Senator Hite tours Van Wert City Schools

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

State Senator Cliff Hite, a teacher and coach for more than 30 years, returned to the classroom (actually, several classrooms) on Friday during a tour of the Van Wert City School District.

The tour, made at the request of VWCS Superintendent Ken Amstutz, an old friend of the state senator’s, had Hite praising both the district’s excellent facilities and its innovative education programs. He also had a few nice things to say about its superintendent.

While he was suitably impressed with the Niswonger Performing Arts Center of Northwest Ohio and the excellent educational facilities, the state senator also liked the innovative programs being implemented in the district and the ability to interact with students.

“When you take away the auditorium, I liked how easy it was to interact with the students,” Hite said, while also adding that he had been a little concerned before the tour about how open students would be after the recent student shootings in Newtown, Conn., and at other schools. “The kids were eager to meet me, to talk with me.”

Hite also noted that, while he liked Van Wert’s schools, he was also impressed with the district’s teachers. “It’s not only the facilities, but the attitude of the teachers,” the state senator said. “I saw a lot of team teaching today.”

Hite especially was impressed with Van Wert’s implementation of project-based education, in the form of its New Tech High School, Project Lead the Way pre-engineering and Biomedical programs.

“That was incredible, I just can’t get over it,” the state senator said of those programs. “Van Wert is ahead of the game … what Van Wert has going here is very, very good.”

Hite, who is part of a five-generation family of educators (he’s the fourth and his daughter is the fifth), also got a big surprise while on the tour. When he met with Van Wert Early Childhood Center teacher Jeannie Ditmyer in her classroom, she shared with the senator and fellow Findlay native that his father, a noted music instructor in the Findlay City Schools, had been her teacher when she was in high school.

The gregarious Hite obviously had a good time while touring the district, smiling often as he received hugs from students, met with teachers, and even played a short piano duet with Van Wert Elementary School music instructor Susan Brubaker in the school’s piano lab.

“It’s great to be back in school buildings,” the senator said. “I love schools and teachers, it’s in the DNA.”

Following the tour, Hite also addressed subjects that school officials don’t love all that much: Ohio Governor John Kasich’s education funding plan and teacher evaluation program.

“I believe that the governor’s plans for Ohio are good in an improvement level,” he said, but also acknowledged that some tweaks are necessary to ensure schools get the funding they need in the budget.

“Anytime you do a paradigm of thinking, it takes a little time (to work things out),” Hite said. “Unfortunately, what we don’t do at the state level is give people time to adjust.”

Hite also said he and some other Ohio legislators are working on changes to the new state teacher evaluation process, which he said is a good idea, but is currently overdoing things a bit.

Noting the current evaluation process requires principals to spend 6-8 hours assessing each teacher, the state senator added, “it you’re a principal of a small school and you have 25 teachers, that’s all you’re going to get done.”

While students were giving out hugs to Hite, a few third grade teachers also provided hugs to the senator after they learned he is a sponsor of legislation that would provide some needed changes for the Third Grade Reading Guarantee.

Hite also defended the American education system, noting that he feels people are overcritical of U.S. schools. “We’re trying to teach everyone,” the senator said, noting that some foreign countries weed out the worst students by eighth grade. “It’s not apples to apples, it’s apples to squirrels,” he said of trying to compare American education with that of some foreign countries.

Hite said in conclusion that he believes in giving parents a choice of where they want to send their children to school, but added that he feels there should be a “level playing field” between public and charter schools, if the system is to work properly.