When Bob Vasquez told Toledo Public Schools (TPS) Business Manager James Gant at the February Finance Committee meeting that “if this doesn’t happen, the board will be looking to hold someone responsible,” Gant said he fully understood the enormity of the situation.

Vasquez, TPS Board of Education (BOE) member, was referring to the Ohio Department of Education’s (ODE) unfunded mandate that all state-required tests must be administered electronically in the 2014-15 academic year. Students from kindergarten through 12th grade will be required to take state-mandated tests using computers.

“It’s my responsibility to make sure the board is aware that if we need additional technology or additional funding — and I think this was Mr. Vasquez’s point — that it’s my responsibility to make sure they’re aware of that so that we can get what we need in order to run a successful testing period,” Gant said. “My biggest concern is to make sure that we are capable of being able to meet the needs of the district and test well when this thing is rolled out.”

Gant said that as of March 13, TPS has 8,000 computers for student use.

Based on Jim Gault’s explanation of the ODE’s most current recommendations, TPS will either have to purchase at least another 4,000 student computers within the next year or, as Vasquez suggested in February, “look to hire an outside service” to ensure the district has the necessary hardware to give its students the opportunity to pass the tests.

Gault, TPS’s chief academic officer, said ODE is telling districts that it recommends that school buildings with more than six grade levels, which includes all of TPS’s elementary schools, have one computer for every two students in six of the eight grade levels within each building and a 1-to-1 ratio of computers to students in the two grade levels with the highest enrollment in that same building.

‘Quite a bit away’

Gant said an analysis the district recently completed in some of its buildings indicates TPS is “quite a bit away” from establishing a 1-to-1 student-to-computer ratio.

“It’s difficult to quantify ‘quite a bit,’” Gant said, “but we did assess [the cost of providing] Arlington Elementary with a 11-to-1 ratio. That cost is approximately $60,000.”

Gault said ODE also recommends that schools with fewer than six grade levels, which includes TPS’s high schools, have a 2-to-1 students-to-computer ratio.

“We have also been working with ODE in providing an assessment of our technology to ensure … our computers have the necessary RAM (random-access memory) to perform the PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) Assessments,” Gault said.

One frustration districts across the state face is ODE’s decision to release the plan piecemeal, Gault said.

“This is not all developed as of yet,” Gault said. “They are releasing more information as we go forward. In fact, they just released some additional information last week on PARCC Assessments.”

A proactive approach

Despite the uncertainty, Gault said TPS is taking a proactive approach to preparing its students for PARCC.

“The district is working diligently to be involved in any state-level pilots we can to not only test our equipment but also to allow our students the opportunity of taking an online assessment,” Gault said.

“There is a fourth-grade social studies pilot that is going to be offered this year that is online. The district is applying to pilot that. Last year, we had the opportunity to pilot the online social studies test as well. We are actively volunteering to engage in any opportunities to test our hardware with the online assessments that are coming.

Gault points to the district’s use of the STAR (Standardized Test for Assessment of Reading) test and SuccessMaker as two examples of TPS’s hands-on methodology.

“We’ve already started by getting online summative assessments like STAR that our students are utilizing in grades K through 8 as we try to get them used to that format of sitting at a computer and taking an assessment,” Gault said. “That’s a new addition of a norm-referenced test we started this year that is showing positive results academically.”

The TPS website describes SuccessMaker as instructional software that provides kindergarten through eighth-grade students with “adaptive, personalized paths for mastery of essential reading and math concepts.

“The program is highly interactive, addressing multiple learning styles and making students active participants in their learning. Many skills are presented in a game-like format, which is challenging and motivating, making students excited to use the program.”

The website has a link to the program that gives students with Internet access in their homes the ability to hone their reading and math skills.

Optimal testing conditions

Capacity is another issue TPS faces, Gault said.

“The minimum requirement is one computer for every two students,” Gault said. “That’s not optimal testing in the way this should be rolled out.

“The other thing we need to talk about is providing instruction for students to have basic keyboarding skills,” Gault said. “When you talk about second, third, fourth and fifth graders, you have to realize they’re not going to be just pointing and clicking. They’re going to have to compose at the computer screen. They’re going to have to word process. They’re going to have to be able to do some copying and editing. So those are things that are going to have to become part of our curriculum that there is not currently funding for.”

Gault said the district is studying where it may be able to include that computer instruction.

“However, one thing we have going for us is that every student at every school can use that school’s computer lab, so there are opportunities for students to learn the word processing skills they will need so that how they take the test does not interfere with their ability to demonstrate their knowledge of the material and their ability to succeed.”

Gault said he is aware that some districts have purchased “little microprocessors” for students in the lower grades to start getting used to the keys and to practice their keystrokes at home.

“We will have to discuss ways we can find opportunities for the youngest students to learn the necessary computer skills to ensure they can succeed. Those are some things that we’ll have to look at to ensure that not only do our students have the content to master these tests, but also have the technology skills [so that] that their skill levels don’t interfere with their ability to demonstrate their knowledge of the content.”

Gault also said he doesn’t believe the infrastructure exists within TPS to provide a one-to-one match. At issue is whether:

• Computers will be wired or wireless.
• The computers the district already owns have sufficient RAM.
• School buildings have the capacity to be wired for today’s technology, which Gault said is much different than the technology standards in place when the buildings were assessed in 2000.
• The district owns the required software.

New material, lengthy tests

Equal consideration must also be given to the curriculum covered in PARCC tests as well as the length of tests, Gault said.

“It’s a twofold issue school districts face,” Gault said. “Not only are we going to be doing new online assessments, but also we’re going to be testing over new material.”

That new material is the Common Core curriculum, and Gault said textbooks will be another significant issue.

“Remember, textbooks were not written for the Common Core — that’s coming,” Gault said. “That’s another issue with some of these unfunded mandates. Districts across the country are going to have to look at their textbook inventories and see if they’re aligned with the Common Core.”

Gault said ODE reports that PARCC Assessments in English language arts and math are expected to take students in grade 3 eight hours to complete, grades 4 and 5 students nine hours to complete, and those in grades 6-12 nine and one-half hours to complete.

Schools will be given a maximum of four weeks to complete the PARCC Assessments. Tests will be scheduled after students complete  approximately three-fourths of the school year.

“We can only speculate at this time, because the details and requirements of the 2014-15 tests are being released incrementally, but if I use English as an example, I would speculate that we might administer one test a day for three days,” Gault said. “There is no way children could take a 9.5 hour test in one day. Kids don’t have that kind of attention span.”

UPDATED: With comments from Council members and Mayor Mike Bell.

Toledo City Council elected Paula Hicks-Hudson as its new president at a special meeting Feb. 26.

Hicks-Hudson, nominated by fellow Democrat Lindsay Webb, won the vote 8-4. Republican George Sarantou was the other nominee.

The four votes for Sarantou came from himself, Tom Waniewski, who nominated him, Rob Ludeman and D. Michael Collins. Waniewski and Ludeman are Republicans and Collins is an independent. The other eight Council members are Democrats.

After the vote, Sarantou moved to make the vote unanimous and that vote was 11-1 with Waniewski voting no.

Waniewski said he kept his vote with Sarantou because he was “the right guy for that job.”

“Paula is completely competent, without question, but George was the right guy,” Waniewski said, adding that he’s frustrated by members’ continued unwillingness to cross party lines.

Sarantou, who is term-limited for Council at the end of this year, said he accepted the decision.

“Council had to make a decision and I respect that and I wish President Hicks-Hudson the very best,” Sarantou said. “We live in a democracy.”

The special session was held before Council’s regular agenda review and a week after the Feb. 19 Council meeting at which Joe McNamara stepped down as Council president days after announcing he would run for mayor. But after  a protracted session during which five votes failed to receive the needed seven majority, Council adjourned without choosing a new president. As determined by a rotating schedule, Councilman Shaun Enright served as president pro tempore for the week.

McNamara said he resigned as president because he wanted to keep political differences between himself and Mayor Mike Bell, who is planning to run for re-election, from affecting the work of City Council. Webb said things were “very tense” between Bell and the Council after McNamara officially entered the race Feb. 12.

Nominees for president at the Feb. 19 meeting were Hicks-Hudson, Sarantou and Adam Martinez.

Martinez, who was nominated by McNamara, said he decided to bow out of the race and support Hicks-Hudson.

“It certainly was never my intent for it to go as far as it did,” Martinez said. “On Thursday (Feb. 21) … I reached out to fellow colleagues to kind of stop the hemorrhaging and move forward together. We have bigger, more important issues than the presidency so I just wanted to make sure we’re all on the same page.

“I’m extremely excited for her,” Martinez added. “I think she will do a phenomenal job.”

Hicks-Hudson, of District 4, became a Council member Jan. 11, 2011, after Council voted her in to replace Michael Ashford. The attorney later ran for and won her position.

After being sworn in, Hicks-Hudson said she and the Council would “work as a unit and work together to make sure that we take care of the people’s business.”

“It’s an opportunity to serve the people and to help Council become stronger,” Hicks-Hudson later added. “Not that we will always agree, but we want to be working toward a common goal. I think most of us that work in this particular position are doing it because we care about the city.”

She said her experience in state and local government and especially her background as a lawyer are what set her apart from other nominees and will serve her well as president.

“I’ve been working within city government not only as a lawyer but also as a legislative director and I think that is an addition that my predecessors didn’t have,” Hicks-Hudson said.

Bell said he looks forward to working with Hicks-Hudson as president.

“Paula is a very seasoned individual in governmental affairs. She’s done time with the city, she’s done time with the state and I think she’ll be an excellent president,” Bell said, adding that he didn’t foresee any difficulties in working with her.

“Absolutely not. It will be a pleasure,” Bell said. “We may not always agree on things, but she’s very logical in her thinking.”

Although he says there’s not a single thing he doesn’t thoroughly enjoy about his job as Toledo Public Schools (TPS) Hispanic Outreach Coordinator, if José Luna could change one thing, it would be how he is perceived.

“There was debate the last time they wanted to cut my job,” Luna said. “And all the media talked about was that I was a liaison. That’s just a miniscule part of what I do.

“And then people in the African-American community were [questioning why] they cut Pastor [Cedric] Brock’s job as ombudsman. Why did his job not exist and mine did?”

Luna suggested that much of that confusion and occasional animosity goes back more than a century and a half.

“That tension between the black and Hispanic communities is historical,” Luna said. “It goes back to the slaves being given freedom. Suddenly, the Hispanic people were vying with members of the black community for the same lowlevel, low-paying jobs. That was something new for Hispanics. Those jobs had always been theirs, and now they had to vie for them. And sadly, too many of them are still doing the same thing today.”

Morris Jenkins said the tension that arose between the African-American and Latino communities over the elimination of the ombudsman position in 2010 is not unique to TPS or even to Toledo.

Jenkins is chairman of the Department of Criminal Justice and Social Work at the University of Toledo, an associate professor in criminal justice and a member of the City of Toledo Police Review Board. He also works with the Lucas County Court of Common Pleas Juvenile Division.

“It becomes a question of who’s the most oppressed minority,” Jenkins said. “You get that argument going, and the system now is trying to balance it out, and they’re overbalancing it with the Latino community, which is growing.

“I think they should do something across the board, not only with Latinos and blacks. I think there’s a lot of poor white folks in this community as well. There should be something to deal with all of the groups. The tension is there.”

Economic limitations
Jenkins said he recognizes that TPS faces economic limitations, but he thinks the district may be playing one racial group off the other.

“I think that’s part of this issue of institutional racism,” Jenkins said. “In order to take care of the slaves, they used to split them up based on color. The light-colored slaves would be in the house and the darker-colored slaves would be in the field.

“That’s the tactic that they’re using to deal with the issue here — dividing and conquer. I think it’s Willie Lynch where they separated the races for the house vs. the field.”

Willie Lynch refers to a policy some historians have argued slave owners used to managing their slaves. Rather than lynching the unruly ones, which was counterproductive, slave owners exploited the differences such as age and skin color in order to pit slaves against each other.

“We’ve got to be careful when we do stuff like that,” Jenkins warned.

‘There’s no comparison’
However, Luna said there is no comparison to the job of an ombudsman with what he does.

In addition to his undergraduate degree in education from Bowling Green State University, Luna earned a master’s degree from Siena Heights University’s School of Counseling.

“I’m not an ombudsman,” Luna said. “There are certain times I serve as an advocate, like an ombudsman, but I never get involved in disciplinary issues unless I act as the interpreter.

“I’m an educator and a school counselor. I do more counseling than most counselors. Unfortunately, school counselors today have lots to do as far as scheduling, and it’s hard for them to find the time to sit down and talk to students. I have that ability to sit down with kids.”

Luna said he approaches everything he does as Hispanic Outreach Coordinator from a career counseling perspective.

“When I got to this job, there was nothing in place. When I started, I did my job putting out fires. And then I decided to become more proactive.

“So I looked at the Carl D. Perkins federal grant that paid my salary. No. 1: What I should be doing? I should be serving the area of the grant I’m being paid from. So I started doing career-based programs.”

Brian Murphy, assistant superintendent of the Start, Rogers and Woodward learning communities and Luna’s supervisor, acknowledges that one of the problems in 2010 was that the general public wasn’t aware that Luna’s job is funded differently than a teacher’s and an ombudsman’s job.

Luna said he still follows the advice of former TPS Superintendent Crystal Ellis, a man he describes as “one of my greatest mentors in my career. I always quote him when anyone questions what I do. He told me, ‘José, children will never become what they don’t see. Go out and show them.’”

‘If it don’t kill you …’
“One of my philosophies is, ‘Never baby a child.’ Make them face what they’ve got to face,” he said. “I go back to, ‘If it don’t kill you, it makes you stronger.’

“I believe children mature when they’re challenged. If they’re having disciplinary issues, we sit down and talk about what they’re doing wrong. It’s up to that child and his family to make him grow.”

Luna regularly tells students and parents the story of an incident that happened to him when he was in elementary school to make his point.

“I was in fourth grade down in Texas, and this teacher called me a wetback,” Luna said. “I was outraged. And I let that teacher know it. And they took me out and paddled me.

“When I got home, I righteously told my mom what the deal was. And she paddled me. She said, ‘One of these days, you’re going to look back at this and you’ll understand even more what I’m telling you now. You need this education more than calling you any name.’

“And I see what my mother was saying now as an adult. I tell these kids all the time that I need education more than anything else. My job is to get past anything anybody calls me to get that education so that I can move forward.”

A growing trend
The number of Hispanic students enrolled in TPS is in flux for many reasons, almost all of which are financial, Luna said.

Of the 2,168 Hispanic children enrolled on March 6, Luna said he works most closely with approximately 300 Spanish-speaking families as a translator.

“But the demographics are changing every year with the influx of immigrants,” Luna said. “More and more of my business is being done in K-8 because younger families are coming in from out of the country.”

Murphy said that in the past two years, TPS’s Hispanic population has increased by about 10 percent, and that he expects that increase to continue for at least the next two years.

Luna said today’s statistics show that 20 percent of jobs are for the college-educated, 20 percent are for those with a high school education and 60 percent are for people who have had a career tech education.

“That’s a huge thing. Brian [Murphy] and I could just talk about the fact that opportunities abound, even in this area, if you have the right skills.”

Start and Bowsher high schools have milling programs through which small local companies hire students out of high school with basic milling education in metal lathes, Luna said. Luna pointed to Bowsher High School’s electronic tech prep program; those he said students can enter the workforce immediately after graduation repairing computers or working in electronic security or the cable and satellite industries. Luna also points to Woodward High School’s graphic arts program and Rogers High School’s construction academy as career tech programs students can graduate from with job skills to earn more than $30,000 a year.

“Myself, I’m a pusher of career tech because I really believe that’s where it’s at,” Luna said. “I don’t think colleges are always good. And we do kids an injustice by saying they have to go to college. I see in a lot of kids that it’s just not for them.

“We’ve got to get them to dream, a dream that fits them,” Luna said. “And then we’ve got to get them to realize that a dream is one-fifteenth of the whole deal. The other 14 parts are work, work, work, work and more work. And more work. And more work. And each stage will give you a sense of gratification that will build. That’s what I’m all about because I’m a product of that.”

The City of Maumee, through its deal with Mueller Systems, has contracted with Keystone Utilities for the installation of the new electronic water meters.

All Keystone installers are licensed and bonded, according to Joe Camp, Maumee’s director of public service.

Camp said the installers wear photo ID badges and all of their vehicles bear the company name.

Camp said the city considers it a very serious matter when all the residences and businesses of the municipality must be entered for the installations.

If any resident or business owner is unsure whether to allow workers access to their premises, Camp said they should call the City of Maumee for verification. Keystone installers are also working evenings and on weekends for the convenience of residents, he said.

The installation usually takes about a half-hour, depending on the location of the old meter and other factors.