{"id":36167,"date":"2013-03-16T07:54:21","date_gmt":"2013-03-16T12:54:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/?p=36167"},"modified":"2013-03-18T06:12:18","modified_gmt":"2013-03-18T11:12:18","slug":"state-senator-spends-day-in-van-wert-city-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2013\/03\/16\/state-senator-spends-day-in-van-wert-city-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"Senator Hite tours Van Wert City Schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
State Senator Cliff Hite and Van Wert Elementary music instructor Susan Brubaker laugh as they play a piano duet during the senator's tour of city schools on Friday. (photos by Dave Mosier\/Van Wert independent)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The tour, made at the request of VWCS Superintendent Ken Amstutz, an old friend of the state senator\u2019s, had Hite praising both the district\u2019s excellent facilities and its innovative education programs. He also had a few nice things to say about its superintendent.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you take away the auditorium, I liked how easy it was to interact with the students,\u201d 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. \u201cThe kids were eager to meet me, to talk with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hite also noted that, while he liked Van Wert\u2019s schools, he was also impressed with the district\u2019s teachers.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s not only the facilities, but the attitude of the teachers,\u201d the state senator said. \u201cI saw a lot of team teaching today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hite especially was impressed with Van Wert\u2019s implementation of project-based education, in the form of its New Tech High School, Project Lead the Way pre-engineering and Biomedical programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was incredible, I just can\u2019t get over it,\u201d the state senator said of those programs.\u00a0\u201cVan Wert is ahead of the game … what Van Wert has going here is very, very good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hite, who is part of a five-generation family of educators (he\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
State Senator Cliff Hite laughs as he gets a hug from a student at the Van Wert Early Childhood Center.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\u2019s piano lab.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great to be back in school buildings,\u201d the senator said. \u201cI love schools and teachers, it\u2019s in the DNA.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the tour, Hite also addressed subjects that school officials don\u2019t love all that much: Ohio Governor John Kasich\u2019s education funding plan and teacher evaluation program.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that the governor\u2019s plans for Ohio are good in an improvement level,\u201d he said, but also acknowledged that some tweaks are necessary to ensure schools get the funding they need in the budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnytime you do a paradigm of thinking, it takes a little time (to work things out),\u201d Hite said. \u201cUnfortunately, what we don\u2019t do at the state level is give people time to adjust.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Noting the current evaluation process requires principals to spend 6-8 hours assessing each teacher, the state senator added, \u201cit you\u2019re a principal of a small school and you have 25 teachers, that\u2019s all you\u2019re going to get done.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Hite also defended the American education system, noting that he feels people are overcritical of U.S. schools. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to teach everyone,\u201d the senator said, noting that some foreign countries weed out the worst students by eighth grade. \u201cIt\u2019s not apples to apples, it\u2019s apples to squirrels,\u201d he said of trying to compare American education with that of some foreign countries.<\/p>\n

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 \u201clevel playing field\u201d between public and charter schools, if the system is to work properly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s, had Hite […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-09 21:10:21","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}