CINCINNATI — Iranetta Wright arrived in Cincinnati a little more than a year ago focused on transforming Ohio’s second-largest public school district into one of the best in the nation.
Over the past 13 months, Cincinnati Public School’s 28th superintendent has spent time getting acquainted with her new community, implementing initiatives such as the “Be Present” campaign, and working to address systemic issues that plague many large urban districts.
While many of the district’s 36,000 students are currently enjoying their three-month summer vacation, Wright and her staff are busy preparing for the upcoming 2023-24 school year.
Since the end of the last school year on May 25, Wright has witnessed the district’s Summer Scholars program. It offers class work for students who need to make up credits and provides enrichment activities for other students to keep them intellectually engaged during the summer.
“People think our work ends after the last day of school,” Wright said. “But we work year-round planning and preparing to ensure our students are in a position to learn and be successful as soon as they step foot back in the classroom.”
Wright and her staff have also been focused on finalizing the district’s five-year strategic plan. It’s based on “goals and guardrails” the school board approved in December.
The goals represent what the board and community believe students should know; the guardrails are community values the district wants to honor.
One goal is to raise the percentage of third-graders who meet state proficiency in reading from 45% to 61% by June 2027.
Others include shrinking the gap in reading proficiency between sixth-grade African American, Hispanic and multi-racial students and sixth-grade white students; improving state results among first-time Algebra I test takers; and increasing the percent of African American, Hispanic and multicultural students graduating with a College Credit Plus credit or a workforce credential.
The district’s primary objective, Wright said, is to increase its graduation rate from 85% to 97% during the next five years.
So far, the district has the “bones” for the plan, Wright said. Efforts are focused on helping the board redefine the district’s vision, mission, and forecasts for where they’ll be a decade from now.
Wright wasn’t unfamiliar with shaping large public districts prior to arriving in southwest Ohio. She worked in Duval County Public Schools near Jacksonville for nearly 25 years as a teacher and administrator. The district has 117,000 students and more than 13,000 employees.
Most recently, she served as a deputy superintendent for Detroit Public Schools Community District in Michigan, which serves 53,000 students and 7,200 employees.
Following Wright’s selection, Board of Education President Ben Lindy called Wright someone who is “committed to transformative, positive change for our students, community and staff."
Wright spent her first 100 days visiting each of CPS’ 65 schools and getting to know the community. She went on a “listening and learning tour” across the 91-square-mile district.
The Jacksonville, Fla., native was also excited about participating in Cincinnati traditions like the Findlay Market Opening Day Parade to celebrate the start of the Cincinnati Reds’ season. She marched with baseball and softball players and bands from several CPS schools.
“It's been a year of a lot of lessons learned and a lot of wonderful takeaways,” Wright said.
Cincinnati is facing many of the same challenges as other large districts, ranging from budgetary concerns to working with students who often come from what Wright described as “very challenging personal situations.”
“We’re engaging with families and encouraging them to be a part of the learning process,” she said.
Wright’s first initiative, Be Present, is a call-to-action for parents, caregivers and the broader community. It asks them to become more involved in the education process by encouraging them to support students, teachers and schools.
One of the most challenging issues facing Wright has been busing problems primarily caused by a national driver shortage.
As of November 2022, only about 80% of district students who take a bus to school were arriving on time every day, Wright said during a roundtable discussion on the topic. On-time arrivals in August were closer to 35%.
Large urban districts want to be between 95% and 98%, Wright said.
In late April, Wright and CPS announced changes to start times at many Cincinnati public schools to remedy the situation.
“This approach provides us with a solution to make sure that students are not only able to get picked up, but they’re able to make it to school on time,” she said.
One of those challenges is finding enough staff to fill positions across the district. The most current teacher vacancy total for core and non-core positions is 118, per CPS.
Julie Sellers, president of the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers, said most of those are intervention specialists, high school math and science teachers, and language teachers.
She wants to see the district commit to filling those positions with properly licensed teachers.
In early March, the board received a letter alleging Wright intimidated and micromanaged employees. During a school meeting, the board met in executive session that evening to discuss "employment of a public employee or official."
Afterward, Lindy promised to work with leadership, staff, and families to “ensure the students get the education they deserve."
Wright is CPS’ fourth superintendent since 2017 and the first hired from outside the district in almost 20 years. Changing parts of established culture “is a pretty tall task,” she said.
Sellers said the teacher’s union plans to work collaboratively with Wright, but stressed a need to have a strong teacher voice in order to “fill in the gaps that students experienced due to the pandemic and the transportation issues.”
Wright said she’s going to remain focused on her primary focus: improving educational outcomes for all students.
“How we get to those outcomes are vital to what we do,” she added, “but it’s very important we do that together as a group.”