Gallons of ink, some on this blog, have been spilled about what Ohio should do about academically troubled school districts. Put forward in the Senate Education Committee, the latest proposal would overhaul the current turnaround model by replacing academic distress commissions (ADC) enacted via House Bill 70 in summer 2015 with a softer, more patient form of state intervention.

ADC critics repeatedly argue that they “don’t work,” cause disruption and demoralization, and have generally made bad situations worse. Unfortunately, no evaluation of the academic impact of ADC policy exists, so these claims often go unchallenged. Yet with the release of the 2018–19 school report cards, we can begin to see high-level trends that might indicate whether the most strident criticisms are merited, or whether we actually see signs of increased student achievement.

Youngstown

Intervention in Youngstown predates the HB 70 revisions to ADC law, as the district first came under the thumb of the state in January 2010. Indeed, the district’s lack of progress under Ohio’s old (and meek) turnaround framework prompted legislators to adopt a more muscular approach. In June 2016, Krish Mohip took the helm as the district’s first CEO, a leadership position called for in HB 70. Though likely a transition year, 2016–17 is thus a logical baseline to begin tracking performance under Youngstown’s ADC.

The table below displays data compiled over the past five years on two key measures of performance on state exams: 1) value added, a measure of student growth over time that doesn’t strongly correlate with demographics, and 2) performance index, a composite measure of student proficiency across grades and subjects.

Table 1 shows that academic performance was bleak in Youngstown in the year prior to the ADC, and progress since then has been slow. The districtwide value-added rating hasn’t budged, nor do we observe higher percentages of students attending “A” rated schools on this measure. Kudos to Youngstown Early College High School, the only school to accomplish this feat since 2014–15—four years running. Overall, Youngstown students still struggle mightily on state exams, and too few attend the high-performing schools needed to change these trajectories. That being said, the results registered after ADC implementation are not appreciably worse than in the year immediately prior.

Table 1: Key improvement indicators for Youngstown School District

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​* These are unofficial ratings based on one-year value-added index scores available via the “District AMO Calculation” tables. (ODE began incorporating one-year value-added scores into the Gap Closing component in FY 2018.) Ohio’s official value-added ratings, used in the District Value-Added Rating and the Schools Rated “A” rows, are based on index scores averaged over three years. While multi-year scores improve the stability of ratings from year to year, single-year scores can provide useful information in turnaround situations. The statewide performance index score was 81.6 in 2015–16 and 84.7 in 2018–19. †Ohio used different state assessments in 2014–15 than in the more recent years; the statewide average PI score that year was 84.3.

Lorain

Akin to Youngstown, Lorain was also under state oversight for low academic performance prior to the 2015 reforms. After the new ADC law passed, David Hardy was hired as the district CEO in July 2017. His first year, 2017–18, was likely a transition year, but we can now track the performance of Lorain for two years after ADC implementation.

As might be expected in a district under state oversight, Table 2 shows that Lorain posted poor results before ADC intervention. In the two years immediately prior, the district received an “F” value-added rating and no students attended an “A” rated school according to this measure. Lorain’s overall value-added rating has remained depressed in the two most recent years, though improvements are visible when focusing on the growth data from only 2018–19. In both core subject areas, the district’s single-year value-added index scores were equivalent to “C” ratings. Moreover, one Lorain school, Steven Dohanos Elementary School, posted an “A” value-added rating last year, the only school to accomplish that feat during this period. The district’s performance index scores have also risen over the past two years, yet another promising sign of improvement. Last, though not displayed in Table 2, the district overall rating changed from an “F” to “D” in 2018–19.

Table 2: Key improvement indicators for Lorain School District

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​* For more on these data points, see the notes under Table 1.

East Cleveland

East Cleveland is the third district currently overseen by an ADC. Its commission was established halfway through the 2018–19 school year, with CEO Henry Pettiegrew hired in February 2019. Thus, we cannot yet track performance under an ADC model.

Districts on “ADC watch”

ADCs not only seek to turn around chronically-low-performing districts but they may also spur improvements among other struggling districts by the prospect of intervention. Under the HB 70 framework, districts earning three consecutive overall “F” ratings fall into state receivership via ADC. Last year, thirteen districts were on “ADC watch” by merit of a failing rating. Of these districts, just one, Dayton, had received two such ratings.[1]

Anecdotal evidence indicates that at-risk districts took measures to avoid intervention by working to improve their ratings. The results shown in Table 3 suggest that the threat of intervention may have led to higher student achievement. In all but one of these districts, performance index gains exceeded the statewide average, which includes the vast majority of districts not in jeopardy of intervention. Ashtabula and Mansfield, for instance, registered strong improvements—+4.3 and +2.4 points respectively—as did big-city districts such as Columbus (+1.7) and Dayton (+1.6). While these results aren’t conclusive, they at least hint at the possibility of the positive effects of accountability pressures.      

Table 3: Districts under “ADC watch” in 2017–18

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Because they call for bold changes in district governance and leadership, ADCs have left many unhappy. Appeasing dissatisfied interest groups might be politically expedient, but legislators should also consider whether it’s fair to students to pull the rug out from beneath them before promising reforms can take hold. The early results from Youngstown and Lorain show that ADCs aren’t the academic catastrophe that the harshest critics claim. Nor are they an overnight miracle-cure. In the end, we must remember that improving performance in long-dysfunctional districts takes patience and resolve, qualities that seem to be lacking in the debate around ADCs.

Update (10/9/19): The unofficial value-added ratings based on one-year math and ELA data from the Gap Closing component and reported in the tables above reflect just grades 4-8. Since the publication of this post, ODE has released one-year scores based on all grades-subjects with value-added data (including also high-school EOCs and science). Had data from all state exams been used to calculate one-year value-added scores, both Lorain and Youngstown would have received an equivalent of an "F."  

- Aaron Churchill 

Today, the Center for American Progress and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute announced the selection of ten finalists in its joint “Moonshot for Kids” contest. The competition is part of a yearlong project to gather ideas for new education research and development investments. The goal is to generate new, evidence-backed proposals to substantially improve outcomes that have stagnated in America as other countries have realized significant gains among their own youth. The list of finalists and their ideas include:

Reducing the number of fourth graders reading below the Basic level, an extremely modest indicator of literacy:

• Tom Neumark: The design and evaluation of reading curriculum and aligned professional development that packages scientifically based methods in an actionable format for teachers.
• Anna Utgoff, Bibliomatic: Computerized games with speech-recognition technology to identify mistakes students make while reading out loud and provide personalized feedback to improve reading skills.
• Ginger Young, Book Harvest: Home visits three times a year to all Medicaid-eligible families with newborns to provide books, language rich curriculum, and parent-focused literacy training that gets kids kindergarten ready.

Doubling the amount of high-quality feedback middle school students receive:

• Kareem Farah, The Modern Classrooms Project: A professional development framework to help teachers restructure their instructional time using videos, allowing them to provide more feedback one on one with every student, every day.

Doubling the number of effective eighth-grade writers:

• Michelle Brown, CommonLit: A free and open access online reading curriculum that helps teachers foster adolescent literacy not only in English classes but also social studies, humanities, and STEM classes.
• Steve Shapiro, FineTune: An artificial intelligence application that guides students through the essay writing process with as much accuracy and personalization as a one on one interaction with their teacher.

Universal college or career counseling for all students before ninth grade:

• Jayda Batchelder, Education Opens Doors: A college and career knowledge curriculum embedded directly into classrooms that could increase average time on college guidance from thirty-five minutes over four years to 900 minutes in just one year.
• Anna Vallee, Harvard Graduate School of Education: A college admissions dating app that matches high school students with colleges based on compatibility (e.g., geography, GPA, SAT scores, college size, college type, etc.) and calculates their chances of admission.

Doubling the number of young women majoring in STEM fields:

• Ryan Torbey, University of Texas at Austin: A National Robot Library that would loan physical computing devices to teachers at no cost and provide teachers with curricula and training focused on engaging female students.
• Lindsey Tropf, Immersed Games: Video games that engage students in solving real-world problems such as testing a broken ecosystem and proposing engineering solutions to fix it or using genetics to solve a simulated hunger crisis.

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The winner of the Moonshot for Kids competition will be named at an event this November, where these ten finalists will pitch their ideas to a panel of judges at a live Shark Tank-like event. The winner will win a $10,000 grand prize—with all finalists taking home a $1,000 prize. More information about the event will be announced in the coming weeks.

For more information about the contest, please contact Colin Seeberger at [email protected] or 202-741-6292.

The hottest topic of conversation in education circles these days is what the legislature plans to do with academic distress commissions (ADCs), the state’s method for intervening in persistently low-performing school districts. Prior to the rush of budget season, the House passed an amended version of House Bill 154, legislation aimed at replacing the ADC model with a school-based, locally-driven intervention mechanism. The House bill is a mixed bag. There are some provisions that are promising, but others are problematic.

Recently, the Senate Education Committee released an amendment to HB 154 reflecting a very different approach than the House. The new language is similar to language that the upper chamber considered including in the budget. The Senate would establish a statewide School Transformation Board that would be responsible for overseeing turnaround efforts, as well as new timelines and requirements for districts that earn overall F grades on their state report cards.

The merits and drawbacks of this latest proposal are still being debated in the Senate’s education committee. But one thing is for sure: It’s very complicated. Here are the answers to some of the most important questions advocates and members of the general public might soon be asking.

What is the School Transformation Board?

The School Transformation Board would be in charge of Ohio’s district improvement efforts. It consists of five members: the state superintendent, the chancellor of higher education, and three members appointed by the governor with the advice and consent of the Senate. The governor’s appointees must have “experience and expertise in education policy or school improvement,” and one of them must belong to a different political party than the governor. The board’s responsibilities include establishing School Improvement Committees, ratifying contracts between districts and school improvement experts and organizations, and approving alternative interventions.

What happens to districts that earn overall F grades on state report cards?

Nothing if the district only earns an overall F for one year, and then gets a D or higher. But when a district receives a second consecutive overall F, the bill stipulates that the district must be designated with “improvement” status. Districts must then create an improvement plan for the entire district and for each of the district’s schools that received an overall grade of D or F. The district board must approve each plan by a majority vote. Districts have the option of contracting with an approved school improvement expert or organization to help them implement their plans.

If a district implements an improvement plan but continues to earn overall F grades, things get complicated. Starting after the fourth straight F, there are two pathways districts could follow, depending on whether they have contracted with an external school improvement expert or organization. If they have signed such a contract, they get additional years to implement their improvement plan. Otherwise, the Transformation Board establishes a School Improvement Committee, essentially taking over control of the district from the local school board.

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What must be included in an improvement plan?

The bill outlines several features that each improvement plan must contain. They include evidence-based or evidence-supported strategies for school improvement, academic improvement benchmarks based on student data, a plan for ongoing engagement with community stakeholders, and an implementation timeline. Plans must be approved by the district board no later than May 31 during the school year in which the district was identified as in improvement status.

Districts are required to convene a community stakeholder group for the district and one for each school to assist in creating plans. Members of these groups include, but are not limited to, a parent, a classroom teacher, a member of the business community, and a representative from a nearby college or university.

What’s the role of outside school improvement organizations and experts?

The Senate bill makes it possible for districts to access external expertise and funding. The department must create a list of approved experts and organizations that provide root cause analyses and school improvement supports. Districts are then permitted to contract with one of these entities. If a district chooses to enter into a contract during the first year of its improvement designation, then the department will pay for the entire cost of the contract. Districts that wait until their second year of an improvement designation only get 50 percent of the cost covered. Districts that wait longer than two years to sign a contract are not eligible for funding.

The bill identifies several elements that must be included in contracts, including progress benchmarks. Districts that fail to meet these benchmarks for three consecutive years will no longer receive state funding to cover contract costs. A district is also ineligible to receive such funds if the School Transformation Board determines that it is “not complying” with its improvement plan. In addition, experts and organizations can annually receive no more than 75 percent of their contractual fee; the remaining funds are not awarded until the school is no longer in improvement status. These provisions serve as an important incentive. Districts and the entities they choose to contract with only receive the total amount of state funding they are promised if schools actually improve.

What is a School Improvement Committee?

If a district implements an improvement plan but continues to earn overall F grades, then the School Transformation Board establishes a School Improvement Committee to oversee the district. Committees are comprised of six members: three are appointed by the state superintendent (one of which must have a background in education or education policy), one is appointed by the teachers union (a non-voting member), and one must be from the business community and is appointed by the mayor. The final member is the president of the district’s school board. At the time of their appointment, all members must be residents of the county in which the district is located or an adjacent one.

The members of the School Improvement Committee are responsible for appointing a director to lead the district in implementing a new improvement plan. Like the CEO of an ADC, directors have operational, managerial, and instructional control of the district. This includes powers such as hiring new employees, conducting employee evaluations, creating a budget and contracting for services, and determining curriculum. Directors must convene community stakeholder groups to assist with creating improvement plans for the entire district and for individual schools, and these plans must be approved by the School Improvement Committee. The committee is also responsible for conducting an annual performance evaluation of the director.

Can districts challenge being placed under the control of a School Improvement Committee?

Yes. If the School Transformation Board establishes a School Improvement Committee in accordance with the provisions of the bill, the affected district may petition the board within thirty days for the right to implement an “alternative district intervention option” developed by the district board. The School Transformation Board must hold a public hearing that allows the district board to provide testimony to support their case. The School Transformation Board is the sole authority able to approve or deny a district board’s request. If the request is denied, the district will be subject to a School Improvement Committee.

What happens to districts that are currently under an academic distress commission?

If this bill becomes law, all ADCs will be dissolved. The School Transformation Board will establish a School Improvement Committee instead, but the district will remain under ADC control until the transition to a committee is complete. Like other districts, ADC-controlled districts will be permitted to request a public hearing from the School Transformation Board to petition for an alternative intervention option created by the district board. ADC districts are also permitted to enter into a contract with an improvement expert or organization.

How does a district get out of improvement status?

A district can officially exit out of improvement status if it meets one of two requirements:

1. For two consecutive years, it receives an overall grade of D or higher and an overall value-added progress score of C or higher.

2. For three consecutive years, it meets all academic benchmarks that were established in the school improvement plan and receives a score of C or higher on the value-added progress measure.

If the bill is passed, when do these changes go into effect?

If passed in its current form, the law applies starting in July 2020. When determining which districts qualify for improvement status, the department is prohibited from using overall grades that were assigned prior to the 2018–19 school year. Because state report cards aren’t released until September and districts need two consecutive overall F grades to be assigned improvement status, we likely won’t know the first districts to be identified until September 2020. 

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The complexity of the Senate’s newest proposal is evidence of just how complicated and controversial district and school improvement efforts have become in the Buckeye State. The bill is not a perfect solution to the problems that have plagued ADCs since they were strengthened in 2015, but it is certainly the most promising proposal made by legislators thus far. Here’s hoping lawmakers can iron out the kinks and settle on a fix that will have students’ best interests at heart.

1. Some surprisingly nuanced discussion of the online charter school environment in Ohio 18 months or so after the demise of ECOT. The experts interviewed for the piece, including our own Chad Aldis, got tons of room to explain the history, the state of play, and ongoing efforts to improve the governance of the sector. And the description of what led to ECOT’s closure iss as calm and neutral as I’ve ever read. But more importantly than all that, I ask you, when was the last time a story about online charter schools writ large talked to a student? Let alone a student who had a great experience? Let alone as the opening to the piece? Nice. (Toledo Blade, 9/16/19)
2. This in-depth look at reaction to the state report card results from various education leaders in Marion County school districts is interesting. There is an attempt to connect these with the postsecondary readiness findings of Fordham’s recent research report, but the final linkages are just not made. Instead, we get well-spoken and detailed variations of “report cards don’t show everything” and “report card outcomes correlate to poverty levels”. The result is something akin to “you can’t teach poor kids the same way you teach wealthy kids”. Yep. Connection definitely missed there. (Marion Star, 9/15/19)

3. Harping on the “report cards don’t show everything” mantra becomes a problem, however, when those report cards show positive trends you might like to tout. Dayton City Schools is in that boat a little bit, as this in-depth look at their rise from an overall F to a D clearly shows. Getting to an overall D was basically the only thing the district cared about last year (besides spending money, that is), and they pulled out all of the stops including overhauls to staffing, curriculum, and teaching. You know: improving their work. Those concrete efforts have led to demonstrated and unmistakable improvements as evidenced by the report card. But it’s hard to crow about them too loudly a week after you were complaining that “report cards are a flawed snapshot” without some questions being raised. At least by me anyway. (Dayton Daily News, 9/15/19) In Lorain, the MJ did a school-by-school analysis of the report cards. School leaders interviewed for the piece touted the obvious, measurable improvements and what they did to get there. They also generally owned their low grades and talked about how they were already on the road to further improvement this year. That is not, I think, what the MJ was expecting to hear. (The Morning Journal, 9/13/19) Five years ago, Chase STEMM Academy in Toledo City Schools received an “F” on its state report card. Since that time, relentless work to improve student academic outcomes—including the adoption of a STEM curriculum—has led to improvements. This year, Chase received a “B”. The principal and his team cite report card data as vital to their work and as validation of their efforts. (WTOL-TV, Toledo, 9/13/19)
4. Sadly, editors at the Morning Journal do not seem to be impressed by the boost in Lorain City Schools’ overall report card. But do take a look at their depiction of Lorain’s “D” vs. Elyria City Schools’ “D”. Sounds a little different, doesn’t it? (The Morning Journal, 9/14/19)

5. Springfield City Schools’ drop to an overall grade of F this year was somewhat unexpected. Although the comments from district parents recorded in the News Sun indicate that some folks were not surprised. The supe vows to not let that F “define his schools”, even though it kind of does. (Springfield News-Sun, 9/15/19)
6. In keeping with our lead story today, here is another nicely done piece looking at charter schools. Specifically, the Lima News took time to visit a number of brick-and-mortar schools in the area and provide short profiles of each. The piece could probably use a bit of higher level background in there about what charters are and how they operate generally in Ohio, but honestly having on the ground visits described without caveats is more than most charter schools usually get around here. Viva la nuance! (Lima News, 9/16/19)

7. In Water is Wet news, the Cincinnati teachers union doesn’t like Teach for America or anyone associated with it. I’m still not sure why such “no duh” information required a vote and a giant proclamation. (Cincinnati Enquirer, 9/16/19)

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Note: This is the fourth in a series of posts on school funding in Ohio. For the previous blogs, see here, here, and here.

One of the central tenets of the much-discussed Cupp-Patterson school funding plan is that “dollars flow directly to where students are actually educated.” That notion is exactly right. In some respects, the plan works to accomplish that goal—most notably, by shifting school choice programs to a direct funding mechanism. But the plan is incomplete as it doesn’t deliver policies that would create fair funding within districts. A true “fair funding” plan would not overlook this critical dimension. Students, after all, attend schools not districts.

For districts with just a few schools of similar demographics, ensuring a fair distribution isn’t likely to be a major issue. But in larger and more diverse districts, achieving that goal could prove more difficult—and may not be happening at all.  

In theory, an equitable distribution of funds within a school district should be easier to achieve than between districts across the entire state. Unlike districts, individual schools can’t levy property taxes, and thus schools in wealthier parts of a district can’t raise sums that far exceed their counterparts. Still, funding experts have questioned whether sprawling urban districts are actually driving extra resources to their neediest schools. The concerns are rooted mainly in teacher salary structures that reward seniority. Because schools in prosperous neighborhoods often attract more experienced teachers, they end up spending more than other schools in the district.

This post examines the school-level spending of state, local, and federal dollars in Columbus—Ohio’s largest school district—to see whether it is distributing funds fairly by providing more resources to its neediest schools.

Columbus

Enrolling roughly 50,000 students, Columbus City Schools encompasses neighborhoods of widely varying wealth. Unfortunately, we don’t have reliable poverty data for Columbus schools due to federal policy changes that have resulted in all district schools reporting 100 percent “economically disadvantaged” students. However, we can consider whether schools serving higher fractions of black and Hispanic pupils receive extra funds. (Census data on Columbus suggest that students from these subgroups are much more likely to be in poverty.)

Figure 1 indicates that Columbus doesn’t systematically direct more aid to schools serving more students of color. While majority-white schools are not noticeably favored, the flat trend line shows that schools serving large majorities of black and Hispanic pupils receive about the same as those enrolling fewer students of color—not a noticeably “progressive” funding system. The school-spending patterns within Cincinnati and Cleveland districts (not shown below) are nearly identical to Columbus.   

Figure 1: Relationship between per-pupil expenditures versus percent Black and Hispanic, Columbus district schools (fiscal year 2018)

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Source: Ohio Department of Education, Advanced Reports. Note: Most district expenditures are tied to specific schools, though some are not. In Columbus, 11 percent of expenditures are reported only at the district level. This figure does not include funding for public charter schools and three district schools that enroll more than 50 percent students with disabilities (the district average is 17 percent). The district’s spending pattern is similar when using ODE’s “expenditure per equivalent pupil” measure that adjusts expenditures for school demographics.

Improving funding equity within districts

To divvy up resources in a more equitable way, funding experts like Marguerite Roza of Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab and we at Fordham have long encouraged “weighted student funding” (WSF). This model can be an especially powerful lever for driving funding equity at a district level. Rather than linking schools’ spending to staffing inputs, WSF puts students at the center by tying extra money to pupils with greater needs. Since district funds follow students, district schools that serve primarily high-need students would receive more aid. High-poverty schools can use their extra money to recruit more effective, higher-paid staff—or supplement the staff they have with other resources and supports.

The details vary, but a few cutting-edge districts around the nation have adopted a WSF model, including Cleveland, though it doesn’t allocate funds based on poverty. Ohio’s civic and education leaders should continue to push for district funding policies that allocate dollars through a weighted funding model. Although state legislators are unlikely to mandate that districts allocate all of their funds via WSF, they should consider three policy initiatives that could move districts in that direction:

• Require state “categorical” dollars to follow district students to the school they attend. Ohio currently allocates a portion of state dollars to districts based on certain characteristics of their students (e.g., economically disadvantaged or English learning students). These state funds, known as “categorical” funding, aim to provide districts with extra support to serve children with greater needs. That’s a good start. But without a statutory requirement for districts to allocate dollars to the schools actually serving these students, the funds may be sent in the wrong direction. While this suggestion won’t completely resolve within-district inequities, it would guarantee that a certain portion of state funds follow children to their school of attendance.  
• Change the method for reporting low-income students. Districts should make intentional efforts to drive money to their poorest schools. But as alluded to above, shifts in federal subsidized meals policy have compromised school-level data on economically disadvantaged (ED) students. When all district schools report 100 percent ED students, it’s harder to target extra funds to schools serving the most low-income students. (For sensible reasons, no state or district, to my knowledge, directly ties funds to race and ethnicity.) To help support WSF at the district level, Ohio policymakers should begin reporting low-income students based on “direct certification” methods that flag students based on their families’ participation in means-tested programs like SNAP, TANF, or Medicaid. Though not without technical challenges, states such as Delaware and Massachusetts have shifted to direct certification, helping to produce a more accurate headcount of low-income students.  
• Repeal spending mandates for districts that adopt weighted student funding. One benefit of a WSF model is that it ensures monies arrive at the right school. Provided that safeguards are in place, legislators should consider undoing other spending regulations. Ohio law, for example, places very specific restrictions on spending state dollars for ED students. More recently, legislators placed limitations around the use of the student wellness funds. These stipulations may be warranted when districts allocate dollars in opaque and seemingly arbitrary ways. But they would become less necessary if districts adopted a WSF model that assures policymakers and the public that money flows to the schools that need it the most.

Equitable funding systems ensure that dollars follow students all the way to the schools they attend. Getting the flow of funds from districts to schools right is an important part of the equation. Next up, we’ll consider funding for students exercising school choice.

The view from the debate stage

Education issues, including charter schools, got some airtime in this week’s Democratic presidential debate. Chalkbeat covered these issues with the candidates’ quotes, analysis, and links to more news, information, and data.

Strong education options in rural America

Bellwether Education Partners recently launched a website dedicated to research, data, and information on rural charter schools across America. Partner Kelly Robson discussed the effort—and gave us a quick look at high-performing rural charters in New Mexico, Florida, Minnesota, and Arizona—in a new EdWeek piece this past Wednesday.

State report cards released

The biggest news in Ohio this week was the release of state report cards for districts and schools. The initial news coverage focused mainly on traditional districts and their overall grades. Kudos to the Columbus Dispatch for being first out of the gate with a quick look at charter school report card data in central Ohio. More analysis—including proper comparisons between charters and individual district schools—will surely be forthcoming.

"This school is different. It's not the same as the traditional school. They act like a family.”

Staying in Columbus for a moment, here is a nice look at YouthBuild School, a dropout recovery charter school. The school can boast of at least two success stories—and two huge fans of the program—in the young men profiled here.

#DaytonStrong

Seventh and eighth graders at Dayton Leadership Academies participated in a 9/11 commemoration in the Oregon District this week, which doubled as a remembrance of the recent tragic shooting there. The event, which was part of their leadership class at DLA, was covered by the local news and you can see that the awesome students represented their school and their city with pride and grace.