Gloria Ferris

Denison school officials are puzzled at why their school was listed in a recent Plain Dealer article.  Granted, there have been transistion problems this year with the addition of middle school students.  Our Kindergarten through fifth grade school added three additional classes, sixth thru eighth.  This type of transistion is very hard and would have been made easier if the Board of Education could have eased into the transistion by simply adding one additional grade each year.  In Cleveland, that kind of luxury is not possible, so we are left with a hard transistiion.  The principal and her staff at Denison school think that the transistion problems will gradually vanish as the older students brought back to the school graduate when they reach the eighth grade.  

Councilman Brian Cummins is very concerned about the article and where the Plain Dealer reporter gleaned his facts and what criteria was used.  As of Thursday evening, he had not had a return call from the Plain Dealer.  Conversations with the Board of Education revealed that they were puzzled as to what documents were used for fact checking as well.

Let’s look at some facts about our community school.  The school has a 90% attendance rate. The profeciency scores for math are       and for reading are.Both of these figures are above the state figures of   for math and   for reading.  These statistics were taken from the Plain Dealer article.

Denison School is one of eight city schools involved with SCORES.  The SCORES program combines a sport, soccer with creative writing and poerty. Our school is a successful participant in this program since its inclusion in the program.

No one is denying that the transistion forced on this school has been difficult and that there have been instances of fights in the school yard, but to be named one of the most violent schools in the city in a crime-ridden neighborhood is a stretch to anyone’s imagination who really knows the school and lives in this community.  We should join our councilman in asking for answers and documentation from the Plain Dealer.  Pick up the phone, tell them you want some answers.  

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 27th, 2006 at 9:20 am and is filed under Cleveland. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.