Columbus Monthly / December 2011 / Clintonville schools: Trying to build a community

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Clintonville schools: Trying to build a community

It’s an old story for parents of young children in the Columbus school district. At some point, they think about moving to the suburbs or checking out private and charter options if their kids don’t land a lottery spot with one of the coveted alternative schools, such as Indianola K-8 Informal.

But it’s a different tale for Clintonville mom Laura Kraus, who has enrolled her children in Clinton Elementary.

When she looked closer at the Clintonville neighborhood schools, she realized test scores and academic offerings at Clinton, Indian Springs and Colerain elementary schools, as well as Dominion middle and Whetstone high schools, would stand up against almost any Franklin County academic opportunity. And when she read How to Walk to School, Jacqueline Edelberg’s chronicle of turning a struggling Illinois public elementary school into a community resource, Kraus knew she had found a calling.

Those developments led to Clintonville Go Public, a grassroots effort by Clintonville parents to entice families to stay in the neighborhood and send their kids to their local “feeder” schools—those assigned to students who live nearby and feed into Dominion and Whetstone.

Their rationale: When you have strong community schools, you have a stronger community.

“Clintonville has a lot to be proud of in terms of its schools and its families,” Kraus says, “and we want people to know that staying in our neighborhood and supporting our public schools can get your child a great education.”

Clintonville schools do shine brightly amid the oft-criticized Columbus City Schools district, which overall last year met the state average on only five of 26 indicators. By contrast, Colerain and Clinton both ranked Excellent with Distinction—the highest honor. And Indian Springs and Whetstone both rated Excellent. (Dominion earned an Effective ranking.)

“We have a perception problem in Columbus,” says Gus Dahlberg, a lawyer with kids in Clinton’s second grade and kindergarten. “But our Clintonville schools have a strong academic record and a strong sense of community.”

“The urban neighborhood school system has been abandoned,” he adds. “We treat the district as a neighborhood, and it’s not. We are looking at the sense of community a neighborhood school can bring. When you lose your community schools, you lose part of your community.”

The group’s first recruitment meeting on
Nov. 12 brought in more than 50 people committed to or seeking information about Clintonville schools.

Chad and Deborah Showalter, who are beginning the school search for their
4-year-old, were among those who attended. Although they haven’t ruled out other options, they are intrigued by the purpose of Clintonville Go Public.

“It’s important to me to be as committed to your community as possible,” Deborah says. “If it was the best school for my child, I’d love to be in a local school in Clintonville.”