Richmond Heights Schools have undergone a lot in 2022 and hope to improve upon what they have and rebuild their infrastructure as they move into 2023.
District Superintendent Renee Willis said that the school gained a great boost in morale after their high school won the boys basketball Division IV State Championship when they defeated Tri-Village in March.
“The championship was a highlight for us, coming out of a pandemic that was major,” Willis said. “It started to revitalize, invigorate, get people back into the mindset of we’re back, our school is back. We can do things that are fun and not on the computer, go to games, and not just go to games but win the state championship.”
The championship happened to coincide with an important year of recovery for the school system as 2022 marked the first school year that they had all in-person teaching. Willis said that a large portion of that has to do with the dedicated staff they employ.
“Transitioning from the pandemic was difficult, not just for students, for staff too,” she said. “Coming back from remote learning you don’t just pivot on a dime, even though we like to say we do. We now have to remember we have classroom management, students have to remember the rules, particularly the little ones that have never done school.
“Think about a first-grader, they did preschool and kindergarten online and now in the first grade and a teacher is saying ‘Wait, you should know how to line up, you should know how to hold a pencil, you should know how to share,” she added. “So, there has been a mind shift in that we are trying to recapture almost two years of what some people call learning loss but for the little ones it was never obtained.
“So we are trying to accelerate the academics and we’re still working through that transition back.”
Willis said that the administration had to realize they needed support in key areas such as more counseling, more socio-emotional learning activities and programs and a more innovative curriculum.
“Having to teach with technology as the primary source as we come back to what we’re calling our new normal, we have not thrown all of the technology out because there are some innovative curriculum products out there that allow us to do some things we don’t have the human capital to do,” she said. “We have some online curriculum we’ve stuck with, and we have a nice mixture of in-person and online curriculum.”
Though the adaptation process has been long, Willis believes that they have greatly updated the curriculum in the wake of the pandemic and are excited for students to utilize the opportunities they provide for them.
One of the most difficult events that Richmond Heights Elementary School had to overcome last year came on Dec. 26 when the low record temperatures over Christmas weekend caused the several pipes in the school cafeteria.
The leak was not discovered for at least 24 hours causing a large portion of the schools interior became severely flooded causing severe damage. As many as six classrooms needed to be re-located and entire walls needed to be taken down to the studs.
The entire cafeteria is currently off-limits as they work to restore the damage.
Willis said that this is the second time this has happened in her nine-year tenure as superintendent and shines an issue on their elementary facility and how they need to address it.
“The elementary school is almost 60 years old and these incidents are major,” she said. “It interrupts the flow of the curriculum, the academics when we have to displace students, share classrooms.
“We’re in a strategic planning process right now, of all the focus groups the elementary school has come up as a sort of ‘what are we going to do about this facility’.”
As they work to repair damage done from the burst pipes Willis said that another major focus going forward into 2023 will be to improve the safety features of their school system.
“We have just received a $300,000 grant from the Ohio K12 School Safety Grant Program to enhance safety features including cameras,” she said. “Elementary school architecture is beautiful, but we have open classrooms, one wall of every classroom is all glass. Unfortunately, the mindset of a 2023 educator and architect is much different than those of 1960.
“With this grant we will be able to purchase ballistic film that we can cover the glass wall with that is aesthetically pleasing but does the job if it needs to.”
Willis said that they think about safety in a bifurcated way. They want to provide a safe environment for kids when they are in the classroom, while also helping to improve upon the mental health of their students.
“Securing our perimeter is a big priority,” she said. “Making sure we have all our doors locked, making sure we have the buzz-in system, security officers that are vigilant and aware of what’s on the outside trying to possibly get in, making sure weapons don’t get in this is what is important.
“So safety of the physical person in the school which uses a lot of soft skills and socio-emotional stuff,” she added. “We’re not to the point where we’re ready to put up metal detectors, we’re very small, we have our administrators and security officers at the door in the morning.
“It’s about establishing a relationship where you can look at a kid in their eyes and tell if they are distraught or having a bad day.”
