Welcome to Dialogue.

I am Trevor Brown.

Dean of Ohio State John Glenn College of Public Affairs and I'll be moderating our conversation today.

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Now a little bit about the series and what to expect today.

Dialogue is a collaboration between WOSU Public Media and John Glenn College of Public Affairs.

This developed into a speaker series featuring top names discussing the issues affecting our community and our nation.

Our topic today is the future of K-12 education and joining me for our discussion is Dr. Dixon, superintendent and CEO of Columbus city schools and Paolo DeMaria, Ohio superintendent of public instruction.

Welcome and thank you for joining me.

>> DR. DIXON: Thank you.

>> PAOLO: Great to be with you.

>> TREVOR: Columbus city schools went virtual when the pandemic began and have been virtual since.

Last Monday was the first day students in third grade and younger could return to in-person instruction, what was it like for students and teachers?

>> DR. DIXON: Thank you.

It was a great day.

A lot of smiles we can see through their masks.

And the students were ready to come back.

We can tell.

And our teachers and staff.

We worked so hard, as you stated, we have been out since March, we knew we were ready to open.

We had all the protocols in place.

We just had to work out some things, transportation mainly, before we could come back but it was an exciting day and all the staff was relieved and said, you know what?

We did it.

We did what was in the best interest of our students and that is bringing them back for some time with their teachers, face to face, even if it was only two days per week as planned but that time is valuable and a lot of students were looking forward to having the time with their teachers.

>> TREVOR: Tell us a little bit about the decision to return to in-person instruction, why did Columbus city schools decide to return to in-person instruction for younger students now, what factors changed to indicate in-person instruction was possible?

And how did you decide which grade levels to welcome back to the classroom?

>> DR. DIXON: First, as I stated, we have known that in-person learning is the best for all of our students but we had to make sure we can do it safely.

So one of the main challenges we had is with transportation.

The transportation guidelines prohibited us to bring as many students that we wanted back.

So, for example, we were normally transporting 40 to 50 students per school bus.

And now, we have been limited to about 20 students as a capacity on transportation.

That limited the number of students we could transport.

So we worked with our charter and public partners.

We have been working for several months to try to figure out how we can bring back, how we could allow flexibility in scheduling that we could bring back some of our learners and we decided that the youngest learners were the ones we wanted to prioritize, our preK through 3 for the first week and then 4th and 5th graders in this week and we also brought our CTE students, this is their second tour, we brought them back for three weeks in November and they are back with us and we identified a thousand students with complex needs and we have those students back with us.

All and all, about a little over 20,000, 24,000 students that we were able to bring back between last week and this week.

Unfortunately, we had a snow day today.

But the goal is to†-- was to bring between 24, 25,000 students back.

>> TREVOR: I have to apologize.

You and I spoke the day after you welcomed students back, the Tuesday after.

That was a snow day as well and here we are again talking.

I pledge throughout the winter I will not call you until the snow is all gone.

>> DR. DIXON: Yeah.

We were saying this morning, my gosh, the students in cohort A, they only†-- last Monday and yesterday.

So the weather is so unpredictable.

And it was challenging this morning for the transportation crew.

>> TREVOR: It's a joy to be in Ohio.

The Columbus city schools is a large district, serving over 25,000 families and close to 50,000 students, if not more.

In fact, it is the largest school district in Ohio.

What is the current situation for other large districts in Ohio?

Has the response to COVID-19 been the same in Cincinnati and Cleveland and other large metro areas?

>> PAOLO: Well, I'm always hesitant to say the same because every community brings to the discussion how to respond to the pandemic and what the educational experience should be like.

I think in the major urban areas you have seen greater, perhaps, greater concerns about safety.

One thing I have been telling people, we learned a lot since this pandemic started about classrooms, school buildings and increasingly the research is showing when proper safety protocols are followed, classrooms can be among the safest places where people can be.

Knowing that, I thinker you are seeing reduction in cases, as well as the vaccination plan, greater levels of comfort in urban areas and more students being brought back.

>> TREVOR: Talk a little bit about the experience of other kinds of districts, suburban districts, rural districts, what are the key differences and what explains why some have been able to go back in person and others now just coming back to in-person instruction.

>> PAOLO: At the start of the pandemic, differences were positivity rates.

Some of the most rural districts had very, very few cases of COVID.

You would talk to people, they would say I don't know anyone in the county that had COVID and that gave me, knowing they could follow the safety protocols, that they could resume instruction, whether it was full time, five days a week or hybrid.

What we saw was those schools and districts began to see outbreaks and if you recall, for those who follow the governor's press conferences, the map grew red in terms of counties experiencing higher levels of positivity and that caused some districts to step back, try to understand what was happening.

And many of them moved to more hybrid models where they could do more sanitizing or have smaller cohorts of students or some went to a remote posture.

A lot of it depends on†-- I think, I tip my hat to the governor for allowing local communities to be the primary decision makers about these issues because they could balance all the different things that come into play.

The circumstances by virtue of the health departments, what the parents and community is wanting and come to a consensus about what makes the most sense in those areas.

>> TREVOR: A question for both of you, President Biden prioritized returning students to the classroom.

We heard reference to the governor and he wants to bring all students back to the classroom by march†1, what will it take to get more students back to in-person instruction outside of preventing snow?

Dr.†Dixon, what do you see as the key factors that need to be in place for more students to come back?

>> DR. DIXON: Right now, we have those guidelines.

So we have†-- we can only bring in†-- students have to be socially distanced.

We have large cohorts of students.

Average class size is between 22 and 26.

And some are larger.

You have to be able to social distance your students.

We had to break our students up in cohorts.

That is why we have class Monday and Tuesday and the other class Thursday and Friday.

For us, we would still be challenged by those social distancing guidelines that would prevent us from bringing more students in, especially five days a week.

We are hopeful as staff and our public get the vaccines, that we hope will†-- we are hopeful we will see changes in our guidelines and allow us to transport more students on the buses and also be able to bring more students back to the classroom.

That is going to be a major decision maker, bringing students back and bringing them back safely.

>> TREVOR: Paolo DeMaria, as you span the state and see all the districts, what are the key factors do you think will drive the ability to come back, targeting March†1?

>> PAOLO: When I get this question, a lot of school districts are already back.

If you go to our web page, you will see a map.

We update the map every week.

The governor uses it on his press conference to that show which districts are back, full day, five days a week, which are in a hybrid program and which are remote.

And you will have seen the numbers in the full remote mode are small.

In some ways that number has been small, although sometimes a small number includes our most urban districts which have the highest density.

Return to school always includes hybrid models.

We think the conditions are emerging that allow those in full remote to bring more students back.

As the superintendent articulates, educators, administrators, are very creative to address the safety protocols, distancing and so forth, while at the same time, bringing kids for those valuable face to face instructional experiences that are so important to their wellbeing.

>> TREVOR: If you haven't jumped on the chat, please do so.

My guess this is a topic important to many.

Before we get there, I want to ask another set of questions to the superintendents and then we will turn it over to your questions.

As you think about the challenge of getting the students who are not in in-person instruction at the moment, what are the greatest needs for them?

I want to go a little bit deeper.

Is the challenge at the school level around financial resources, the willingness of families to send their students back to the classroom, the penetration of the vaccine, what are you think are the key triggers here?

>> DR. DIXON: Thank you.

I think all of the above.

You know, what we are seeing now more than ever is we have to rely more on our families.

Prior, you know, students knew the routine.

During the school year, you get on a bus, you go to school, you learn, you go home, do homework and go back.

Now we are seeing we will have to focus more on the families and have the family help us help their students to stay focused, stay engaged in the work and their voice is important.

And I think that is key for us to understand what families are saying and what they are facing and what we had to do more is more family surveys.

We are asking our families, you know, how could we help, what are their needs.

That is something that since I have been here, we have not done a lot of that and I think we haven't done a lot of that in public education at all.

We have not really reached out and say what do families need, how can we have our families as co-architects a little bit of this, how can we have them help us help their students.

And once we get a clear understanding of what that means for all of our families, regardless of your ZIP codes, I think we have a better grasp of how we can help our students.

There is a disconnect, a lack of trust.

It happened outside of our K-12 setting.

Health disparities, right?

I have been frustrated when I see colleagues and students going back and I had to wait months for my students to go back.

It's something not in my students' control, it is other entities we have to work with to make sure our students have the same opportunities.

And our teachers have dawn wonderful job.

They have done a wonderful job.

They have come in and pivoted quickly to the online platform, we made lessons come alive through the virtual space but it does not take the place of the in-person learning that all of our students need and I think we are going to see this is the future of education.

We will see the models come alive in different ways and I'm looking forward to Columbus being a leader in showing that we can do this.

We can have the different models for our students, engage our parents, and really be bold and innovative in our approach to educating students.

>> PAOLO: I think she makes a great point.

One of the fantastic developments coming out of the pandemic is this increased connection between education and parents.

We saw it from the get-go.

The only way to keep parents aware, help them understand what students were expected to do was for greater teacher-parent, school-parent encounters.

I saw so much of that reflected, even on social media.

Sometimes just giving kids encouragement by teachers parading through neighborhoods and showing that connection.

Talking to parents by phone.

Providing additional resource materials for parents.

Opportunities for them to learn how the functionality works and their role in supporting the educational experience.

I hope that continues for the future of K-12 education because I think it shows there is a powerful point of leverage that could be established.

The parent is the first and most important teacher of children and we need to grab that and run with that more.

In the past, that parent communication has been unidirectional.

Things would go home and not much feedback but now there is more of an exchange.

Right now, students are coming back and everyone is in a different place.

Teachers are incredibly astute and they are paying attention to the individual needs of each student.

Some of that is assisted by the assessments they do locally.

Either as an individual teacher, as part of a program, and that helps them identify where each student is and what the student might need to continue to success.

Where is the student, what are the supports the student needs to reach that level of mastery and competency that allows them to succeed in future educational pursuits instead of treating everybody, like, here is a group of 22 kids and we will always move them together, we have to get a little bit more nuanced because that is going to lead to greater student success.

>> DR. DIXON: If I could add to that, I think that approach to that whole child, the social-emotional needs, our teachers are sitting in the living room of our students' homes.

There is no masking of what you may see or hear and it is real for them and our teachers are getting more insights of our families and the barriers that we may not have noticed before.

I think to your point, we have to customize it.

We are going to see each student and each family needs something different.

We have about 3500 students on our digital academy and many students are thriving on that.

They still need teacher interaction, I think that customizable approach will be the leader.

If we go back to what we were prior to the pandemic, we should be using technology as a lever, and using what we have learned, experiences from our families and coming together as a community to accelerate us forward because the community has shown that together we can help our families.

Who knew we would have a digital divide in the big city of Columbus?

But we experienced that.

We were giving out computers and learned our students didn't have hot spots.

So we have learned a lot from this but we know that we have been better informed about what our families need and we are excited we are able to customize that with the help of ODE and others to say this is what our students need, this is what our parents need, let's pull the pieces together and really begin to be whole child focused in more ways than we have in the past.

>> TREVOR: I want to come back to some of those things but I want to turn to Amy?

>> AMY: I will follow up on the current topic with the question, some students and parents have expressed they learn better in the virtual world because distractions were eliminated.

How can we ensure we are leveraging this truth to reimagine public schools for our kids?

>> PAOLO: I'll start because I'll reflect what Superintendent Dixon said and I'll applaud her.

People are realizing, there is a debate.

People have been quick to criticize remote learning, it hasn't worked but there are some students that benefited because of the things that you are questioner indicated.

It's worked for them.

Let's hold on to that.

Let's recognize that and continue offering those kinds of opportunities in all their varieties.

There may be a student that could go completely in that direction, there may be a student that needs to split, some things work better face to face, others perfectly done online.

Especially if the student is able to do that work in the evenings, the weekend.

It affords students, I think of high school students, a great deal of flexibility around the learning experience so they could find time for work-based learning opportunities or other learning experiences that don't always fit into the school day.

I agree with the questioner.

We learned a lot and I anticipate seeing lots of opportunities for different modalities of learning to become part of the normal educational experience.

>> DR. DIXON: Yes.

To add to that, we are deciding this year we were able to get a waiver to allow a digital academy.

We already said so many of our students have done well on that platform, how can we have that option moving forward for some of our students who would like that platform.

We have to be thinking about that.

Also, I don't want to†-- it's not all flowery for Columbus city schools.

Some students said I'm challenged by working online and I have three younger siblings.

One of our students said I have three younger students, I have to prioritize getting them online, making sure they are engaged.

He is working later.

And not as engaged.

We are mindful of that, that we have to make sure we are working with our families, customize options.

And know that many families have many students†-- many students in their homes and we have to be mindful of that and create something specifically for those families.

We are still learning.

We haven't perfected it yet but we have high points and low points that we are still working through.

>> TREVOR: On that, I want to come back to audience questions in a moment.

That was a great question.

You pointed to the experience has been variable for students.

Some thriving in this environment but others who are struggling, lack of ability to access the technology.

Lots of impediments for many.

Two Ohio State University faculty members completed a study that has been released showing the average achievement on the Ohio third grade English language assessment declined a quarter of a standard deviation between fall 2019 and fall 2020.

And according to†-- this amounts to a loss of the third of the year in terms of learning.

It is important to point out, this is one grade level, one assessment so it not necessarily true for every subject and every student.

From the state of Ohio's perspective, what is your reaction to that sense that in a key area of learning there is a third of the year that slipped away.

>> PAOLO: I don't think anybody was surprised by the numbers.

I think when we went into full school building closure mode in March, the system was not prepared for continuity of delivering educational experiences in that kind of setting.

Now, some ended up doing better than others, including access to Internet connectivity, devices and the districts and schools readiness to deliver educational instruction.

That said, I think it's a reality we can't ignore.

I think people are quick to go to the average.

It is each individual's student's needs have to be understood.

And we have to address those needs going forward.

Yes, you know, I'm concerned.

As I think that concern is shared but I think administrators and teachers are already contemplating what is the meaning of that information, how is it reflected on a child-by-child basis and what do we need to do to provide the students with the strongest supports in order to set them up for future success and learning.

>> DR. DIXON: To add to that, I know there has been years that people stated we should not focus on standardized tests.

We should move away from that.

I believe this pandemic has kind of shown us that for us, that can't be our focus.

We know the test was an option for our students but we didn't have that many students that took the test this time because we said we are going to offer that test for our students but we didn't want it to be their first time returning to school since March and coming back and taking a test.

We did ask our families to say, if you wanted your students to engage in this, you know, please bring your students and they did.

But I think more importantly, we have had to shift from this thinking of this†-- we want our students to learn all of this content and be able to test and measure†-- we have had to make the shift and we had to shift to more†-- for me, as a leader, the hierarchy of needs.

Our studentsí needs were not being met for many of our students.

We have about 6,000 students that are considered vulnerable youth, living in foster care, shelters, their needs were not focused on getting a Chrome book and doing the lessons, they had other immediate needs we had to help the students address.

Some families, their parents lost their jobs.

High school students had to pick up jobs in order to help their families so they were not as engaged.

What it did allow for us to do is say we have to reach out to our families.

That is our responsibility.

We have a campaign now, campaign knock on doors, we are sending security staff to our homes to the students that have not been engaged.

We are making sure, families, if they need more Chrome books, we gave one per household, some had three students so they needed more.

Unless our students, their basic needs are met, they are not going to be engaged in learning.

We have focused on making sure that we prioritize that and with teachers, making sure they have other lessons, they are introducing protocols, checking on their students in the morning, they may open up and say how was your day, how are you feeling.

They had to integrate other things into their lesson to make sure they are staying connected with students and connected with their families.

Yes, we expected to see a drop.

We will have to build a strategy to make sure the students have the contents and master the lesson that we are teaching but that was not our priority but we are building that up for the summer programs and for next year.

>> TREVOR: Thank you for that thorough and thoughtful answer.

Amy, are there other questions?

>> AMY: We do.

The continuing changes in the required testing and the importance of it to students and districts has been a struggle for teachers over the past ten years.

How can we rethink the use of testing to better measure what we need to measure student progress and not as a student or district failure.

>> PAOLO: I think the questioner creates the exactly correct juxtaposition.

The last sentence is more about the use of test data to judge and rank rather than the value to inform district and state, policy decisions and approaches.

I think that could be†-- as I talk to others in Ohio and other states, there is a deeper understanding, especially now during this period when educational experience has been disrupted.

We should not rely on assessment data to support this judging and ranking and sometimes other more drastic†-- in terms of schools.

We should learn from them.

That is why the data analyzed around fall testing has value.

The data that will come from other assessment experiences has value.

And we should continue tom brace and look at that data for what it means.

At the same time, there is a lot of discussions across the country, and this includes, among the new people at the Department of Education at the federal level, are there different ways to engage what students are able to do, to demonstrate the knowledge they acquired that isn't a standardized test approach, as it is integrated into the classroom experience.

I expect to see more thought-provoking work in the years to come because I think educators are realizing that needs a lot of attention.

At the same time, having good data to understand what knowledge students acquired and use that to inform instruction, that is going to into be important and we need to be diligent about that.

Assessments emerged from an equity imperative.

We need to remember that.

Certain students were being under served and the assessments allow that to be called out and we need to not lose sight of that goal.

>> DR. DIXON: I think two keywords was formative and informative.

That is key.

How do we use data to inform our next steps and that is very different.

We don't want to into sort kids.

That is part of the process, we understand that.

How can we use formative assessments to inform our decisions and what is best for our students.

I believe the whole child focus allows us to do that and do that better.

Again, it goes back to the customizing.

And having our student co-design.

They will be the architects in their own learning.

Students should have say.

When our students come back, they should be able to tell us, I think I would like to take math online but I want to be face to face for reading and science, perhaps.

And I think that is the power of it.

And then we can use assessments, we can do all kinds of assessments to see if students reach mastery.

Think of a student on the online platform that is self-pace.

They could have accelerated two to three years.

Now we bring them back in their third-grade class and they spent second grade online.

Those students will probably be ready academically for fifth grade.

How do you accelerate students and customize what they need and use formative and informative information to make the decisions.

>> TREVOR: You are both describing a compelling world in which you can tailor the education to the student's needs and we know there are patterns across groups.

The assessment I mentioned earlier looked at the impacts across racial categories and found Black students, their performance was lower than other categories of students.

That third of a year loss expands to half a year lost for Black students.

As you think about this world you are envisioning where we can better tailor to the individual students' needs, how do you account for race and socioeconomic status and other categories that explain†-- have been shown to demonstrate there are differences?

>> PAOLO: The data has shown for a long time the phenomenon of the achievement gap.

There is no rational basis for why all students can't reach the highest levels of performance.

As we dig into the issues, we understand the phenomenon that work both in schools and throughout society, issues of bias, trauma in students' lives, adverse childhood experiences, discrimination of any number of varieties.

We are achieving a deeper understanding of those phenomenon and beginning to do more to correct them and understand that those realities, the students can achieve at higher levels and we are seeing lots of training around implicit bias, how to overcome, address micro-aggressions, how to make sure the experience is both complete with high expectations and also culturally relevant and creating an engaging environment.

If a student isn't engaged in that classroom experience and learning transaction, they are not going to learn and we have done a disservice many times by not making it engaging by speaking to the cultural realities and the issues that are important to students as they want to learn and grow .

>> DR. DIXON: To take it one step further, we need policy reform.

If we keep leaving it up to the individual districts, I think it will be more challenging for some districts than others.

The only way you will be able to sustain it is to have policy reform.

I think it has to call it out and say that we need to make sure we are thinking about the impacts of poverty, the disparities, the†-- all those things we have to take account for.

Right now, we are seeing every district is addressing it differently, but I don't think that is the best approach.

I think we say, you know what?

We need policy reform and we need it immediately so districts like Columbus city schools who know we have different challenges than my neighboring districts who both have kids that could reach their potential, but the kids from different circumstances more so in my district than others, but we are still held to the same standards.

And not that our kids can't reach it, I'm not going†-- I don't want to sound†-- pity for my students, my students can achieve just as much as another student can.

I want to make sure there is a level playing field and I think policy reform and us thinking about now we had this pandemic, now we have been able to see the needs of our students from a family perspective, they have been learning online and not had the engagement and nurturing as they needed.

Our students spent more time in the classroom than they did at home and now that is reversed and now family members are saying I didn't go to school to do this.

I'm doing the best that I can.

We come out of this and what are going to be the standards that we are still going to be faced?

If we don't do big, bold policy reforms, you will see districts like me and the other urban districts still facing the same challenges because we have not made big bold decisions, reform, that I believe is needed.

>> TREVOR: Let's turn to the audience questions.

Amy?

>> AMY: The next one, one of the most concerning trends in the United States public education is the looming retirement of a large portion of educators and the limited number of new educators or future educators to replace them.

COVID has accelerated that trend.

How can we ensure every stupidity has quality professional educators in the future?

What needs to happen to ensure that there are enough educators in the future?

>> DR. DIXON: You know what?

We see a big uptick of people wanting to go into the nursing field.

That is so refreshing.

I hope that people now are saying we need more teachers.

We, for Columbus, we will have to start recruiting and have our own programs and look at how do we have people in our organization that may be a classified member of our team that wants to become a teacher and how can we help them and incentivize them getting some experiences to move to a teacher position.

Also, work with colleges and universities and build that pipeline.

That is so important we build a pipeline of people in the field and then I think the third thing is we have to make sure that the teaching profession a priority and seen as a top-level profession.

I remember years ago, I had an opportunity to travel to Finland, teachers are Revered.

My gosh, you are an educator, let me bow down to you.

We have to do that in the United States to see that our teachers are important.

If anything, that we all have in common, I tell my organization, the two things we have in common, one, we all came through HR.

And the second thing, we all had a teacher.

We all had a teacher, how come the teaching profession is not seen as those of doctors and lawyers, et cetera.

I think we have to shift and make sure that position is paid more, given more†-- all those things that we want to†-- we that other top professions get, we have to make sure we are saying in this country the teaching profession is a top profession, that we want to make sure that we can sustain the United States.

>> PAOLO: Interesting to me.

Right at the beginning of the pandemic, the respect of teaching surged upwards.

I saw so many social media posts, now that I know what teachers are expected to do, given that my child is now home with me, teachers out to be paid a million dollars a day.

You saw†-- I think we missed that.

I think there is a lot of respect and trust that was eroded over time, for no apparent reason and that new renewed recognition of the job that teachers perform and the value they add to a child's life, to the child's pattern of growth and development and transitions into future success, what a powerful role that is.

We all have to commit to elevating the teaching profession on a continuing basis.

I try to do so much of that because I'm awed.

It one of those things I'm awed by the commitment, the dedication, the innovation, the patience, the tolerance, the love, the care.

Teachers that I talk to aren't in it for the money but they do need to make a living.

There is always that aspect of it.

They are there to make a difference.

Boy, what a difference they make.

We also have to be sensitive to the clutter we add to a teacher's life.

I heard some teachers experiencing the fatigue during the pandemic because they are trying to juggle teaching on face to face with teaching remotely.

How can we simplify the responsibilities, make the responsibilities†-- amplify the power and the value they bring so it doesn't have to be a stressful experience but at the same time, they can leverage their professional training to really allow students to grow and learn and reach a level of success.

We are seeing the same as the questioner has noted.

Reduction in the number of teachers in colleges, we are trying to do things to amplify that.

And we want to bring more diversity.

This is another challenge.

We want to make sure all kinds of students see all kinds of teachers and have a deeper understanding of the models and the fact that is a legitimate profession.

When students have a bad experience in schools, it doesn't inspire them to become teachers.

We need make sure every student has an excellent experience and we promote teaching as a great profession because it is fulfilling, satisfying and a great career to have.

>> TREVOR: We can devote hours just to the topics.

Forgive, audience members, I know there is lots of questions, but I want to look toward the future.

This panel is the future of K-12 education.

I want to hear from you, you mentioned that this has been a year of learning and experimentation.

What do you see as the key things that you learned during this time that will continue post pandemic, what are the great experiments that delivered value that is worth holding on to as we get past the acute stage of the pandemic?

>> PAOLO: I think the whole customization of the learning experience and the personalization with emphases on mastery, achieving mastery, achieving competency.

I'm a fan of emerging models of learning that are more integrated.

Project based learning.

In this period, you are in English class and now social studies, math class and now science class.

There is a lot of math in science.

There is lot of reading in science.

Math and social studies.

Looking at statistics.

Using data to support social factors that may be under study.

I have seen great examples.

This worked in a remote setting.

It was many disciplines integrated around a certain project, that brings more relevancy, it could become more engaging and you have a stronger and more enduring learning experience.

All those different aspects have come out of the pandemic.

There are tendencies for people to want to go back to the way things were.

Some of that is okay but we need to push ourselves.

Prepandemic, too many students weren't reaching the levels of success.

And with better instructional materials and better configurations, we know they can accomplish.

>> DR. DIXON: Ditto to all of that and we have seen increase of students who were not engaged prior.

Now, they are online, they don't have to be disengaged when they come to school and they are soaring.

That is a good thing.

We will see co-designers of this work.

We will see students that are taking charge of the way they believe they learn best.

And we are going to have to make sure we are open to that type of design.

It's seeing something new.

The beauty of not being in the classroom since last March.

Hopefully we will forget some of our bad habits and think of wow!

This is an innovative way we can do this.

Prior to the pandemic, we had a partner a nd we embarked on a portrait of a graduate.

We were able to design six attributes that we want to see our students have when they graduate.

What we are doing now, we already partnered with Columbus State and we are designing that work.

How can we make sure students have empathy, they are critical thinkers.

They are using technology to leverage their learning, they are creative, they can communicate.

All those things we will have embedded in our new way of learning, our new way of leveraging education for students.

We are excited about it.

We are excited about the planning.

We are excited about all the opportunity said that are more important than ever.

For us it was an awakening to see, students in our organization have a lot of challenges.

But if we provide for them a good, solid educational foundation, they can become whoever they want to become.

And I think the sense of urgency is now more than ever because we had a chance to look in their homes and see, my gosh, she may be a little spry but I can make sure she becomes that scientist.

Right?

I think that is something that we are excited about and we get to do it together with our students and with our stakeholders providing the experiences for our students.

And last thing, our students have to see beyond the classroom and beyond their neighborhoods.

Unless we are providing those opportunities, they can't be what they don't see.

Making sure they see beyond their classrooms, beyond their communities so that they understand why a good educational foundation is good for them and how it can leverage them to unlimited opportunities.

>> TREVOR: I'm sure there are lots of questions.

I want to get to a couple more before we bring this to a close.

Amy, are there others?

>> AMY: There are.

Could Columbus city schools bring back 6 through 12 for a couple days a week, and what is the state doing to ease this inequity?

>> DR. DIXON: We would love to have all of our students back.

Yes, so once we get more teachers vaccinated, because we look at our research and it states the younger students you are seeing less spread in our schools, and we know that with our older students, think of the ages of the older students, we want to make sure that our students adhering to the social distancing guidelines.

We have lot of students and we want to make sure when they walk in the classrooms, they are six feet apart, they have PPE on.

Et cetera.

We know that would happen.

Yes, if we could work out transportation options for our students, we are working with CODA but they have limited ridership as well.

They are limited to 20 to 25 passengers on a bus too.

We are working to bring our secondary students back as we are adhering to the guidelines as more people are vaccinated, I think we will see changes with the CDC and that will allow us to bring more of students back.

>> TREVOR: Amy, let's squeeze in one more question.

>> AMY: Many teachers and administrators are nervous about state testing this spring knowing students are unprepared.

At least one bill in Ohio legislature calls for canceling the spring tests again this year.

Are you in favor of canceling the tests?

If not, how will the results be used, diagnostic, evaluations, with all the ramification scores for teachers and districts.

>> PAOLO: That is a great question.

I'm a bureaucrat in the work I do.

I'm going to give a bureaucratic answer.

It starts with the federal government.

The federal government has not signaled they are open to allowing states to waive testing requirements.

The reason we have the system we have in place in Ohio is directly related to federal requirements.

The only way we manage to suspend testing last year is when the federal government gave directives about that.

To date, they haven't done this.

We have a new administration coming in, I know this is on their list.

On the national level there is a debate between those who believe we need testing and those who believe we should do away with it.

Until the federal government gives us any kind of signal and the state government follows, because all the federal requirements are amplified by statutory requirements.

We are planning to administer the assessments at this time.

I personally, I'm not speaking on behalf of the board, the department or the administration, I continue to believe that we should have assessments but we should not use that data.

We should suspect our report card system and any other uses.

Just as Dean Brown referenced the study, the reason the study is useful is because we had assessment data that could tell us what was happening to students in certain circumstances and geographies by different characteristics, and also, if we have testing at the end of this year, it will help us understand what happened in the context of those districts that were remote, versus those that went back and all those configurations.

I think that information has value both from a state policy perspective as well as from a local district perspective and we should have that data and extract the value from it without using it in any kind of punitive or judgmental way in terms of accountability.

>> TREVOR: Thank you.

That is all the time we have this afternoon.

Thanks to our panelists, Dr. Dixon and Paolo DeMaria and Amy Palermo for monitoring the Q & A.

And thanks to all of you for joining us virtually and your engaging questions.

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