By Fletcher Word
The Truth Editor
The African American Legacy Project held the summer season’s final First Tuesday gathering on September 15 (postponed from September 1 because of the weather) as about several dozen guests had the opportunity to hear Romules Durant, EdD, superintendent of Toledo Public Schools, discuss the variety of opportunities the district now offers to its students and the positive impact such choices have made to their educational attainment.
The First Tuesday session occurred just after the Ohio Department of Education released its district report cards and while Toledo Public Schools continues to have a two-star rating (out of a possible five stars), the graduation rate continues to improve, noted Durant, reaching an “historic high graduation rate” of 83.6 percent for the 2025-2026 academic year.
Durant’s address was focused on the district’s goal of not only graduating students at a high rate but also ensuring that when they do graduate, they have opportunities awaiting them because of what they have accomplished on the secondary school level.
The superintendent described the choices that TPS has developed in recent years, such as the Jones Leadership Academy, the Aerospace and Natural Science Academy, Toledo Technology Academy, Toledo Early College and Toledo Pre-Med and Health Sciences Academy.
In the Aviation Center of the Aerospace and Natural Science Academy, said Durant, students have the chance to learn how to build airplanes, fly airplanes and enter the world after graduation with the opportunity to immediately earn a financially rewarding living in the aviation field.
“They need to graduate with industry credentials that make them viable to what’s im this community,” said Durant of the goals TPS has set for its graduates. “We’ve created opportunities for kids to connect to the opportunities in this region … that is the only way you revitalize cities so that your talent does not continue to leave . that is how you grow the wealth of the community.”
Durant explained how intentional such new programs are in giving instruction to students on the wide range of knowledge in the discipline.
“We have five of our own airplanes,” he said of the Aviation Center. The location at the airport and the access to actual planes enables students to learn how to fly them even before they have obtained drivers’ licenses.
“How do kids get prepared if they are not exposed?” asked Durant of an audience that included a number of present and former educators. TPS is ensuring that kids who are willing can obtain credentials to make them “industry credentialed and immediately employable.”
And not just at the Aviation Center, he added, but also at the Botanical Garden, in the Pre-Med Academy and the Natural Science Academy with its addition of, strangely enough, crocodiles from the Toledo Zoo.
Indeed, those schools, the ones Durant spoke of on First Tuesday night, have stood out for their students’ achievements on the recent Ohio Report Card. The Aerospace and Natural Science Academy had an overall rating of 4.5 – out of five. Overall ratings for the latter two were five stars as well and a graduation rate of five stars; Jones Leadership Academy also had a graduation rate of five as did Toledo Early College High School and Toledo Technology Academy of Engineering.
However, these accomplishments stand in stark contrast to the achievements of students in the traditional high schools – Bowsher, Rogers, Scott, Waite and Woodward. Scott High School’s graduation rating was two stars, the other four schools had only a one-star rating. The overall ratings were one (Scott) and two stars (the other four) as well.