The Boy Syndrome

Are more boys under achieving or more girls over achieving? The great debate among educators suggests that a rise in ADHD cases among boys, the changing family structure and societal pressures are creating a generation of boys in school who are not making the grade. Eric Thomas principal at Aiken College and Career High School, in part agrees.

When I interviewed him about this story he embraced the theory that more educators are recognizing. And that is , boys and girls learn differently. What was once admonished as bad behavior is now looked at as a way to engage boys. In other words get them moving! Some boys need a lot more opportunities to flex those gross motor skills to keep them focused and connected to the material. Sitting at a desk memorizing isn't going to cut it anymore.

He also shared with me another observation. This generation of boys need positive male role models in the classroom. But they don't always have to come from the teacher. An innovative mentoring program at Aiken, that groups upper classmen who are making the grade with freshmen, has yielded some pretty impressive results. More boys are graduating and attending college. The program called M.O.R.E. ( Men, Organized, Respectful and Educated) not only supports freshmen in their academic goals, but helps upperclassmen develop leadership skills that will carry them through their high school career and beyond.

There are many ways we can start supporting our boys in school from early childhood to college. Congratulations to Aiken Career High School for recognizing that mentoring plays a part in supporting young boys from all sides. Helping them Make the Grade.

Johnson Elementary School Makes The Grade!

Students in the Fort Thomas School District, just celebrated a tremendous effort put forth by students who raised money for a service learning project.
The H2O project raises awareness and funds for communities around the world that struggle to provide clean running water for it's children. Johnson Elementary students learned about a school in Uganda that is battling this, and decided to help. They learned about the growing global problem, researched the issue, produced public service announcements about it, and then raised more than $2,000 dollars to send to the school to help those students.

Kudos to Johnson Elementary Students who put everything into this service project and enthusiastically stepped up to the plate to help students just like them around the globe. They are definitely Making the Grade.

To learn more about the H2O project and see their award winning videos, go to www.fortthomas.kyschools.us click on Johnson Elementary, then Links and then Johnson Digital Stories.

Sharon Draper gives great advice on Summer Reading.

Sharon Draper, Author/Teacher is a gift that keeps giving. It is always such a pleasure to sit and talk with her. I especially enjoyed talking with her about her two recent books, "Sassy" and "Just Another Hero" in The Blue Marble Bookstore in Ft. Thomas.

Draper is electric when she talks about the characters in her books, and when she thinks about the response she's received from young readers. I understand why. I became hooked after reading "Copper Sun" and see why so many avid fans devour her books and crave more from this literary goddess. I am also in awe, at how like a Pied Piper she is able to lead countless numbers of boys and girls, young men and women to a place of self discipline and focus and imagination. To sit and read a book.

Studies show that strong reading skills lead to strong math skills, science skills, writing skills, and on and on. Summer is a great season where young boys and girls have a great deal of leisure time to do just about anything. Picking up a book is a great way to spend their time and it's an investment they can cash in when they go back to school in the fall.

I'm grateful for educators, like Sharon Draper who walk the walk. Connecting children to books, to the love affair that's waiting for them with that first great book...is an honorable calling.
Take the time to read with your children, read to your children. Enjoy some time reading leisurely for yourself. It's the greatest gift you can give or receive.

Let me know what you think. You can also send Sharon Draper a note of gratitude on her blog:
http://sharondraper.blogspot.com/ or connect to her website www.sharondraper.com

To help children Make the Grade...help the parents!

When I first became aware of the not for profit child care coordinating agency called 4c for Children, I was looking for quality, I repeat quality daycare for my first son Roman. Any parent who has ever had to look for daycare for the first time you know how gut wrenching, overwhelming and frustrating it can be. And that's just to come up with a list, before you even set foot inside a facility to tour it.
4C in a nutshell is a child care resource and referral agency for the region, with a data base of more than 2,600 child care options in the region, and it also offers a star-rating system for these child care options, in both Ohio and Kentucky. I found several different options with my list from 4 C and I was on my way. Some of them worked out, some of them didn't but it helped prevent me from running around like a mad woman and focus on what my main needs were for my children and who could offer that. 4C was a life saver. But my relationship with 4C didn't end there.
4C not only provides regular training and technical assistance , that encourages professional development of child care providers, they are also a great resource for parents who are looking for a way to support the educational needs of their infant- pre-k son or daughter at home. Tonight's Making The Grade is one great example of that, offering tips and suggestions on how spending time with your children can be turned into a fun yet educational experience for them. It's part of their mission, to help prepare children for Kindergarten.

When it comes to spending time with your children, it's as much about quality as it is about quantity. In our busy lives having a resource available at our fingertips that beefs up our parenting skills so that we're making the most of our time with our children, is a gift the agency is giving to our area. It's helped strengthen my parenting muscles, a personal trainer for Mommies and Daddies. But my relationship with 4C didn't end there.

Any working parent who has had to put their child in a daycare setting knows that sometimes you need someone to be an advocate for you, while you are an advocate for your child. When there was a critical issue with my sons' daycare that my husband and I felt we were not getting a resolution with, 4C was there.
I remember the call, I was at my wit's end, I was frantic and I needed some support and direction. A 4C manager, took my call and listened like it was the first time she had ever heard of a complaint like this before, but we both knew it wasn't. She was calm, empathetic, supportive, reassuring. She pointed me in the right direction, offered to follow up and suggested a temporary solution while we fix the long term problem. She told me everything was going to be o-k, she was a mother too and understood. She told me, I was doing the right thing. I wanted to cry, SOMEONE was on our side! SOMEONE understood the tug-war struggle parents feel who want to do the very best for their children! And that SOMEONE was there to support us. 4C is part of my village now. Let it become part of yours.
4C for Children is not only an advocate for children, they are an advocate for parents. If you've never checked out all they have to offer, I strongly suggest you click on their website www.4cforchildren.org, or give them a call (513) 800-256-1296.

If you've watched tonight's story, tell me what you think about it. I'd love to hear your parenting tips on helping your child Make the Grade!

All that Jazz!

I won't say alot of companies and businesses give lip service to the whole " it takes a village" philosophy. Because let's face it, ALOT of companies and businesses just don't care enough to do even that much. It is inspiring when companies look outside themselves and realize we are only as strong as our weakest link. If that link is a young student. That's a problem.

When big Titans of corporations step in like Cincinnati Bell, for instance with Taft High School and Western Southern you see great things happen. But there's nother force of nature working out there for our young students. Small "David-like" businesses, Like the Blue Wisp Jazz Club. By opening it's doors to aspiring Jazz musicians, the owners and professional local jazz artists are lighting fires of inspiration, creativity and passion.

I don't need to tell you what happens when a student becomes inspired by a creative passion. Great things happen in and out of the classroom. Check out my Making The Grade piece on the Blue Wisp Jazz Club to see and hear how.

Do you know of a business that's reaching out to local students? I'd love to hear about it.

CityCure WHIZKIDS

When I first heard about Whiz Kids, a tutoring/mentoring program that helps students improve their reading skills, I was excited. Anything that helps children learn to read and love to read I'm all for it. When I learned that it was a faith based organization behind it, I wondered... how was this going to work? Are tutors going into schools to teach the gospel and their key inside is under a "reading tutoring program?" Or is it the other way around?

I had heard it all before, "We are going to at-risk students where they are and 'help' them. "We are gearing up for Lincoln Heights school district in the fall." Lincoln Heights often an overlooked community indeed has many children and families who could benefit from others wrapping their arms around them. But not terribly unique, there are countless tutoring/mentoring groups faith based or not that do service projects in Lincoln Heights and other 'urban' communities.

What sold it for me is talking to the principal at Hopewell Elementary. Lakota Hills school district. Whiz Kids has helped students achieve in the classroom and in their lives for the past two years and the program is growing. Lakota Hills certainly doesn't need help supporting kids in their community? And at-risk kids? Can't be a need there? Right? Wrong.

Children everywhere need help, the children in the at-risk communities need help, where poverty, crime and negative influences outnumber the positive factors. Children in communities where there are two parent homes, abundant resources and supportive teachers, yes they need help to reinforce that yes it's cool to succeed in the classroom, and their will be negative influences at some point in your life, this is how you continue making the grade. And children with at-risk,challenging family dynamics in communities where wealth, manicured lawns, and Blue Ribbon schools are the way of life. These children and families especially can feel isolated in these communities thinking it's just them, and don't reach out for added help and encouragement and yes their children fall through the gaps. Bravo to Principal Hayes for recognizing the need and filling in the gaps.

Whiz Kids understands that all of our children need help, and they will leave no child behind. A true example of living the "Golden Rule."

For more information on CityCure and Whiz Kids log on to www.citycure.org or call (513)621-2873 if you'd like to become a mentor.

In the meantime let me know what you think about faith based organizations going into schools to help children academically and socially.

Small but Mighty!

Talk about David and Goliath! The parents who send their children to Saylor Park Elementary are not leaving the future of their school in anyone else's hands but their own.
Saylor Park Elementary is one of the schools that will get a brand new look according to the Cincinnati Public Schools Master Facilities Plan. But of course investing in a new building means the community must invest in the "school."

With competition from private, charter and parochial schools, parents of Saylor Park Elementary students are fearful that neighborhood parents will take for granted the long standing tradition SP Elementary has in the community, go somewhere else and ultimately the enrollment will decline. So to keep the numbers up, they aren't waiting for a slick marketing campaign to unfold, or personal pleas from CPS administration and Board to the community. They are doing things the Saylor Park way, taking matters into their own hands and becoming a walking, breathing, living testimony on how great their school is. By going door to door in their neighborhood and simply asking parents, "have you enrolled your child in Saylor Park this year?" And if not, "have you considered it?" "Here are the reasons why I think you should."

That takes a certain grit, a strong conviction and an unparalleled passion to become that kind of advocate for your child's school.
What would you do to protect your child's school? What lengths would you go to, to make sure the values and education that your child receives continues? What do you think about the community resolve in Saylor Park? Did you attend Saylor Park Elementary?

Let's talk about it.

More Vocational Education

"Thirty seven to forty seven percent of students that start college will not finish." That's what Principal Joe Amann of C.E. McCormick Area Technology Center told me when I interviewed him about about the students at his high school. He then posed a question to me, "Where are they going to work?"


Voc-tech...as we used to call it, and now it's Area Technology Centers, were looked upon as last ditch efforts to educate those who were "unable to be educated." Students who would rather work with their hands and would never be successful in a classroom, where books, and theories made up much of your day. "Those students." For years that was the stereotype, and we couldn't have been more wrong.

My twin brother was one of "those students." We were as different as night and day. The traditional school setting was not hard for me, and I looked forward to college and enjoyed it. He hated school, so I thought. He struggled in class, I was lead to believe, but he loved to work with his hands. And my mother often told him when he would be challenged in school and his ability questioned by teachers, that he was in many ways smarter than most of the students in his class... and Regina! I hated that then, as a mother I understand it now, just trying to balance out the unfair amount of comparing people often made between us.

But she was right. Students at Area Technology Centers are just as smart, creative, ambitious as students who can excel in a classroom setting. Area Tech students appear to quickly excel while concentrating on their technical skills because they see first hand, how algebra, science and geometry are relevant in the real world. And then they soar.

And we need to them to soar. Where would we live, how would we transport our families, how could we communicate with each other through the information superhighway? How could we stay warm in the winter, feel cool and content in the summer? Who would give us our medicine, rub our hand and tell us it's going to be o-k while taking critical information as we check into a hospital or sit in a waiting room.

They make the world go around.

There is room for every type of worker, and every type of student. And like a pair of twins with two different approaches to life, with the same support system there is more than one way to learn and more than one way to contribute in this world. But only if they are equally supported can they equally Make the Grade.

How Do You Measure a Lifetime of Service?

"525,600 minutes, 525,000 moments so dear." "525,600 minutes how do you measure, measure a year?"

The lyrics of "Seasons of Love" from the musical, "RENT" poetically asks the question how do you describe, measure a year in some one's life. How much harder is it to describe or measure 40 years of some one's life. That's what the Erlanger/Elsmere schools are preparing to do for Dottie Peeke. Ms. Peeke is retiring this year from Lindeman/Miles Elementary schools, after 40 years of teaching music. She is the only music teacher they have EVER had.

"In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee." "In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife."

Ms. Peeke is a petite woman with soft blond hair and an electric smile. Her personality fills a room. Gently. She is after all a southern belle, raised in the mountains of Asheville North Carolina. But for 40 years she's made Northern Kentucky her home. The staff, students, parents of Erlanger/Elsmere schools, her family.

"525,600 minutes, how do you measure a year in the life?"

Dottie didn't find work as a music teacher, teaching music found her. Dottie studied the violin since she was a little girl. Music consumed her. She's been teaching music all of her life. And in the process, teaching her students something else.



"525,600 minutes, how can you measure the life of a woman or a man?"


Dottie Peeke's students have not only learned how to read notes on a scale, or about rhythm and tempo. They have learned about self discipline, teamwork, focus, dedication. They've learned it's better to give then to receive. That anything worth doing is worth doing well. That it takes practice, practice, practice. They've learned what it means to have passion for something, passion for life.

We all have had a Dottie Peeke, or two in our lives. A teacher who may have spent her career teaching students, but during your year in his/her classroom, you felt they were there just for you. A teacher who opened your world to the possibilities that life had to offer and poured wisdom and knowledge into you that didn't come from a book. A teacher that transformed you while embracing you. And they did it for every student, every year. Year after year, after year. I bet you could remember his or her name right now.

How do you measure the impact of that? Quite simply,

" You remember the love." "You measure the love."

Best Wishes to you, Dottie Peeke. Well Done.

Appalachian History Month

St. Patrick's Day is one of my FAVORITE "holidays." All of my friends will tell you that. I love it, always have. Consider myself Irish on that day, truly and totally immerse myself in all things Irish on that day. I actually look forward to it.

I think in part because I always had fond memories celebrating St. Patrick's day at the Catholic school I attended. I loved the way the entire school, and then I found out, the entire community, city, country became all things Irish on that one day. For one day no matter what nationality, or ethnicity you were, you embraced the food, music, customs and history of the Irish.

I still celebrate it, secretly wishing that if we had a day just like that for all cultures, how much easier it would be for people to get along. We would all, celebrate someone different and in turn have others celebrate us. So much individual cultural pride that would become a collective global pride. What a world.

We have an opportunity to do that this coming weekend when the 40th Annual Appalachian Festival takes place at Coney Island, celebrating the rich culture and heritage of this region. Friday is Education day, students participate in events that help them learn more about Appalachian folk. Some schools in the area teach Appalachian culture in school, like St. William School in Price Hill. But ALL schools should be required to attend the Appalachian festival and have an Appalachian day during the school year. In part because one in every three students that attend a tristate school has a connected ancestry to Appalachia. But many don't know it.

About nine years ago I did a story on Black Appalachians, African Americans who settled in the Appalachia region and their dual cultural identity. Now how they settled here a very different story, but how they existed in the region, oh so similar. The iron cast skillets, mountainous region, respect of land and fierce loyalty to friends and family. Beans and cornbread, quilting, harmonicas, dulcimers and storytelling. A hard but honest day's work.

All things that should be celebrated, in school and in life, don't you think?

This week on FOX 19's Making the Grade Blog with Regina Russo:
AUTISM

Do trisate schools need to do more to support children with autism?
Share a parenting story about your child with autism and how he or she is making the grade.

WATCH THE FOX19 TEN O’CLOCK NEWS MONDAY NIGHT:
April 27, 2009 How Cincinnati Public Schools are helping students with autism "Make the Grade."