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New Columbus City Schools superintendent discusses goals, plans for district

Tuesday afternoon, newly appointed Columbus City Schools Superintendent Dr. Angela Chapman discussed her plans for safety and other improvements for the district.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Last week, the Columbus Board of Education appointed Dr. Angela Chapman as its new superintendent of Columbus City Schools. Tuesday afternoon, Chapman discussed some of her short-term and long-term plans for the state’s largest school district.

"Columbus city schools are great I've had no issues or qualms with them at all,” Nichole Thompson, a parent of a Colerain Elementary School student, said.

While some parents said they have no complaints when it comes to their child’s education in Columbus City Schools, others said there’s room for improvement.

"I'm thankful that he goes to this school but to be frank if he didn't get a spot in this school, I probably wouldn't have him in the district at all," said Megan Wright, a parent of a Colerain Elementary School student.

Wright said the school district has a number of issues that she hopes will be addressed by the newly named superintendent.

"I don't know, after he ends his time in elementary, if I will feel comfortable keeping him in the district whatsoever,” Wright said.

Wright said she’s mostly concerned about the violence in the middle schools and high schools. She said she wants to know what Dr. Chapman plans to do to address it.  

"We have beefed up or increased our security efforts and made significant investments in security across the district,” Dr. Chapman said.

Dr. Chapman added it will be an ongoing effort and conversation and it is something that is a priority for her as a parent herself.

"There isn't a day where I don't think about safety, and certainly now as our students are transitioning to summer, I think about the 45,000 students who are typically under our care each day during the school year. They're not under our care as they are at home in the community over the summer, I'm still thinking about their safety,” Dr. Chapman said.

She said she also plans to do more to repair aging buildings in the long-term. In the short-term, Dr. Chapman said the district has made investments to upgrade the HVAC systems in all of its school buildings.

"All of our buildings will have AC and heat in all of the spaces in all of our buildings,” Dr. Chapman said.

There is also more work being done to crack down on the number of student absences across the district. One way is through attendance teams that monitor each child’s absences. The district also notifies parents if their child was absent and the number of consecutive days they were absent through a text message system called “nudges.”

"We have seen some significant decreases in chronic absenteeism and that is certainly paying off for us in a lot of different ways,” Dr. Chapman said.

Parents like Wright said they’re hopeful this new leadership will bring positive changes to the district from an administrative level.

"We can only expect teachers and school staff to do so much when it comes to the negative things happening within the school buildings,” Wright said.

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