White Hat Management Reviews Local Report Card Results

AKRON, Ohio, Aug. 25, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- White Hat Management provides educational and managerial services and support to community schools across Ohio.  This year, numerous schools affiliated with White Hat Management demonstrated significant academic gains and/or continued to demonstrate overall improvement.  Despite such gains, CEO of White Hat Management, Tom Barrett, acknowledged that the results at some locations were somewhat disappointing.

"This year's academic data highlights the challenges faced by some of our schools. We're focused on improvement and will redouble our efforts to improve the quality of instruction and outcomes for our students," he said.  

Life Skills Centers:

The Ohio Life Skills Centers are dropout recovery high schools serving students in grades 9-12 who are between the ages of 16-22.  The Life Skills Centers are accredited by the North Central Association. During the 2010-11 school year, the Schools combined to graduate a total of 563 students who had not previously been successful in traditional academic settings.  All graduates completed all of the academic requirements, passed the Ohio Graduation Test, and completed additional employability skills coursework.  The State of Ohio, however, does not count overage graduates when calculating Ohio graduation rates for the State's local report cards. As a result, over 67 percent of the students who graduated from the Ohio Life Skills Centers are never counted as graduates for the purposes of each School's local report card. 

Due to the special population that is served by the Life Skills Centers, it is important to understand that the average student who enrolls at a Life Skills Center is at least two grade levels behind in reading, math or both and generally require intensive remediation in order to progress academically.  Over 80 percent of the enrolled students are economically disadvantaged and over 70 percent are habitually truant. About 25 percent of the students served at Life Skills Centers are pregnant or parenting.  Over 25 percent of the students enrolled in Life Skills Centers are special education students and on average 25 percent of the students enrolled at the Life Skills Centers are involved with the Juvenile Court System or have a history with the Court System. 

Overall, White Hat Management does not believe that the current or new graduation rate calculations accurately reflect the hard work of the students who attend and graduate from the Life Skills Centers.  As such, the Life Skills Centers have been trying to work with the State in an effort to develop a system that could accurately and adequately present the full picture about how the students at the Life Skills Centers compare to other similar drop out recovery high schools across the State.  

CEO, Tom Barrett said, "White Hat Management is proud of the work being done by the teachers and administrators at the Life Skills Centers and we're particularly proud of the progress that students enrolled at the schools make each and every day."

Academies:

During the 2010-2011 school year, White Hat Management provided educational and operational management services to eleven K-8 Ohio community schools including seven HOPE Academies located in the Cleveland area, two HOPE Academies in Akron, Riverside Academy in Cincinnati, and Southside Academy in Youngstown.  

This year's Local Report Cards results are mixed, indicating that some of the Academies have significant challenges while others show marked improvement in student achievement.  Four of the eleven Academies are rated Continuous Improvement. Besides the Continuous Improvement rating earned by HOPE Academy Brown Street in Akron, Riverside Academy in Cincinnati moved up from its rating of Academic Emergency to Continuous Improvement, and Northwest and Chapelside HOPE Academies of Cleveland each increased its rating from Academic Watch to Continuous Improvement.  

White Hat Management Contact:

Rodd Coker
Vice President, Business Development and Community Engagement

Phone/fax: 330-252-8908
[email protected]

White Hat Management
159 South Main Street, Suite 600
Akron, OH 44308
www.whitehatmgmt.com

SOURCE White Hat Management