By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Crim Elementary School has now joined Kenwood Elementary as the second Bowling Green City School building to be dropped into the state’s EdChoice program.
That means students at Crim will be able to get state scholarship money to go to private or parochial schools. And it means Bowling Green City Schools will lose more state funding.
Superintendent Francis Scruci sent a letter to Crim parents on Friday about the EdChoice designation.
“I support a parent’s right to educate and raise their children in the manner that they feel is best for them,” Scruci wrote in his letter. “However, this designation should not cause alarm or a loss of faith in the instruction provided by the hard-working professionals that are present at Crim Elementary.”
The number of EdChoice schools in Ohio has nearly doubled last year – to more than 1,300. Others in Wood County are Lake high school and middle school, and Northwood elementary and high school.
This is the highest number of schools to be designated in a given year, which Scruci said, “illustrates the inequities of the state system to evaluate school districts.”
At a recent Ohio School Board Association meeting on EdChoice, the moderator informed school districts that under the current rating system, the number of EdChoice will just keep growing, Scruci said.
On Sunday, Scruci stressed that the district was not shirking responsibility – but was questioning the metric used to designate Ed Choice schools. The ranking is based on K-3 literacy test results from 2013-14, 2017-18 and 2018-19.
“We are very concerned about being in this situation and are committed to do all that we can to help our struggling readers,” he said.
Bowling Green is judged on the same scale as Perrysburg – though 80 to 90 percent of Perrysburg kindergartners come into school with acceptable skill levels compared to 50 percent in Bowling Green. So Bowling Green students have much further to go to reach that third grade standard.
Teachers spend a great deal of time helping students catch up.
“Our issue is more related to the economically disadvantaged,” Scruci said on Sunday. “We try to catch up, but that’s an uphill battle.”
The metrics for EdChoice are being questioned in other districts, such as in Solon, where an elementary has had extremely high scores – but was deemed part of the EdChoice program when the scores dropped slightly.
“Eventually it will catch up to them,” Scruci said of the EdChoice criteria, though the school has a proven record of success.
Steps are underway at Kenwood Elementary to restructure some curriculum programs and materials, and implement a new phonics instructional program. Those steps will also be taken at Crim Elementary, Scruci said.
Crim’s EdChoice status came down to poor testing by a few students, Scruci said. The school district appealed the decision, to no avail.
“These are the rules of the game. We get that,” he said Sunday. “We are addressing it.”
In his letter, Scruci pointed out to parents that the school district has received a Momentum Award for three consecutive years from the Ohio Department of Education. The Momentum Award recognizes schools for exceeding expectations in student growth for the year.
Scruci also alluded to the bond issue that was narrowly defeated by voters earlier this month. That bond issue would have paid for a new community elementary school – that would have allowed the district to provide more equity in classrooms and sharing of resources.
“This is an example of how standardized testing and inequitable resources being stretched amongst three elementary buildings impact our district,” Scruci wrote to parents in his letter.
“By pooling all our resources together, we could do some good things,” he said on Sunday.
The effect of the EdChoice designation on Kenwood Elementary this year has been the loss of 33 students whose parents decided to use state funding to enroll their children in private schools. Parents of 370 children opted to keep their children at Kenwood.
The private schools taking in the students get “scholarships” of $4,650 a year for K-8 grades, and $6,000 a year for 9-12 grades.
Meanwhile, for each child leaving Kenwood, the school district loses $1,980 per year. The reason Bowling Green City Schools receives so much less than the private schools is because of the district’s “perceived wealth,” Scruci said.
Even if Crim and Kenwood shed the EdChoice designation in a few years, the expenses could linger. The state program allows parents of kindergartners to take them out of the public school and place them in private facilities all the way through graduation.
“We’ll play by the rules of the state and we’ll dig our way out of it,” Scruci said earlier this year.
But losing the state funding for the students leaving won’t help.
“That makes our task very difficult,” he said earlier this year.
