Kim Wheeler

Suzanne Wilkins

Quality public education does not just happen. It is the result of:

Dedicated, “hands on” teachers who believe in making a difference in the lives of students; innovative administrators who advocate for teachers and students and who are willing to remove obstacles to learning; a community that support its schools, with time and dollars; and families dedicated to their children who are willing to form a partnership with teachers and staff to help “grow” the best learner their child can be.

Public education is, in many respects, an untapped resource.  With opportunities extending far beyond the classroom confines, students have the potential to flourish innumerably.  Unfortunately, if the opportunities are not THERE, or not made accessible to all students, our public education system is likely to fall short.  It is the mission of Reaching Heights to ensure that each of our students will not only have the ability to learn, but to thrive as individuals.

In Cleveland Heights/University Heights, we are fortunate to have all stakeholders willing to do the hard work to acheive excellent public education. We’re on the right track. I proudly tell everyone about how CH-UH teachers, administrators, and our community have helped me provide a GREAT education for my child. And more importantly, that means we are sending the world a GREAT person.

Dallas Schubert

My mother-in-law once told me I had the least school anxiety of any parent she knows. I found that interesting because I am certainly not without anxieties, especially where my children are concerned. But she’s right, I didn’t have any anxiety about what school to send my kids to, and I don’t have any anxiety about whether or not is was the right choice. Why is that?

My husband and I moved back to Cleveland Heights, the city of our childhoods, to buy a home and start a family. There were things we were giving up leaving San Francisco, but there was so much we were gaining, affordable, beautiful homes on tree-lined streets, access to grandparents and extended family, a scale of daily life that wouldn’t require a ton of time in the car. A diverse and progressive community. And the CH-UH Schools.

I am a graduate of Cleveland Heights High School, as are both of my parents. I attended Coventry Elementary and Roxboro Middle Schools. As a student I had a pretty good idea of the quality of the education I was receiving. I had friends in the local private schools, I knew the level of work and the breadth of course offerings rivaled what they were getting. I took two years of AP physics and a course on Central American History and Politics. In addition to four years of AP English I took Satire and Creative Writing electives. I went on spring tours with the Heights Choir to Toronto and Washington DC. I watched my friends compete in swimming, field hockey, football and synchronized swimming.

I was also getting a different, and perhaps even more valuable education. I was a white student in a minority-majority school district; one that was struggling, like others of its kind, with issues of low minority achievement, inequity of access and expectation, and segregation of students along racial and socio-economic lines into different academic tracks. But I went to school everyday with students black and white, rich and poor. We learned to how to live with one another, how to communicate with and understand one another. We practiced navigating the gap between the black and white world. We struggled at it as a school community, but it was in those struggles that we learned what the issues were that our peers were facing and at least had the opportunity to take a stab at solving them. We didn’t solve them, but I hope we took steps forward. There was certainly no private school I could have attended that would have forced the decision of whether or not to skip 2nd year calculus in order to attend the walk-out demonstration in protest of academic inequity for African American students.

I value my education, and I am proud of the schools I attended, so when we moved back to town and had babies there was no question in my mind where they would go to school. They would go to the schools with high-quality teachers and academics. They would go to the schools with top-notch music programming. And they would go to the schools were they would have as their peers a cross-section of our community’s children, unfiltered by me and my own prejudices and preferences. I would give them the gift I was given, of a broad sense of community, and understanding and appreciation of people whose lives are different from my own.

And what have a found? I have found a school where my children are loved, nurtured, and appreciated for their strengths and individual interests. I have found an environment that challenges them and supports them.I have found a school district that is better than the one I attended. It is far more honest about the challenges we face and more committed to addressing them head on, without excuses. And I have found a community of parents and educators that continues to walk down the path we started on as children. With the shared purpose of educating and caring for ALL of our children, we work to find common ground and understanding that crosses lines of race, culture and class. And the great joy of my adult life has been that, while we still struggle, there are moments when we find it.

Public Education is the most essential component in a democracy. Equal access to high quality education is the ONLY path to justice and equality. We have never achieved the promises of Horace Mann’s Common School or Brown vs the Board of Education, but there is no better struggle, no better prize to fight for. Without that promise, none of the other goals we work towards as a society are possible. Public Schools are one of our last community gathering places. They are one of the last outlets for true community cooperation towards a common goal. Being a part of that cooperative effort gives each of us the rare opportunity to simultaneously serve both a selfish and altruistic goal – high quality education for every child: your own, your neighbor’s, and those of people you have never met. When our children come together, from every corner of our community as peers and friends, they gain understanding and compassion for one another. And they pull us adults along with them.

Reaching Heights Awards 30 Music Lesson Scholarships

November 20,2008 – Reaching Heights is proud to offer scholarships for private music lessons to 30 5^th-8^th graders enrolled in the Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School district’s instrumental music program. Scholarships pay part of the cost of 20 weekly half-hour music lessons to be taken between January and July 1, 2009.

The Patti Family Music Lesson Scholarships honor Vince Patti who taught instrumental and vocal music in the district from 1956 to 1976. The program contributes to the Heights tradition of musical excellence by helping young musicians develop the foundation skills for long-term participation, enjoyment and success in music. This is the third year of the scholarship program. The program targets fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth graders who enjoy music, have financial need, and have participated in the school district’s instrumental music program for at least one year.

Reaching Heights Awards 11 Grants Worth $10,000

On Oct. 28, the Teacher Support Committee of Reaching Heights awarded 11 School Team Grants totaling $10,000 for projects to be completed during the 2008-09 school year. The grants promote collaboration, innovation and problem solving.  Projects affect students, the team, and often lead to wider implementation of the ideas. Here are summaries of the approved grants:

Everyone Has a Story: Student Led Documentaries
PRIDE, Heights High – $1500 – Jeff Glass, Project Manager
One hundred tenth-grade American History and Literature students will make documentaries telling the war stories of local citizens. Funds will pay for audio equipment.

Science of Sound
Roxboro Elementary – $450 – Betsy Neylon, Project Manager
Second and fourth grade students will make simple instruments to learn the principals of sound production and about the how sound is produced on different instruments. Funds will pay for materials to make instruments.

Sankofa Poetry Project
PRIDE, Heights High – $500 – Sylvia Stewart-Lumpkin, Project Manager
Fifteen-twenty PRIDE tenth, eleventh and twelfth grade students will meet after school to read, write and discuss African American history and literature. Students will examine historic and current education opportunities available to African Americans and will include family members in the discussions. Funds will provide materials and guest speakers.

Giving Students the Tools to Achieve
Boulevard Elementary – $440 – Kathy Gill, Project Manager
Fourth and fifth grade special education students will use the web based Study Island tools for writing and social studies. Funds will pay for the class subscription.

Books for the Reluctant Reader
Renaissance, Heights High – $750 – Susan Reese, Project Manager
This grant will provide high interest reading material for special education students who are reading two years or more below grade level. Students will also participate in literature circles, Socratic Seminars and write essays about the book content.

Make Time for Poetry
Boulevard Elementary – $1100 – Cynthia Larsen, Project Manager
Interested fourth and fifth grade students will meet for a weekly lunch time Poetry Club with artist in residence Cynthia Larsen. Students will write, read, discuss and perform their own poetry. The project’s culminating event will be a Poetry Slam with the Fairfax Poetry Club and a published poetry anthology. Funds will pay for the artist in residence, guest poets, publication of anthology and prizes for Poetry Slam prizes.

Filling the Nature Gap
Boulevard Elementary – $100 – Carolyn Siegel, Project Manager
Two classes of second grade students will walk to Forest Hill Park to study science and the natural world. Funds will pay naturalist barb Holtz for four hours of instruction at the park.

Showcasing Wiley
Wiley Middle School -    $1500 – Heather Vokic, Project Manager
Art Club and all art classes will work with artist in residence George Woidek to design and install a clay tile mural in the lunchroom. Project will include the installation of frames to display student and professional artwork. Funds will pay for materials and artist fee.

Sharon Draper Literature Project
Bellefaire School – $1500 – Lorna Jones, Project Manager
Students in grades 6-12 will read at least one of Sharon Draper’s books and ten students will attend a reading/writing workshop with the author.

Blues Writing Workshop
Mosaic, Heights High – $1500 – Nick Petty, Project Manager
Six ninth and tenth grade English classes will attend three Blues writing workshops with Roots of American Music staff musicians. Students will write lyrics and the musicians will perform student work in the classrooms and in a culminating concert.

Race: Are We So Different?
Legacy, Heights High – $660 – Janet Korb, Project Manager
A thematic interdisciplinary unit will address history, science, literature and ethics. Teachers will use the facing History structure to guide discussions before visiting the exhibit at the Natural History Museum.

CA State Senator on education reform

California State Senator Darrell Steinberg urges that education reform be closely tied to the new green economy.

This action, Steinberg says, will improve the alarming California drop out rate: 24% for all, 41% for African-Americans, and 31% for Latinos.

Levy Struggles Divide a District

In November, Milford School District, outside Cincinnati, barely passed a levy after three failed attempts. But as Todd Munro, who chaired the levy committee, writes, there was no mood of celebration when the results were final. As Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland continues to talk about school funding and his staff continues to work on a school funding fix for next year, KnowledgeWorks  Foundation asked Munro to share his thoughts about the impact of the current school funding system on his community.  Here’s what he had to say:

Struggles Over Levies Divide One Ohio School District
By Todd Munro
Milford School District Levy Committee
It seemed so innocent sitting in my inbox on Dec. 22, 2006. The subject heading was “Something to think about” and it was from the Superintendent of Milford Schools. I opened it. It was an e-mail that would consume the next two years of my life. The request was simple: Would I be willing to chair a levy committee?

My wife and I had moved into the school district six years earlier with our two young daughters. We chose the Milford School District because of its Excellent rating and the affordability of the housing. The district had also completed four new elementary schools with plans to add two more and remodel the junior high and high school. Other than that, we didn’t pay too much attention to the schools.

Once our children started school all was well, and we were very happy with the education that they were receiving. We heard that a bond issue was going to be put on the ballot to help pay for the completion of the remaining two elementaries and the junior-senior high.  To us it seemed like a no-brainer. The bond issue failed.

How can you pass a levy when you can’t even get people to pay attention to the fact that school is closed?This was the beginning of a long, hard road for our school district. With the success that the district was having, the student enrollment was increasing by leaps and bounds, and with the failure of the bond issue relief for the overcrowding was not going to happen in the near future. So, the district had to redistrict some students. Two of them were my daughters. Suddenly, I was paying attention to what was happening with our school district. I started attending every school board meeting, wanting to be informed on the decisions that were being made by the school district.

That is how I ended up getting the e-mail and taking on the challenge of chairing the May 2006 school levy. At the time, I knew nothing of levies, millage, HB 920 [state law that caps revenues from property taxes], phantom revenue [funding reduction created by the interaction of HB 920 and the state funding formula] or how to run a levy.

We organized a very comprehensive campaign with 10 subcommittees targeting various demographics within our community. We had rallies, multiple mailings, newspaper ads, people walking door to door, and plenty of media coverage. We raised $35,000 in donations and had over 200 volunteers working on the campaign. We did everything we could to get the word out.

I had high hopes the night before the election; we had done everything we could. Due to many of our schools being polling places, the district closed school on election day. I was working the polling place at my local elementary trying to get those last few votes. It was there that I had my first doubt that the levy would pass. A car pulled up and a little girl jumped out with her backpack on. She looked disappointed and her father looked frustrated as we told them there was no school due to the election. How can you pass a levy when you can’t even get people to pay attention to the fact that school is closed?

This story is from the December 2008 issue of Primer, an eNewsletter published by KnowledgeWorks Foundation. The story and responses are at http://www.kwfdn.org/enewsletter/primer/current_issue/

Integrating Folk Art and Literacy

Twenty 9th and 10th grade students will read and write craft instructions to help improve their non-fiction literacy skills. Funds will pay for craft materials.

Year: 2008 – 2009
Subject: Art, Reading, Writing
Amount: $140
Project Manager: Donna Feldman
School: Noble Elementary School