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LOCAL NEWS| Aug 14, 2020 By Jeremy P. Kelley Ohio has seen recent growth, but still trails the national average A coalition of Ohio business and education groups have a five-prong plan to improve the state’s existing shortage of workers who have college degrees and industry credentials. Despite recent growth, only 49.2% of Ohioans hold a “high-value credential” or college degree, according to the report. That educational attainment rate is two points lower than the national average and ranks 31st of the 50 states. Some studies have suggested a 65 percent attainment rate is key for strong economic growth going forward. The new Bridging Ohio's Workforce Gap plan was created by The Complete to Compete Ohio Coalition — a collection of 44 business and education groups, including Learn to Earn Dayton locally. Ohio has seen improvement in the past few years. The new report shows that Ohio’s educational attainment rate inched up by about a half-point per year in 2015, 2016 and 2017, then made a big jump, from 44.6 to 49.2 in 2018. That aligns with data released earlier this year by the National Student Clearinghouse. That group said Ohio's six-year college completion rate rose from 53% for students entering in 2009 to 62% for those beginning college in 2013. That nine-point rise ranked second best in the country. Learn to Earn Dayton has been working on educational attainment for years. CEO Tom Lasley said Ohio efforts are getting a continued boost because Gov. Mike DeWine is placing greater emphasis on the connection between educational attainment and the economic vitality of the state. Lasley said he’s been listening to other states, cities and colleges that are attacking this issue. He cited three ongoing efforts that could help Ohio increase the number of residents with degrees and industry credentials. One is helping more potential college students fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, to make college more affordable than they think. Another is helping lower-income students who fall behind financially and struggle to continue school or even to get their transcript released until all fees are paid. A third is helping students who started college but stopped short of a degree. Lasley said 445 students who had stopped their education re-enrolled at Sinclair Community College for spring 2020. “The primary reasons for dropping out of Sinclair was because of work conflicts, family priorities, financial hardships, and/or illness,” he said. “Many were only one or two courses away from completing a degree.” Lasley said by July, despite the pandemic, 45 of those students had earned a combined 19 associate degrees and 31 certificates or credentials at Sinclair. The effort is being expanded to Wright State next year. “Now, more than ever, Ohio must be a knowledge state,”said Lisa Gray, president of Ohio Excels, which is leading the 44-member coalition. “Ohioans must have the knowledge, skills and abilities acquired through training for in-demand jobs in order to get back on their feet and thrive.” Bridging Ohio’s Workforce Gap The plan lists five main strategies: ** Communicate to Ohioans how higher attainment boosts the prosperity of individuals and communities; ** Better align education, the workforce and social services around in-demand careers; ** Create more affordable routes to degrees and credentials to reduce student debt strain; ** Help get students well prepared to start a career or to finish a degree/credential on time; ** Create multi-sector partnerships to improve educational and workforce attainment.

WDTN NEWS by: Aliah Williamson Posted: Jul 30, 2020 / 06:32 PM EDT / Updated: Jul 30, 2020 / 07:05 PM EDT MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Ohio (WDTN) -According to the CEO of Learn to Earn Dayton, Thomas Lasley, PhD, one in four students in high poverty households use remote learning as little as once a week. Statistics also show that 83 percent of students in families with incomes of $100,000 or more use remote learning daily. This is why Learn to Earn Dayton is partnering with the Montgomery County Educational Service Center and The Dayton Foundation to provide a $70,000 grant and nearly 900 Chromebooks for students. “The Dayton Foundation is a family of funders,” said Barbra Stonerock, VP of community outreach with the Dayton Foundation. “A lot of caring people in our community help us to help others.” This latest grant is going out to school districts in the fall facing the greatest need. So far, Northridge, Dayton, Jefferson Township and Trotwood-Madison City Schools have been the recipients of the technology. Denise Moore, president of Trotwood Madison City School Board says they were given 300 which will help the district reach their goal of one Chromebook for every student in the district. With nearly 3,000 students, the district is working hard to prepare for at least 9 weeks of virtual learning due to the coronavirus pandemic. “It’s very difficult for families to have to share one Chromebook. [Sometimes] there’s three kids and they’re fighting over one Chromebook. So, this grant helps significantly when we talk about each and every child having what they need to learn,” said Moore. The Montgomery County Educational Service Center (MCESC) is working on distributing the Chromebooks and facilitating the grants. Shannon Cox, superintendent of MCESC says these Chromebooks can help with the virtual learning but will also help usher in 21st century learning for students and teachers. “Last year we had about 10,000 students across Montgomery County that had some kind of connectivity or device divide. That’s why this was so important,” she said. “[Now] we’re actually learning how to do it in a really intentional way that will give us the most impact for student learning.”

Dayton Daily News | LOCAL NEWS | Aug 9, 2020 By Chris Stewart, Jeremy P. Kelley Thousands of area students lacked internet access just as more and more schools move classes online during a persistent coronavirus pandemic, according to a survey taken in the spring. The digital divide stretches from rural areas where lines or signals don’t reach, to urban students where the cost of broadband is out of reach, according to local data. “We’re running out of time. It takes time to build a plan. It takes time to implement one-to-one initiatives for student computing. It takes time to procure and then provision broadband services,” said Thor Sage, executive director of the Miami Valley Educational Computer Association. “The clock is ticking and there’s a lot of concern about being ready,” he said. Schools, parents adjusting Area school boards have made tough decisions, voting in recent weeks on how much time students will be in the classroom or learning online. Most districts started by giving the option of in-person classes or entirely online instruction. But in recent weeks, Dayton, Huber Heights, Yellow Springs and Northmont are among more than a dozen districts and charter schools that have said they’ll start the year fully online. And plans continue to shift daily. “It is unknown how many students will opt for remote learning and even lesser-known how often the COVID pandemic may send schools or classrooms into remote learning,” said Amy Anyanwu, Montgomery County Educational Service Center assistant superintendent. “We do know that we must prepare structures that allow for remote learning either scheduled or made necessary due to flare-ups or outbreaks.” Students at Trotwood-Madison City Schools will be taught completely remotely for at least the first nine weeks. “We are hopeful that the COVID-19 case numbers in Montgomery County will decrease to the point that we can consider the blended or in-person options in the near future,” said Trotwood Superintendent Reva Cosby in a statement to the district. But as many as 3,800 K-12 students in Montgomery County alone experienced internet insecurity when the pandemic surged this spring, including 1,080 students — or 42% of Trotwood students — enrolled in Trotwood schools, according to the educational service center’s spring survey. Virginia Ward of Trotwood said she struggled as her two foster children in high school and two elementary school students she provided child care for tried this spring to complete school online. “It was just a waste,” she said. “They couldn’t get on the internet a lot of times. When they are presenting something via video, the computer’s not fast enough, the internet is not good enough ... You might get five words and it stops, and five more and it stops. I mean it was terrible.” Wired internet service stops 1,000 feet short of Ward’s Sycamore Woods neighborhood. “We still can’t get good internet service out here,” Ward said. “The other problem: a lot can’t afford internet.” As the virus shuttered schools earlier this year, the educational service center collected data from all of Montgomery County’s public school districts and determined 3,529 students (of about 65,000) were disconnected from the internet. That’s more than 1 in 20, or the equivalent of about one child in every classroom countywide. When other schools such as charter schools and the educational service center’s special learning centers were added in, a digital divide working group anticipated approximately 3,800 students in Montgomery County would need help securing reliable, affordable, easily accessible internet service for the 2020-21 school year. Some area districts have bridged the gaps using existing resources. Others will need more help as the future remains in flux, Anyanwu said. “The numbers are constantly changing with job loss, family situations and decisions about school options,” Anyanwu said. Internet insecurity has negative consequences not only for students, she said, but entire families. “Without high-speed internet access, students cannot connect to remote learning, employment that requires working from home is not possible and telehealth services are not available,” she said. ‘Apollo 13 moment' Between 60% and 70% of the state’s school districts had one-to-one technology programs (one device per student) as of the spring, said Jeff Andrews, CEO of the Management Council, which coordinates the state’s 18-member Information Technology Centers that support 1.4 million students in 700 public schools. Andrews said the percentage was likely similar for internet connectivity, but the numbers remain hazy. Of the state’s school districts served by the tech centers, 100 did not respond to the spring survey, he said. “We don’t have definitive numbers that are going to illuminate the whole issue,” he said. But based on the data at hand, it was probable a third of Ohio K-12 students lacked a device, internet connectivity or both this spring. The numbers could be dramatically improved by now, Andrews said. “March was sort of an Apollo 13 moment, where everybody went home on Friday and came back Monday and we had to make this up right now,” he said. “But schools have had several months to think a little harder about how to make education effective remotely.” Dayton Public Schools Superintendent Elizabeth Lolli said her district has spent more than $6 million since March on technology costs related to the COVID-19 shutdown. Between the district’s own purchases, plus grants from The Connor Group, the Tait Foundation and others, She said DPS is in “relatively good shape” on computers and Wi-Fi hot spots for students to use. “We’ve mapped our families, and the hot spots go one per family,” Lolli said. “We need to make sure the hot spot gets into one child’s hand in that family.” But supply chain issues are a worry in some cases. One order of Chromebook computers for Dayton high school students is still on order, expected to arrive Aug. 28. West Carrollton school officials said a shipment of 460 Chromebooks has been in the works for awhile, but the district is still waiting. “March was sort of an Apollo 13 moment.”- Jeff Andrews, CEO of the Management Council Story continues below map. Credit: SUBMITTED Schools sometimes have a supply of backup laptops or iPads, but in some cases they are older models or ones that students exchanged because they weren’t working well. Many charter schools in Dayton also are starting this year online. The three Horizon Science Academies are giving each student a Chromebook or iPad ahead of the Aug. 17 first day of school, according to Christopher Murphy, spokesman for the Concept Schools chain. Murphy said Horizon Science has Chromebooks on hand and ready. “The need for hot spots is being determined based on parent input,” Murphy said. “Students who do not have access to the internet or low bandwidth will be given a hot spot with unlimited data to be used for remote learning at home.” Pandemic reveals divide’s depth Internet insecurity was a concern well before the pandemic, said Bill Callahan, research and policy director for the National Digital Inclusion Alliance. “We’re paying now for years of not taking this seriously,” he said. Students and parents without devices or decent connectivity haven’t been able to fully participate in mainstream classroom activities that have taken place online for years, Callahan said. The void includes the ability to email teachers, access a school’s portal for receiving and handing in ordinary classroom assignments, or go online for reading material and research a subject, he said. “A homework gap didn’t originate with COVID. It’s an experience that people have been having for a long time ... It just became much more intense around the middle of March,” he said. “Whether or not everybody has their kids back in the classroom, this problem isn’t going to go away.” The pandemic has made a difference in the way the digital divide is viewed by policymakers and community leaders, Andrews said. “Not only did it expose more inequities when some kids have laptops and internet and other kids don’t, it exacerbates those inequities,” he said. While some schools spend $20,000 or more per year for overall education costs per student, others spend as little as $6,000 a pupil, Andrews said. “There’s no question that if you have more means that creates choices,” he said. “We’re working as hard as we can to make sure that we address that equity part of the equation so that when a school does have to flip that switch and become a remote learning environment, there are options.” Dayton-area community leaders also recognized how school closures this spring revealed a wider digital chasm for some area families. The Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission convened a Digital Divide/Internet Insecurity Work Group with representatives from Montgomery County, the city of Dayton, the Dayton Foundation, Dayton Metro Library, Learn to Earn Dayton, the Miami Valley Communications Council, the Miami Valley Educational Computer Association and the Montgomery County Educational Service Center. Federal, state money should help The pandemic has brought millions of dollars in federal assistance to the region, and government, civic and educational leaders say it’s imperative students experiencing internet insecurity get some of that assistance as soon as possible. “It’s been tricky for several reasons. For one, CARES Act money has not been flowing as quickly as we would have liked,” Sage said. “It would have been great if back in the spring we could have had access to that money and then began procuring devices. Although, that’s a common situation throughout the country.” Montgomery County received $92.77 million in federal CARES Act funds in May. It announced just within the past two weeks that $10 million of that will go to a grant program for schools, part of which can be used to address the technology needs of area students, said Montgomery County Administrator Michael Colbert. “We’re going to need more Wi-Fi boxes because every household does not have Wi-Fi,” he said. “We now have the ability to expand Wi-Fi throughout the Miami Valley.” Story continues below map. Credit: SUBMITTED Colbert said the money can also be used to buy Chromebooks. “We’re hoping that with everything we’re doing throughout the community that we’re addressing the needs, and that we continue to work hard as this pandemic grows to plug those gaps,” he said. Individual schools and districts also were designated for CARES Act allocations, ranging from $160,000 each in Oakwood and Bellbrook, to $1 million each in Kettering and Xenia, to $9 million in Dayton. In some lower-income districts, that money will more than offset state budget cuts, while in other schools it fell short. But many schools say they have not received that money yet. The Dayton Foundation awarded a $70,000 grant last month to Learn to Earn Dayton to purchase 900 Chromebooks for schools in the Dayton, Jefferson, Northridge and Trotwood-Madison districts. Lisa Minor, Trotwood-Madison City Schools director of curriculum and instruction, said that local effort and others — along with work over the summer by the district’s technology specialists — will ensure enough devices for a one-to-one experience when school opens. “Support from community partners and organizations like Learn to Earn Dayton will help to mitigate these barriers,” she said. Federal lawmakers continue to debate a second stimulus bill. Some versions of it have included money for expanding broadband access. Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted on Friday confirmed that the state will allocate $50 million to provide students with computers and hot spots. The program may help more for the future than this fall, as schools have to apply by Aug. 21, and the state will announce financial awards the week of Aug. 31 to Sept. 4. Schools could then use the money to order the technology. The Buckeye Institute has called for targeted state grants to help bring high-speed broadband service to underserved areas of the state to ensure adequate access for distance learning, telehealth services and work from home. The grants, offset by other state spending cuts, would help bring networks to communities that have not already received other government assistance for broadband, according Greg R. Lawson, a research fellow at the conservative think tank. Sage said the Miami Valley Educational Computer Association is working to negotiate contracts with broadband carriers, leveraging volume for districts in the area to get better rates and keep costs down for districts and taxpayers. The association is a consortium of 31 school districts and service centers from Clark, Clinton, Fayette, Greene, Highland, Madison, Montgomery and Ross counties. MVECA is one of the 18 Information Technology Centers licensed by the Ohio Department of Education. The mission of a public school Paying for devices and connectivity is perhaps the easiest part of the equation, Callahan said. Helping families become proficient with the technology will be harder to solve. “I don’t know how many school districts actually have any kind training and support capacity. It’s going to become a more and more important question,” he said. “If a parent doesn’t know anything about what they’re looking at on a computer screen, how do you expect those parents to supervise online learning?” Dayton Public Schools is working to build some parent workshops about technology, Lolli said. “We have a team designing sessions to help them understand what the curriculum is, how it’s different online, what the grading is, how do I use the technology, how do I connect the hot spot, things our parents may need to know,” she said. No online learning system will work if parents and students aren’t comfortable logging in, Callahan said. “There are districts which have done some early tracking of how many of those devices are getting turned on. A disappointing percentage has emerged,” he said. That fits with Lolli’s statement that 600 DPS students (about 5%) had no contact with their school after the mid-March shutdown, despite outreach efforts. However schools proceed, the year promises to be difficult and unpredictable, Sage said. “But the most important thing is can you in some way, shape or form, without having direct physical access to a student, still have face-to-face interactions. … and allow educators to remain in touch with their students to continue instruction in the best way they can?” “It’s just about trying to fulfill the mission of a public school.”

DAYTON, Ohio (WKEF/WRGT) -- The Dayton Foundation recently awarded a $70,000 discretionary grant aimed at assisting Learn to Earn Dayton in buying Chromebooks for schools in Dayton and Montgomery County's high-poverty school districts. With so many schools choosing to go fully virtual, or giving their students the option to go virtual, devices with internet capabilities become essential to a student's education. “In order for students to be successful in today’s connected environment, they need the devices to do their schoolwork remotely,” said Barbra Stonerock, vice president of Community Engagement for The Dayton Foundation. “We see this award as an investment in the future of our community’s students and leveling the opportunities for low-income families.” The Dayton Foundations grant joins with grants from other foundations totaling over $300,000 in commitments. The grants are part of a three-phase connectivity plan. The first phase, learn to Earn Dayton will provide and distribute approximately 900 devices to targeted schools in Dayton, Jefferson, Northridge and Trotwood Madison school districts. Phase Two and Three of the plan focuses more on the mid- and long-term larger strategy around access to connectivity, quality remote learning experiences, maintaining devices, and more.

LOCAL NEWS | July 29, 2020 By Chris Stewart The Dayton Foundation awards $70K grant to Learn to Earn Dayton A new grant will pay for 900 Chromebooks to begin an effort to help thousands of Dayton-area students who lack devices or internet connectivity prepare for a school year increasingly pushed online due to the coronavirus pandemic. To reduce digital inequity intensified by the pandemic, The Dayton Foundation awarded a $70,000 grant to Learn to Earn Dayton to purchase the devices for schools in the Dayton, Jefferson, Northridge and Trotwood-Madison districts. “Remote learning is the new normal in education, and the divide in schools between who has access and who doesn’t is getting worse,” said Thomas Lasley, Learn to Earn Dayton CEO. “If we’re going to be able to solve the challenges of remote learning associated with COVID-19, then access to connectivity, quality remote educational opportunities and devices must be addressed.” Just a quarter of students in high-poverty households access remote learning once a week or less. By contrast, 83 percent of students in families with incomes of $100,000 or more are engaged in remote experiences every day, according to Lasley. The purchase is the first of a three-phase connectivity plan to help students in lower-income districts bridge the digital divide. Subsequent phases will focus on access to connectivity, improving remote learning experiences and maintaining devices. The overall effort exceeds $300,000 to date, according to The Dayton Foundation in a news release. The foundation’s grant joins with others from Mathile Family Foundation, The Frank M. Tait Foundation, The Charles D. Berry Foundation, The Berry Family Foundation, Louise Kramer Foundation and the COVID-19 Response Fund for Greater Dayton established by The Dayton Foundation and United Way of the Greater Dayton Area. “In order for students to be successful in today’s connected environment, they need the devices to do their schoolwork remotely,” said Barbra Stonerock, The Dayton Foundation’s vice president of community engagement. “We see this award as an investment in the future of our community’s students and leveling the opportunities for low-income families.”

COURAGEOUS CONVERSATIONS As thousands of people have taken to area streets demanding racial justice, a Dayton Daily News analysis found that inequities for local black residents span from the cradle to the grave. Dayton-area black residents face a far higher infant mortality rate, often grow up in neighborhoods that lack access to the same opportunities as white residents, face a widening income gap compared to white residents, and frequently die younger, according to multiple studies. In some areas — such as growth in the black-white wage gap, segregation and opportunities for black children — this region fares poorer than most other large metropolitan areas, data shows. The Dayton Daily News is examining race and equity in our community. This story examines what the data says about our region. Over the next several weeks, our reporters will dig into what solutions could make a difference here. These racial disparities are not new and they are not accidental, experts said, they are the culmination of more than a century of policy decisions. But they also said racial equity is achievable with intentional effort, and a partnership of several local organizations has formed to push toward that goal. “Right now the African American community is saying ‘enough is enough,’” said Amaha Sellassie, a community organizer and sociologist at Sinclair Community College who’s at the forefront of several local efforts. “We’re not going to go on living in this country for 400 years and still be treated as second-class citizens,” he said. “We want all of the systems, powers, processes to acknowledge the dignity and work of every human being.” ‘We’ve lacked the will’ Sellassie said in the wake of the killing of George Floyd and amid the nationwide protests that followed, a chorus rose to end racism, including corporations large and small, leaders from both political parties, even former skeptics of movements like Black Lives Matter. “For whatever reason, there is a willingness to have a conversation that I’ve never witnessed before and I don’t think it’s ever happened in America,” he said. Shannon Jones, Warren County commissioner and director of the early learning advocacy group Groundwork Ohio, said that historically state and local leaders have been unwilling to directly address racial disparities. She is hopeful that is changing. Jones, also a Republican and former state lawmaker, said that policies often look to address “poverty” as a proxy for race but fail to look at the specific issues facing the black community that extend beyond poverty, and how current efforts fall short. “The data tells us that we are not doing enough or we aren’t doing the right things,” she said. “We’ve lacked the will to address the role systemic racism has played in our policies and investments.” Past and present In order to address these problems, we have to understand their roots, said Kierra Barnett, a researcher for the Kirwin Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University. “It’s real easy to blame the individuals who live there currently for the conditions of their neighborhoods if you don’t understand the history of how the neighborhoods got that way,” Barnett said. “Our communities of color have less resources because that’s they way it was designed to function.” Barnett gave an example of a practice that segregated and held back the local black community at a presentation to local leaders in January. She displayed a map of the redlining of Dayton. Redlining was a policy prevalent in the 20th century that denied loans and other services to black residents, often keeping them clustered into a few neighborhoods. Then later when the nation’s highway system was built, they were paved through the middle of these communities. Today in Dayton, 82% of the residents of the formerly redlined communities are low-to-moderate income and most are minorities. If you overlay maps of child opportunity, lead poisoning in children, food deserts, and alcohol and tobacco vendors, the redlining patterns can be seen. “This is our history but it also our present,” Barnett said. Region still segregated The Dayton region remains segregated, though it has made progress over the past 10 years, according to an analysis of census data conducted by William Frey, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, for the Dayton Daily News. Frey compared the Dayton metropolitan area to the rest of the 91 large U.S. metros with a black population of at least 3% and found ours is the 23rd most segregated. Today, about 63.7% of the Dayton region’s black residents would have to relocate to be evenly distributed with whites. The 10 most segregated large metropolitan areas include Cincinnati and Cleveland, Frey’s analysis found. Opportunity mapping In the Dayton metropolitan area — which includes all of Montgomery, Greene and Miami counties — about two-thirds of black children are growing up in neighborhoods lacking resources that would give them the same opportunities to succeed as white children, according to a study released this year by Brandeis University. The study analyzed 29 factors such as quality schools, parks and playgrounds, clean air, access to healthy food, health care and safe housing. It then compared neighborhoods across the country to assign each neighborhood an opportunity score. Neighborhoods were then ranked in five categories from very high opportunity to very low opportunity. In the Dayton metropolitan area, the study found 65% of black children live in very low opportunity neighborhoods. By comparison, 71% of local white children live in neighborhoods ranked from moderate to very high opportunity. Black children in the Dayton region had some of the lowest opportunity scores in the country, along with Youngstown, Cleveland and Toledo. “The index shows us where we need to invest if we truly care about equity and justice,” said Richard Besser, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which supported the research, when the study was released. “We need to look at the policies and systems that have led to these disparities and work to change them so that all children and families are valued equally.” Income gap widening A study released in March by the Brookings Institution found Dayton fares worse that similarly sized cities at racial inclusion in the local economy. The study compared the 56 U.S. metropolitan areas with a population between 500,000 and 1 million and ranked the Dayton region 55th in racial inclusion from 2008 to 2018. Over that decade, the employment rate gap between black and white residents grew by nearly 1%. The gap in annual median earnings grew between blacks and whites by $4,309. The gap in relative poverty between black and white residents grew by 4.2%. From 2017 to 2018, the median earnings gap decreased, but the employment rate gap and poverty rate gap continued to grow. This drags down the whole region’s economy, experts say. “You don’t actually sustain a growing economy longterm if people are systematically excluded from it,” said Alan Berube, senior fellow and deputy director at the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings, in an interview with the Dayton Daily News. Impact on health The myriad disparities black residents face have a measurable impact on the health of the black community, according public health officials. In Montgomery County, black babies die at a rate four times higher than white babies, according to the 2019 community health assessment by Public Health Dayton-Montgomery County. Black women are less likely to receive adequate prenatal care and twice as likely to have a low-birth weight baby compared to white women, the report says. The diabetes rate among black men is nearly twice the countywide average. Black men have a higher death rate from heart disease and stroke, and twice the rate of prostate cancer. The total average lifespan for a black man in Montgomery County is 65.5 years, which is six years lower than white men and 13 years lower than white women. Coronavirus The coronavirus pandemic has also had a disproportionate impact on black Ohioans, who make up 14% of the state’s population but 25% of COVID-19 cases, 31% of hospitalizations and 18% of deaths. “The health disparities didn’t occur overnight,” Gov. Mike DeWine said last month while noting the need to address root causes such as improving access to housing, nutritious food, education, health care and transportation. “(The disparities) are complex and present complex challenges,” DeWine said. “The current coronavirus pandemic has brought into high contrast these troubling issues.” ‘Fruit’ of the tree of racism The studies cited in this story are only a sampling of the data that shows how many local black residents experience a different reality than white residents. One could look at housing, criminal justice, educational achievement or other areas and it would tell a similar story. But Sellassie says all of these issues are “fruit” of the same problem: racism. By that, he means not just intentional racism but also systems that — intentional or not — produce disparate results for black people. “It wasn’t created overnight and it’s not going be fixed overnight but it comes down to a willingness, and I think people are willing, and I think the pressure people are putting across the state and across the world right now is creating a willingness to have conversations,” Sellassie said. New effort forming Some of the region’s most prominent institutions announced last week they have been working for more than a year on a new, collaborative effort to address these problems called the Institute for Livable and Equitable Communities. The institute is a partnership involving the Dayton Foundation, Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission, Learn to Earn Dayton, and partners from the city of Dayton, Montgomery County, the business community, higher education, hospitals, nonprofits and more. The institute will be housed at the planning commission and is currently hiring someone to lead the effort. After that, it will have community listening sessions to identify how and where to start in addressing racism and ageism. One effort under way is working to expand access to broadband and technology to students and employees learning and working remotely. “The challenges we face as a community are deeply embedded from literally hundreds of years of inequity,” said Dayton Foundation President Michael Parks in a statement last week. “All the members of our community who are impacted by these inequities need a stronger voice and place for action.” ‘We’ve got to make a difference’ The institute intends to use a regional approach and partner with organizations that have been working diligently on these issues for decades, Regional Planning Commission President Brian Martin said. It won’t be easy and it won’t be quick, he said, but he sees a moment now to make meaningful change. “The young folks who are protesting and are not accepting this are leading us to this point,” he said. “Their history is being set up for them right now and that’s what myself, as a human being, and especially as an African American, I can’t stand by the system. We’ve got to start,” he said. “Let’s not just let this moment go by, we’ve got to leverage this, and we’ve got to make a difference.” Staff Writers Amelia Robinson and Laura Bischoff contributed to this report. Contact this reporter at 937- 328-0374 or email Josh. Sweigart@coxinc.com.

by Philip Ferrari, the co-owner operator of ECE Program Solutions Dayton is strong because Daytonians are helpers. Of course, our community has challenges, but our ability to engage and empathize with one another is deep-seated. Relationships and trust permeate our civic lives, making it possible to take on hard problems together. We’re large enough that we have big-city problems, but we’re small enough to fix them. Non-profit and educational leaders in the Dayton community are leveraging these relationships to tackle tough topics, identify impactful responses and work together to help vulnerable families. Dayton’s helpers find fellow helpers. And, thus, they find hope. A shining example of this spirit is the Summer School Afterschool Collaborative, convened by Learn to Earn Dayton. The collaborative includes more than 19 nonprofit, governmental and philanthropic organizations focused on ensuring that children keep learning when they’re out of school — during the summer and after the school day. The collaborative is adopting and implementing strategies to improve the educational outcomes of students. Each agency partner is independent, but all are learning from each other. Roughly 2,000 students and families are served annually by collaborative members; many of those who benefit struggle financially or are living in poverty. Convening these organizations monthly provides a forum to discuss forces that limit children’s and families’ success. These issues include concentrated poverty, systemic racism, food insecurity and addiction, among others. Fostering success for our students and families in the face of these challenges takes compassion, patience, resolve and certainly partnership. After school and summer providers do much more than offer space for kids to gather. They help students with homework, teach social skills, engage them in fun fitness activities and expose them to mentors. In other words, they use progressive and evidenced-based strategies to support young people. Some collaborative members are meeting specialized needs — supporting students suffering from trauma and providing summer camp for students with family members struggling with addiction, for example. Others support families by coordinating legal services for ex-offenders, assisting parents who are out of work ... and the list goes on. Helpers continue to find ways to strengthen their impact by working together. For its part, the collaborative is helping summer and afterschool organizations become even stronger through assistance with funding, training and exploring new and proven strategies. Out-of-school programming for high-need communities is dependent on philanthropic and governmental support, and individual donations. This means organizations have to be efficient, nimble, and creative — these revenue streams are never assured. Especially now, in the wake of COVID- 19, all forms of funding are going to be scarce. It has never been more critical for agencies to work smartly and hand-in-hand. The collaborative is committed to continuing its joint work, responding particularly to the pandemic fallout. Partners already are providing online social-emotional lessons, food delivery, digital classrooms after school, and online social opportunities for families. As the weeks go on, they’ll keep getting more creative about serving kids and families. At the same time, the partners will continue working to connect with school districts, sharing information that promotes students’ in-school success when classes begin next fall. The stakes couldn’t be higher as we move into the summer and come out of a paralyzing pandemic that has hit struggling families the hardest. There is no limit to what we can do for them when helpers come together. Philip Ferrari works with the Montgomery County Summer and Afterschool Collaborative, an initiative organized by Learn to Earn Dayton. Ferrari is the co-owner operator of ECE Program Solutions. “Always look for the helpers. There will always be helpers ... If you look ... you will always find hope.” — Fred Rogers of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” Read the full text at Dayton Daily News

The COVID-19 crisis is impacting everything from how we wash our hands and buy groceries to how we educate students who are no longer sitting at desks and “doing school.” When we get past this pandemic, we will enter a new world order — especially regarding education. COVID-19 will change the way preschool through college education is delivered and structured. We will not eliminate classrooms and teacher lectures, but we will have to think differently and harder about maximizing human talent. To deal with complex, all-encompassing problems such as the coronavirus, we need talented and intellectually gifted people: smart and clinically sophisticated doctors, for sure, but also a wide array of supporting cast members — nurses, respiratory therapists, manufacturers who can produce masks, face shields and myriad forms of PPE. Those needs are simply the tip of the COVID-19 support chain iceberg. This talent is not found in one community or one demographic group. Success stories over the last several weeks illustrate talent comes from all zip codes, all racial and all ethnic backgrounds. That’s why ensuring equity in education is an even more significant issue as we go forward. Dealing with unequal opportunity will be just as important as finding the right vaccine for COVID-19 or developing effective therapies for mitigating the virus. The impact of the pandemic on our communities and our nation has been immediate — and socially and economically tragic. The impact of inequality of opportunity is also devastating. Its fallout is long-term and impacts so many in and around Dayton for their entire lives. One response to educational inequity is to deny all opportunity. That’s happening in Philadelphia. The superintendent of the Philadelphia schools closed down all remote instruction because virtual access was not available to all students. In his words: “If that’s (remote instruction) not available to all children, we cannot make it available to some.” Some might argue that this thinking is fair. But denying access to all, over time, will hurt us all. Our response in Dayton and Montgomery County must be to ensure access and equity, especially for our kids. Our schools and colleges, education and policy leaders, are stepping up to that work in so many ways. They’re refusing to make a Sophie’s Choice. For example: ■ The Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission has brought together stakeholders to tackle issues ranging from historic underrepresentation to redlining and forced segregation. This group is focused on systemic solutions to systemic problems. ■ An expanding cadre of “Equity Fellows” is being trained to work in schools and community organizations. These fellows are working with colleagues to identify disparities in student outcomes and taking action to address them. ■ A growing number of community partners — from employers to colleges to libraries — are independently and collectively focusing on ensuring equity in all of their policies and practices. Read the full text at Dayton Daily News

LOCAL VOICES LOOKING TO THE FUTURE By Thomas Lasley and Byron White For some time, Ohio has needed more workers who have skills for in-demand jobs. In the wake of COVID-19, it is evident that Ohio needs that and more. More than filling available jobs today, employees must have the problem-solving and critical-thinking skills required for dealing with emergent challenges, most of which we don’t even understand yet. Policy makers and education and business leaders have to be even more committed to ensuring that more Ohioans earn a college degree or credential. No one is going to be prepared to successfully advance in a career or in life over the next 50 years with just a highschool education. Intellectual talent has long been the driving indicator in determining communities’ economic vitality. But going forward, communities will need intellectual talent just to economically survive. Tomorrow’s new, well-paying, secure jobs will require higher-level skills, training and education. Employers are going to keep shedding lowskilled jobs. Ohio has been slow to respond to the intellectual talent challenge. The Lumina Foundation, reports that only 48.4% of the adult working-age population (ages 25 to 64) in the United States has some type of marketable degree or credential. In Ohio, that figure is even lower — 45.5%. And this level of education attainment is still less for Ohioans of color, those who live in urban and rural communities, and those who are low-income. By comparison, 58% of Massachusetts residents, and 56% of Minnesota residents, have earned a degree or credential. Ohio’s talent figures match Michigan’s, and exceed Indiana’s, but they are below Kentucky and Pennsylvania. A number of groups and organizations from across Ohio have been meeting with policy makers to determine ways to more aggressively bridge the talent gap. Our organizations, Learn to Earn Dayton and StrivePartnership in Cincinnati, are among several community-based, collective impact organizations focused on education that have joined with networks such as Philanthropy Ohio and Ohio Excels to increase educational attainment in the state. Our efforts include identifying how to reduce student debt so that more students will pursue and complete their degree or credential; aggressively helping students complete their FAFSA forms to make college affordable; and enlisting students who have “stopped-out” of their post-secondary studies to re-enroll and complete their degrees. We are particularly focused on ensuring that these efforts stem the racial, geographic and economic disparities in academic achievement that are too prevalent. Some have argued that COVID-19 is our generation’s Pearl Harbor. We contend this crisis is but one of more Pearl Harbors to come. We desperately need a workforce equipped to deal with uncertain times ahead. Ohio can meet the challenge if we leverage the urgency of the current pandemic to focus on two things: Policy makers must acknowledge and boldly address the racial, geographic and economic disparity gaps that exist in the state. The human talent that is lost because of those gaps compromises Ohio’s economic stability and its future. These disparities are all the more evident as we see the pandemic taking a harder toll, both physically and economically, on communities that are high poverty, black and Latinx. Educational practitioners need to continue to aggressively pursue systemic changes to ensure that all children are reading proficiently by third grade, and that all eighth-graders are math proficient. These benchmarks are undeniable predictors of future academic success. If they are not met, our young people will not be prepared to compete, and all of Ohio will be the poorer. Educational attainment is critical to individuals’ social mobility. No one gets ahead without skills and a quality education. But educational attainment also is essential to the very survival of our communities, our state and our country. We must commit to ensuring that Ohioans have the talent essential to meet the next great challenge and those that are sure to follow. Tom Lasley is chief executive officer of Learn to Earn Dayton and the former dean of the University of Dayton School of Education and Health Sciences. Byron White is executive director of StrivePartnership and a vice president of KnowledgeWorks Foundation. Read the full text at Dayton Daily News Thomas J. Lasley Chief Executive Officer, Learn To Earn Dayton Byron P. White KnowledgeWorks Vice President, Executive Director, StrivePartnership

by Robyn Lightcap, executive director of Learn to Earn Dayton If you are not an essential worker who needs child care, you may not know that nearly 70 child care pandemic centers across Montgomery County are up and running. They’re ensuring that an estimated 800 doctors, nurses, grocery clerks, warehouse workers, nursing home staff and first-responders can be on the job. Dozens upon dozens of child care professionals are taking incredible personal risk to care for babies, toddlers and school-age children — and to help them keep developing and learning even as their normal routines have been turned upside down. (Incidentally, these employees don’t have the security of having certified personal protective equipment even as small children can’t possibly be expected to practice social distancing.) Despite the all-important work that they’re doing, many child care programs are struggling to meet payroll. Under new and necessary state regulations, they must have higher teacher-child ratios, and they are severely limited in the number of children they can have in a classroom or defined space. These changes are a double-whammy, significantly raising the cost of doing business. Meanwhile, their staff are so low-paid that, if you account for supplemental federal unemployment benefits, many child care workers would earn more by being laid-off. Let’s also not forget the child care professionals who have been laid off. Many of them are still waiting to hear if and when they’ll receive unemployment benefits. They desperately miss their children and families, who may be difficult to reach because they lack Internet access. Furthermore, these workers don’t know if they’ll have a job when the pandemic ends. Like so many other low-margin operations, child care programs that have closed will invariably struggle to start back up. In spite of all this heartache, fear and uncertainty, child care workers are carrying on. Whether they’re working at a pandemic center or laid off, many teachers are doing their best to support children and families. Preschool Promise has been advocating fiercely for these critical professionals and the families they serve. ■ Thanks to the COVID-19 Response Fund of Greater Dayton (led by The Dayton Foundation and United Way of Greater Dayton), PNC Grow Up Great, and The Frank M. Tait Foundation, we’re providing scholarships to families of essential workers who earn too much to get state child care financial assistance. ■ We’re linking child care programs to experts on Small Business Administration loans, unemployment benefits, the new federal CARES Act and more. ■We’re advocating for child care providers at the state level, explaining how regulations are playing out on the ground and why the state must do more to financially support pandemic centers and programs that have closed. ■We’re using social media to provide tips to child care staff about the need to take care of their physical and mental well-being. ■We are immensely grateful to our state, county and local leaders who are managing the COVID-19 crisis. We also owe a huge debt of gratitude to those helping essential workers stay in their jobs by loving, protecting and, yes, still teaching children. Read the full article at Dayton Daily News

Dayton Daily News By Jeremy P. Kelley, Staff Writer Ohio remains below average nationally in the percentage of residents age 25-64 who have a college degree or industry certification. But the state saw its biggest recent one-year gain in newly released 2018 data. The annual Stronger Nation report from the Lumina Foundation shows 45.5 percent of those workforce-age Ohioans had some form of post-secondary credential in 2018 (data is on a one-year lag), while the national average was 48.4 percent. Ohio ranked 31st among states. Regionally, Ohio was tied with Michigan, ahead of Indiana and West Virginia, but behind Pennsylvania and Kentucky. After three straight years with gains of half a percentage point or less, Ohio doubled that, rising from 44.6% to 45.5%. Tom Lasley, CEO of Learn to Earn Dayton and a member of several local education/workforce efforts, said he thinks there’s a good chance Ohio has kept that 2018 momentum. Lasley said Gov. Mike DeWine’s administration “has much more aggressively embraced” the idea that economic development is tied to educational attainment. “You can have all sorts of good, healthy debate about whether people need four-year degrees or two-year degrees or what kind of post-secondary credential it is, but if you don’t have sufficient talent in your population, you’re not going to grow your economy, and that is just a flat, dead fact.” The Lumina Foundation set a national goal of having 60 percent of Americans hold some type of post-high school credential by the year 2025. That could be a certification in fields like HVAC, welding or machining, up through associate and bachelor’s degrees, to graduate and professional degrees. Lumina set that goal citing an ongoing “global shift from an industrial economy to a knowledge economy,” with more and more newly created jobs requiring some form of post-high school training. Dayton ranks lower Lumina’s data for metro areas only includes associate degrees and above, not certificates. By that metric, Dayton ranks fifth among Ohio’s six largest metro areas in 2018. At 41.6 percent, the Dayton metro was two percentage points ahead of Toledo, and about one point behind Cleveland and Akron. Columbus was No. 1 at 46.5 percent. But like the state as a whole, there’s reason to hope Dayton is building momentum. Lasley said Learn to Earn data showed the percentage of all Montgomery County 2013 high school grads who completed a college degree by 2019 inched to a new high of 38%. Sinclair Community College interim provost Kathleen Cleary said her school has seen significant recent gains, more than doubling the number of degrees and certificates awarded, from 3,600 in 2015 to 8,100 in 2019. Sinclair’s associate degree completion rate has also soared, from 11 percent in 2012 to 27 percent in 2018. Some of those students don’t earn a degree because they were only at Sinclair to earn an industry certificate or other credential. But Cleary said the college is working to understand and mitigate the obstacles that do remain for students at risk of dropping out. She said about 40 percent of those who leave school have an “A” or “B” average, but they run into financial problems, family problems, health issues or changing work schedules. Cleary said Sinclair now offers an emergency grant program of up to $500 to make sure a car repair or unexpected expense doesn’t cause someone to walk away. And the school is trying to integrate tutoring resources directly into classrooms in some cases, so students don’t always have to make special outreach. She urged people thinking about going back to school for a new job or to change their lives to “tell us your story.” “If people are out there and feel stuck, the best way to get unstuck is to give us a call (at 937-512-3675),” Cleary said. “People sometimes feel like there’s a million reasons why they can’t go back to college. But there are a million resources we have here to try to address the issues people are having.” High school efforts Two years ago, the Lumina Foundation designated the Dayton region as a Talent Hub for its efforts to increase college access and attainment. Lasley said there’s no silver bullet, but a key is to have high schools and colleges working together. Lasley said one strategy is to get every high school senior in the region to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). He said many students of modest financial means don’t realize there’s aid available that can make college a real possibility. Local schools track FAFSA submission rates week-to-week and Lasley said Montgomery County students are 30 percent ahead of where last year’s class was at this time. At the same time, he urged students and families to make good college choices to minimize debt. Even as a former dean at the University of Dayton, Lasley said he would not encourage a student to go straight to UD if they weren’t confident in their field of study, telling them to go to Sinclair and more affordably figure out what they wanted to study. “No. 1 is to create better connections between our workforce demand areas and our schools,” Lasley said. “We need to know where our (workforce) demands are and begin to create pathways for students from high schools into what we know are going to be our most in-demand areas in next-generation jobs.” Read the full Dayton Daily News article here: https://www.daytondailynews.com/

By Wayne Baker, Staff Writer KETTERING —The Kettering City School District is partnering with Learn to Earn Dayton to hold community wide conversations to assist the district in closing achievement and opportunity gaps among subgroups of students. The Ohio Department of Education identifies subgroups as all students who are American Indian, Alaskan Native Asian/Pacific Islander, black non-Hispanic, Hispanic multiracial white, non-Hispanic economically disadvantaged students with disabilities, and English learners. Dan Von Handorf, assistant superintendent of Teaching & Learning for Kettering schools, told the Dayton Daily News that during an 18-month period beginning in 2017, the schools engaged with more than 100 individuals representative of the Kettering community including parents, staff members, students, city staff, service group members, members of faith-based organizations, professionals from local colleges and universities and local business and industry members in order to develop a strategic plan. The strategic plan, “A Blueprint for Student Success,” outlines four main focus areas: Student Success, Culture, Whole Person and Strategic Partnerships, that will guide the district in its day-to-day operations and long-term goals and objectives. He added that during the course of the more than a year-and-a-half of discussions among the members of the strategic plan committee, it was determined through both anecdotal accounts and data analysis that some student subgroups across the Kettering City Schools are not achieving at a level equal to their peers. Similarly, third-grade reading data also indicates a significant achievement gap across the district among subgroups and their peers. “These findings are in direct contradiction with the mission of the Kettering City School District to partner with the family and community to guarantee a superior educational experience, within a positive and innovative learning environment, for all students,” Von Handorf said. As a result, the district established a task force charged with identifying opportunity gaps and recommending successful methods for removing roadblocks to student success and that led to a partnership with Learn to Earn. Learn to Earn Dayton is an effort that brings together educators, business leaders, major foundations and politicians in a movement to enhance the county’s ability to grow a more educated workforce by 2025. The non-profit with a $900,000 annual budget is focusing its cradle to career efforts on boosting kindergarten readiness and third-grade reading proficiency, successful transition of students into high school and, increasing the number of workers with a postsecondary certificate or degree. With this in mind, the district and Learn to Earn Dayton have scheduled a number of opportunities for members of the Kettering community to weigh in on identifying the top barriers to student success, as well as helping to identify concrete ways that the Kettering Schools can address these achievement gaps so that every child can achieve and succeed. “Learn to Earn Dayton is a great community partner for local schools and is able to work through grant funding to allow opportunities, such as these community conversation sessions, to take place at no cost to the school district. We are hoping to get honest, actionable feedback during these sessions that a parent or student may not feel entirely comfortable saying to a teacher or school administrator,” Von Handorf explained. Members of the Kettering City Schools community are invited to attend one of the five upcoming “Want to Talk About Equity in Education” community conversations that will be held through the end of February. “Participants in these community conversations will be asked questions such as ‘What do you feel are the top three barriers to student success in the Kettering Schools,’ ‘How can our schools and/or community address opportunity or achievement gaps’ and ‘If our school system could do ONE thing to help ALL students achieve and grow, what would it be?’” Von Handorf said. Registration is required, and participation is limited to 25 for each group conversation. Call Sara Morrisey at 937-499-1456 to reserve a spot. Each attendee will receive a $25 Walmart gift card for participating. Administrators will not be in attendance at the community Read the full story at: DaytonDailyNews.com