance. As a result of these changes in our community and state, staff members recognized the need to become more culturally intelligent.
In 2014, the diversity committee was formed to discuss ways to raise cultural awareness among staff and with families. The school district held a student and parent/ guardian focus group that was open to the public and hosted a diversity panel that included students, adults and religious leaders representing Jewish, Muslim and Christian religions. The diversity committee years later merged with our diverse learners Committee, forming the CQ CommUNITY team.
The intent of the CQ CommUNITY team is to provide support to all students with diverse talents, experiences and backgrounds. To do this, the CQ team is committed to educate and strengthen staff members’ abilities, skills and understanding to support all students and provide opportunities for community members to engage in activities that support the school district’s mission.
Helping a student should never be at the expense of another student’s success. This is critical to our work; we simply want all students to be successful in the classroom and to achieve their greatest potential. Through this process, students are not to be made to feel guilty or ashamed. This work is essential in bringing value and support to all students. When this occurs, students become better learners.
Perrysburg High School just celebrated its 156th graduating class. The PHS class of 2021 was awarded $21.8 million in scholarships. This is an incredible testament to the great things that are happening in our school and in our community for all of our students. The success that our students have in the classroom, on the stage, in the gallery and in the athletic arena is second to none. This work to become more culturally intelligent has not caused the school district to take its eye off the other 25 of 27 students. We continue to push those students so they, too, achieve their greatest potential.
In Perrysburg, we value students as individuals and inspire them to discover their passion. We continually challenge our students and ourselves, and we take steps to provide a safe and inclusive environment for everyone. We do this while managing our resources efficiently. We take pride in knowing the schools enrich our community and support local business with a skilled workforce. We, as a school district, are trailblazers.
We also acknowledge that as a learning community, we must continue to strive to make our classrooms safe and welcoming places for all students.
In our school district’s most recent professional development day on May 4, the activities were planned by the CQ CommUNITY team. The most powerful part of the day was a panel of current students who shared their experiences going through Perrysburg Schools.
Faculty and staff members heard the good, the bad and the ugly about these students’ experiences. With this dialogue, we are challenged as a school community to look in the mirror and again ask, What can we do to help all students? To hear that a student who wears a hijab was told that classmates had called her a terrorist, for example, shows that we must build better understanding in our school culture.
This work and understanding leads to many difficult conversations. When a racist phrase, “Whites Only,” was written on a bathroom wall at one of our school buildings in February 2019, we met with students of color who wanted to talk about how this and other experiences in the school community made them feel.
The board of education approved at its June 1 work session the creation of a position of assistant director of student services and well-being. This has been incorrectly attributed by some as evidence of the school district adopting critical race theory.
This is false. The primary focus of this administrative position will be to serve as the school district’s 504 coordinator and, by doing so, relieve the school counselors from many of the administrative functions that go with serving these students’ 504 plans so counselors have more time to spend with students. The job description created for this position lists 20 “essential functions.” One of the 20 mentions a role with the CQ CommUNITY team, primarily to provide leadership and support of the team and co-chairs.
The CQ team has been a leader in our community, across the region and in the state. This team has been operating in public. Beginning in 2018, it has presented at each Perrysburg Schools Board of Education annual retreat.
In addition to those presentations, team members have presented to the Perrysburg Rotary Club, Owens Community College, Owens Corning panel discussion, the Lourdes University–Principal Academy and CAPE-NWO: Coalition of Advocates for PK-16 Education (CAPE).
In 2019, members of the team presented at the Ohio School Board Association annual conference in Columbus. Members were named to the state superintendent’s advisory group in supporting equity in schools. The Ohio State board of education, in its strategic plan, “#EachChildOurFuture” lists “Equity” as one of its three core principles and “Social-Emotional Learning” as one of its four learning domains. Teachers under the state’s mandated Ohio Teacher Evaluation Systems (OTES) will be rated on classroom climate and cultural competency. The work being done in Perrysburg is unique to the needs of Perrysburg students, however, there is much focus on these issues across the state.
We are proud of the students who attend and graduate from Perrysburg Schools. As seen by the record-setting scholarship offers to the PHS Class of 2021, Perrysburg graduates are sought-after.
Perrysburg students also are very successful in the workplace. The rigor and high standards that our staff has set are producing results. Our efforts in providing cultural intelligence development activities to our staff and creating a school culture that values and respects all students is working.
Despite our best efforts, we will experience failures and have setbacks in our effort to build a climate that is always welcoming. As an organization, we acknowledge those times when we fall short despite our best efforts. We also know that there will be success and we need to celebrate those moments.
Perrysburg Schools has become a destination district, attracting families from across the state, the nation and the world–because of high academic standards and proven results, but also because of the work we continue to do to ensure all students achieve their greatest potential and how we strive to make sure every student feels valued and supported in our school community. This is not critical race theory. This is compassion and empathy and what great educators and staff members in Perrysburg Schools are called to do every day.
I am reminded of President Kennedy’s quote: “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”
Our work to make each student’s experience in Perrysburg Schools outstanding and deliver on our mission, to ensure all students achieve their greatest potential, is our moon shot and continues to challenge us and our community.
Board member objects
During a recent meeting of the Perrysburg Board of Education, board member Kelly Ewbank expressed concern about critical race theory being introduced in Perrysburg Schools. She was later asked to provide a statement answering the questions: What is your understanding of critical race theory? Why do you think it could be or is being introduced in the schools?
Mrs. Ewbank responded:
“I have researched many articles, watched videos and spoken to professionals about CRT and have a good understanding of it.
“It is already in Perrysburg Schools, but it’s rebranded under names like the CQ (cultural intelligence) team and SEL (social emotional learning). CRT, no matter what we call it, is divisive, destructive and unacceptable. I will never support it because schools are for education, not dividing kids by race, religion or gender.”