{"id":12943,"date":"2024-07-11T15:32:42","date_gmt":"2024-07-11T15:32:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=12943"},"modified":"2024-07-11T15:32:42","modified_gmt":"2024-07-11T15:32:42","slug":"a-formula-for-success-at-maritime-academy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/11\/a-formula-for-success-at-maritime-academy\/","title":{"rendered":"A Formula for Success at Maritime Academy"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Fletcher Word<\/strong><\/em>
\nThe Truth Editor<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The long pandemic-induced nightmare is almost over. At least the nightmare is over at Maritime Academy. At Maritime, as it was with most schools, neighborhoods and cities around the nation for the past few years, times were difficult. Students\u2019 schedules were disrupted in the spring of 2020 as schools shut down. Then followed the emotional damage caused by the shutdown and several years of social distancing which were not easy to recover from.<\/p>\n

For several years students were generally angry, short-tempered and unable to get past the educational turmoil those first few pandemic years caused. But the turnaround has happened, according to Maritime Academy Superintendent Aaron Lusk. He began to sense a return to normalcy during the first months of 2024.<\/p>\n

Soon thereafter, the superintendent began to develop new plans for the upcoming academic year in an effort to bring students and families closer together, to increase the options students have in their learning choices, to bring a greater variety of professional guidance to pupils and, not least of all, to improve the learning experience, even as it is reflected on tests, such as the state achievement tests.<\/p>\n

Just as one size does not fit all, one set of state achievement tests does not fit all students, notes Maritime Academy Superintendent Aaron Lusk.<\/p>\n

Lusk wrote earlier for The Truth in 2024 about one such student:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Shamyra came to The Maritime Academy of Toledo in seventh grade, she had been expelled from multiple schools. Upon enrollment, she had little confidence in her academic abilities and felt lost in a system designed for failure. Her performance on state tests included limited and basic scores which negatively affected the school\u2019s state report card. Her behavior continued to deteriorate as she violated many requirements of the code of conduct. By the end of her seventh-grade year, based on the politics of our public education system, she was possibly facing the end of her educational experience.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Lusk does not have a problem with the test itself. As one measure of gauging the success of a school\u2019s ability to educate its students, he says it\u2019s acceptable. However, using it as the only<\/em> gauge is problematical.<\/p>\n

\u201cTest scores are a secondary concern to helping students,\u201d says Lusk during a recent chat with The Truth. \u201cLots of kids come here because they need [something different]\u201d from what their neighborhood public school can provide.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur public school system, with its zero-sum game approach, creates an environment where good or bad schools are ranked not by their willingness to help all students, especially those with the most needs, but one that promotes the exclusion of students who may not score well on a test,\u201d<\/em> wrote Lusk earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Maritime accepts a diverse array of students in the sixth through 12th<\/sup> grades and that diversity is especially evident in the various city neighborhoods, especially central city neighborhoods, that the students come from.<\/p>\n

This fall, as part of Lusk\u2019s new education model, students in the ninth and tenth grades will be part of a cohort.<\/p>\n

The teachers for the cohort have made up their own schedules, says Lusk, and \u201cboth students and teachers will have all the support they need.\u201d That support includes case workers, special education instructors, social workers \u2013 support personnel necessary to help decrease absenteeism.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will see some real change in academic progress,\u201d said Lusk emphasizing the 100 percent inclusion that students with special needs will experience within the \u201cCharting Your Course\u201d cohort.<\/p>\n

The cohort will be placed on the third floor of the school and the students will have \u201ca variety of elective choices\u201d especially as the group moves into the 10th<\/sup> and 11th<\/sup> grades. Together the students will experience restorative justice after years of been subjected to the harmful effects of the pandemic shutdown and begin to really develop or re-develop their social skills.<\/p>\n

Additionally, as Lusk notes, the goal of the cohort is also to make parents a part of the collaborative process. \u201cParents will always know what is going to happen, as well the students, in order to alleviate anxiety.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is no guarantee that the success of the new program will be reflected on the state tests and report card because of the nature of that test-taking process. For example, as Lusk says, students always do better the second time around on such tests, but those results are not recorded by the State of Ohio.<\/p>\n

However, the standard state report card is not the only measure of success, according to Lusk. \u201cEvery kid graduated on time in the class of 2024,\u201d he adds as an example of the success that Maritime does deliver to its charges.<\/p>\n

In addition, he points to recent Niche rankings (Niche is a free, national, community-based platform that offers personalized experience for its users in a range of subject matters \u2013 schools, neighborhoods, products services, etc).<\/p>\n

According to Niche, the Maritime Academy ranks high in numerous areas such as diversity: number two in Lucas County for both middle and public schools; number six in Lucas County for best college prep schools; number 76 (of 778) in Ohio for best college prep schools.<\/p>\n

Similarly, the school has performed well in federal audits. \u201cThe things we can actually control, we do very well in and knock it out of the park,\u201d says Lusk. \u201cWe cannot control the state report card.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Lusk does expect to see gains on the state report card as the cohort system takes effect and the students work their way through it and into higher grades such as the 11th<\/sup> and 12th<\/sup>\u00a0 – the \u201cSetting Sail\u201d years.<\/p>\n

But the cohort system will be successful, he believes, because it will incorporate those things that the members of the diverse student body will need to succeed, such as support from professionals, parental involvement, emphasis on developing interpersonal skills and flexibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cSchool is all about flexibility [that] is what makes kids feel comfortable,\u201d said Lusk.<\/p>\n

As he wrote earlier this year:<\/p>\n

\u201cFour and a half years later Shamyra is now a junior at The Maritime Academy of Toledo. The journey had often been marked by frustration and sadness, but those times have lessened significantly. In all state measurements, Shamyra continues to grow but this progress does not equate to success on the school\u2019s report card. <\/em><\/p>\n

The truth is, however, that Shamyra is likely to finish most of her required classes at the end of the 2023-2024 school year to take college classes her senior year. In addition, she is on track to graduate and plans to attend either Owens Community College or Lourdes University, for nursing, after her 2025 graduation.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Fletcher Word The Truth Editor The long pandemic-induced nightmare is almost over. At least the nightmare is over at Maritime Academy. At Maritime, as it was with most schools, neighborhoods and cities around the nation for the past few years, times were difficult. Students\u2019 schedules were disrupted in the spring of 2020 as schools […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,18],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[238],"class_list":["post-12943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12943"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12944,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12943\/revisions\/12944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12943"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=12943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}