The Board of Education For Streetsboro City Schools Meets To Discuss Ways To Improve The District
“When the student returns back to Streetsboro [from a charter school] they may be behind; usually a year or two behind,” Brian Violi, the Board of Education President said.
On Thursday, December 10, 2015, Streetsboro City Schools Board of Education held a regular board meeting at The Henry Defer Intermediate School in Streetsboro, Ohio.
The meeting discussed a wide variety of issues affecting its residents such as new education techniques, education laws that have been revised, charter schools, school bullying. school renovations and taxes.
“All seven members of city council members and all five school board members are obviously caring residents of Streetsboro, and none of this are doing this for the money,” John Ruediger, the Safety Committee Chair for city council living of Streetsboro said.
Reedier was the first resident of Streetsboro to speak at the meeting. He addressed issues of taxes and the school board and city council members communicating better on taxes and other issues.
“Taxes are being generated for the city of Streetsboro…I don’t think it is wise that we as elected representatives are taking money from residents in the form of legal fees both on the school side and city side.” Ruediger said. “It sounds like a lose-lose situation for residents and only best for the attorneys.”
The school board also discussed the new law for K-12 that President Obama signed titled the Every Student Succeeds Act.
According to The Washington Post, “President Obama signed a new K-12 education law on Thursday that effectively ends heavy federal involvement in public schools and sends much of that authority back to states and local school districts.”
“The test and punish era is over; it’s a red-letter day for us,” said Denise Baba, a board member, OSBA Legislative Liaison and Community Outreach Liaison.
Baba also spoke on the issue Streetsboro Schools is facing with competing with charter schools.
“When a student chooses to go to a charter school take $5,900 with them of locally voted task dollars [that were for his or her education],” Baba said.
“Every one of the charter schools was performing at a lesser rate,” Violi said.
Streetsboro Schools is also stepping up its game with a new learning technique, Genius Hour. Dan Stitzel, an 8th grade teacher in Streetsboro, and Steven Hatch, the Streetsboro Middle School principal came to the meeting to inform the board of this new learning style.
“You might think it’s me and Mr. Stitzel having an hour of conversation it’s not,” Hatch joked, laughs followed throughout the room.
The Genius Hour, further explained by Stitzel, “Gives student a choice of what they learn during a set amount of time of school hours.” He went on to say it is an inquiry-based learning style that combines research, teamwork, and presentations.
“It makes them the CEO of their own learning, and puts them in the driver’s seat of what they want to learn,” Stitzel said.
Companies like Google for example, dedicate 20% of its workday to creativity, Stitzel said.
According to the Genius Bar website, “Google’s policy has worked so well that it has been said that 50% of Google’s projects have been created during this creative time period. Ever heard of Gmail or Google News? These projects are creations by passionate developers that blossomed from their 20-time projects.”
One student in Stitzel’s class, shown in his presentation contacted the composer of one of her band songs to learn the process of writing a song, and as a result of Genius Hour, wrote and performed one for the presentation portion of her project.
It allows the teachers and peers in the classroom to get to know the students’ presenting on a more personal level, Stitzel said.
“We’ve introduced it in a few classes not across the entire grade yet.” Stitzel said.
For more information on upcoming meeting and the board’s agendas click here.
