Worthington (Columbus, Westerville, Upper Arlington: low income, apartments, rentals)

[cheleski68]

We found a home we love in Worthington-but we're unsure of what's going on with the schools. Do you think they'll get it together? No longer A level schools..

[streetcreed]

OKAY
This can take a while
Worthington is an A level school

This is tricky to figure out so just hang on and stay with me on this one

Worthington scored 29 out of 30 (better than any other school in the area) on the states requirements.
However, there is another requirement that if there is not improvement in reading and math (at the elementary level) among minority and special needs students each year then
a district can loose their A rating, even if they meet all of the state requirements above and beyond

So maybe if your child is a minority or special needs, then Worthington has work to do. For the average white, middle class, upper class individual Worthington is doing a great job says the state.

Let me know if that didn't make sense, the state grading system is a mess at this point

[cheleski68]

i understand and I'm concerned. my lil brown boys may have growing pains..but we come from A level schools in Twinsburg, OH where they addressed these populations and made sure that AYP didnt fall short-as we were on the curriculum district committee and have met the challenge for 4-6yrs in a row-so I dont understand WHAT is going on here in Columbus and why this is a continual excuse. why arent they looking at what successful areas are doing to meet the challenge..what I find from Gahanna to Worthington is excuses on the inherent unfairness of the whole AYP scenerio instead of solutions to the problem which is hiring people who know HOW to address the situations, that think outside the box and hiring the special needs teachers that inc. the students into the classroom. We did it.So yeh, I get it =i just need to know how this affects my potential property value in the meantime.

[streetcreed]

so I dont understand WHAT is going on here in Columbus

Maybe the districts in Columbus have a more complex student body demographic. You said you are from Twinsburg, OH.

The Columbus metro has some great school districts, but even a suburb in Columbus has a decent percentage of minority and economically disadvantaged students. Especially the newer larger suburbs along 270, where many of the areas that attend the suburban schools are actually in Columbus and developed by Columbus, thus apartments were built allowing a more mixed group of students to attend the schools. Worthington, Dublin, Westerville, Gahanna, Hilliard these places all have areas of Columbus that attend their schools and have a more diverse student body makeup because of it (not very very diverse by any means, they are still 70-80 percent white).

A small town, or more homogenous suburb would not have this element to work with.

In Columbus only really New Albany, Bexley, Grandview Heights, and Upper Arlington are totally made up of single family homes with very few apartments or rentals in their district boundary. These areas, also, have very high home prices and many upscale housing options. All of those suburbs are the older suburbs that do not have areas of Columbus attending their district (except New Albany which is newer, but has little rentals or smaller homes.) Also, these non-rental/more homogenous in make up suburbs all past the requirement, I think because they have very little minority and low income students to deal with in the first place.

Back to Worthington

I am a graduate of Thomas Worthington High School. The Worthington Schools are great and still are. The district has very advanced AP class, one of the longest school days in the state, and is well funded. The reason for the C rating, is only, because of the one reading and math requirement for only a select group of students at only the elementary level. That requirement was put into effect because of the No Child Left Behind Act which many have been critical of, as it focuses too much on test scores and other potentially flawed methods. This requirement may be harder for a Columbus district to meet, as they have 10-15 %(roughly, the povery percentage maybe a little higher) minority or poor students, where a smaller cities suburb would not.

Also, the Columbus City Schools were one of the few in the area to actually meet the requirement, maybe because they are more use to handling these certain populations at most of their schools. The city school district has been working to improve their testing results, as a result of charter school openings and their very low district wide ranking before, although some individual schools have been ranking well all along.

[cheleski68]

great perspective and points to consider! i appreciate this!

[sftong]

streetcreed ,

<< ... if there is not improvement in reading and math ... among minority and special needs students each year ... >>

If I understand correctly, it's No Child Left Behind. The yearly adequate progress is required on all subgroups, not just minority and special needs.

Also, Worthington is also an older neighborhood with little challange in number of new students compared to other faster growing districts.

Worthington district fail this, no excuse.

[streetcreed]

If I understand correctly, it's No Child Left Behind. The yearly adequate progress is required on all subgroups, not just minority and special needs.

Yes it is required among all groups. Worthington passes the objectives for standardized testing and all of the 29 out of 30 standards set by the state. NO other district did this in the entire metro.

However, in no child left behind there is a standard that singles out the minority, special needs, and poverty groups and the state decided that if that standard is not met that ANY district cannot get higher than a C, even if their test results, cumulative, are the best in the state.

Also, Worthington is also an older neighborhood with little challenge in number of new students compared to other faster growing districts.

Actually, that is not true. I graduated from Worthington and the district grew leaps and bounds in the 80s and 90s. Your statement seems to admit that you lack an understanding of how the Columbus' suburban districts actually include sprawling, new areas of the city of Columbus.

It is a very long and complex story that is talked about in other posts.

In 1985 the city of Columbus school district wanted to continue to have the students that would soon live in many of the developing and growing areas that were annexed by Columbus. The suburbs, though, would have had these students if they had remained townships and were not annexed.

Thus an agreement was reached in 85. Columbus said that ANY area that was soon to be developed and annexed BEFORE 1985 would go to the suburban district that it would have gone to had it remained a township.

Anything annexed AFTER 1985, once developed, would go to COLUMBUS.

THUS< my parents moved us to Worthington for our schooling in the 1980s. There was one high school, two middle schools, and maybe 4 elementary schools (at the most)

Fast forward to the 90s, you have a new high school, the number of middle schools has doubled, and the number of elementary schools tripled. How you ask? Well, all of that farmland that was surrounding Worthington was developed by Columbus, but it was annexed before 1985 so it went to Worthington schools.

This similar pattern happened to the suburbs all around 270. So Worthington, as I said earlier in this post, now has to deal with nearly half of its student population coming from areas of Columbus that contain some high end housing, but a lot A LOT of rentals, and duplexes, and condos. And most of the “newer” Worthington schools are not even in the city of Worthington they are in Columbus. There is a lot of middle of the road and some affordable housing in these areas that now attend Worthington. To say that Worthington is an old district is not true. Maybe the part of the actual city of "Worthington" that attends the city schools is very well off and older, but when your speaking of the district as a whole your speaking of areas that are still developing even to today and have very high rental populations.


Now you ask, what about those areas of Columbus annexed after 1985? Well those have just started to develop now. Thus, you literally have pockets of areas OUTSIDE of the suburbs that are busing students into Columbus schools.

[cheleski68]

WHOA you guys are going deep. back to confused. i'm b/t gahanna and worthing sd's..atelast gahanna IS dealining with it's minority group-which is a reality and my concern. i dont want my boys in a system that inherently sets goals to fail them and remain strong for other's children, using 29/30 as an excuse

[sftong]

<<Actually, that is not true. I graduated from Worthington and the district grew leaps and bounds in the 80s and 90s. >>

I know Worthington grew rapidly in the 80s and 90s, but NOT TODAY as we are discussing Worthington SD rating fall from grace this year, when the district still have signs saying "Best Schools in Ohio". Exactly what I said -- Worthington is an older neighborhood with little challange in number of new students, compared to other much faster growing and newer suburbs around Columbus.

Though I appreciate your annexation history of columbus

[streetcreed]

WHOA you guys are going deep. back to confused. i'm b/t gahanna and worthing sd's..atelast gahanna IS dealining with it's minority group-which is a reality and my concern. i dont want my boys in a system that inherently sets goals to fail them and remain strong for other's children, using 29/30 as an excuse

I can understand your concern. You want to know the district will work for every student and yours. Do realize this is only a test that is saying Worthington is not working for 3rd and 5th graders.

It is just a test for two grades in only two subjects, and they are looking for improvement from last years scores. They are not even saying Worthington scored poorly with the "special student group." They are saying Worthington did not improve enough.

The schools graduation rate, class size, teachers, buildings, programs all ranked at the excellent level A. Taking a test is not the only way to get ahead in life, this is common knowledge. Communication skills and cognitive thinking is not demonstrated in these tests and there is no evidence that Worthington is not doing a good job in those departments with every student.

I think the entire picture should be taken into account and if there is only one piece of evidence to state the Worthington Schools are not an effective or excellent district, maybe this one piece of evidence (the test) is flawed.