This is worth the journey. A Worthington Schools podcast. I am your host, Angie Adrian, and I get to serve Worthington Schools as the Assistant Superintendent of Academics. And I'm Jeff Maddox, the Assistant Superintendent of Operations in HR. Together we are. Your hosts and we're thrilled to have you join us. In Worthington schools we serve about 11,000 students and 1400
dedicated staff members. Our pride really lies in the strong relationships that we build with each other, which in turn creates this vibrant and supportive culture. Culture in Worthington School Schools is about shared values, traditions, and the diverse perspectives that define our community. It's the foundation that makes working together not only productives but also enjoyable.
Our mission in Worthington schools is to empower a community of learners who will change the world, and through this podcast, we have the privilege of sharing the stories of those who are already changing the world. Join us as we highlight the incredible journeys. And contributions. One week left. I think by the time this podcast airs, there'll be a week left of school. That's crazy.
Anytime you engage anybody in education, they will all say the same thing as this school year flew behind. Yeah, there are points of the year, though, where it doesn't feel like it's fine. January. February. March that. That's a stretch there. Super happy, super excited to welcome Doctor Trent Bowers to kind of close out our podcast this school year as we break for summer. So welcome, Trent. It's good to have you.
Hey, thanks for having me. So when I think about summer, I think about Alice Cooper in schools out for summer. That was the mantra of our generation. But what did I do in the summer? I really think about Doctor Gary Moore, who was my phys Ed teacher at Worthington Hills Elementary and he ran a camp at Camp Mary Orton called Adventure Camp. And we would actually build a raft and try to sail it down the Olentangy River.
Now, my raft never actually made it down the Olentangy River, but we spent a lot of time kind of floating down the river with Doctor Gary Moore thinking about summertime. Trent's raft is a shipwreck in the Olentangy if you want to go visit it. As we reflect a little bit on the 2425 school year, you know, are there moments that stand out to you that are especially meaningful, that really defined
our work in Worthington schools. 2425 has been an amazing school year in Worthington. You know, so we started back in August and we talked with our staff about what we called the difficult beautiful work. And we said that's the work of public education. It's, it's difficult because everything that's really meaningful in life is difficult. Like there's a level of challenge with something that's meaningful to us, but it's beautiful because we make a
difference for for kids. And so we have to remember our stat in public education that, hey, this is going to be hard some days, but what we do matters. And so when you are reflecting on a year, you can go, wow, like how many times did I see that happen in Worthington schools this year? And I can think about it in in a whole lot of ways. So as you know, Ange, we've really worked hard to put our portrait of a learner into
practice. And so we want our students in Worthington to live these durable skills. We want them to walk out with these skills that are going to help them in every area of their life. And one of the things that I'm really proud of is the work that you and your team have done with our schools. We've got this K12 articulation. And so we know that our elementary kids are talking about being a a leader and a thinker and a friend. And that starts early. And that's being embedded in the language.
And that at a developmental level makes a lot of sense. And it transitions to middle school, and then by the time a student leaves Worthington schools, we want him to have all of these durable skills, right? A confident communicator, a critical thinker, an adaptable learner, responsible collaborator, resilient learner. And I think we're on that path.
And it's fun to see our teachers embrace that, and more importantly, our students embrace that and start to talk the language and see it embedded in so many areas throughout the school district. I think when you say difficult, beautiful work, I think about a year ago when we began to dive into that work and never did I think we would be where we are with it now, right? Like it was.
We had a design team of over 200 people and we were talking about the durable skills and what that portrait would look like. We already had a middle school portrait in place. And so we created what we called a portrait of a learner for the entire district and our elementary team kind of said, hey, that's not going to work for us, right?
And so when you say we have this, this portrait that that goes pre K12 and we were able to create then three different portraits and it's so. Cool to see how quickly that got embedded across K12. Right. And what matters? Right. So and then and then we don't think it's going to come to life. And as you said, it's, it's really coming to life in our it's. Coming to life because people embrace it, and people embrace it because content matters but contents not important is how do
we teach our students to think? How do we teach them to be adapted? You know, we live in this world, and we spent a lot of time this year talking about artificial intelligence. And what does that mean?
And I'm proud of the work that we've done in artificial intelligence as far as creating a policy and saying to our students, hey, this is something that you can use, but still giving our teachers some freedom to say, hey, not right now, but we know that how these durable skills for our kids are going to last. I don't know if the content that we've taught in the past is going to last as long that you can see people embracing this because it's what we want for
our kids. We want them to be out in the future and, and have the opportunities that we want them to have. And so as a public Ed group, we're thinking, OK, how do we do career connected learning? How do we make sure that our students are ready for the future? And I think our K12 portrait is unique to Worthington and and really helps our students have that leg up. Clearly, a lot of really cool things going on this school year.
Trent, what are you most proud of when you look at the work of our staff, students and families and what they have accomplished together this year? What I'm always most proud of is how our staff members love kids. When you think about Worthington, the phrase that right now is in my head is I see better than I hear. And what I hope people see is 14130 adults who everyday go above and beyond to love kids.
That's what I see when I look at Worthington schools, when I'm in our schools, when I'm at events, when I'm talking to the community, when I talk to a parent, what they say is this teacher went above and beyond and, and they do it in many, many different ways. So that's what I'm most proud of. Now, there's technical things that I'm also proud of. You know, we went through this long special education audit process and this year has been about beginning to implement those changes.
And so our special education audit was a goal to create better results for our students and better working conditions for our staff. We want to be able to tackle both of those. One of the things that came out of that audit was the creation of a position called the coordinator of Student Behaviour and Mental health. The audit said, hey, we need one person that's going to coordinate this work with our counselors, our mental health specialists, our behaviour specialists, our outside
counseling group. We want to really help students across the school district as they build again those durable skills and those executive functioning skills. And so Nathan Kellenberger left Worthing Way Middle School and took over that role. And we're seeing the fruits of that labor this school year. We're also beginning to make changes in how we serve our special education students. And those changes came out of the audit.
And I'm proud to work in a place that says, hey, we think what we're doing is pretty good, but we want to be better at what we're doing. And we're going to dive into that. And we're going to do again the difficult work to make change that we think will benefit the school district long term. So we're really excited to see that come to fruition. And when I say fruition will never be done with that work, but every year it's going to get a little bit better. Yeah, super proud of the staff.
Change isn't easy and I, I've appreciated how they've leaned into that change, embrace that change, entrusted that change and we've already started to see some positive results. And very proud of Nathan's work, Less than one year into this and he hit the ground running and has really put some positive things in place and I look forward to see what he gets to do next. Year. And if Nathan was sitting here with us, what he would say is,
hey, I'm not doing this work. And I've got this incredible team of counselors and mental health specialists and Bcbas that care so incredibly deeply about kids that, you know, he's just the point guard, right? He's, he's trying to facilitate the ball. So these, these really talented
people could do the work. And so I appreciate when I talk with him the credit that he gives to that team and and their work on behalf of. Kids, is there anything that really resonates with you about our Worthington community and and examples of ways that we come together and support each other? Every school year is like a roller coaster, right? You've got these incredible positives and and really some low points. And so a couple times this year we experienced a level of
tragedy. Kilbourne Middle School tragically lost a teacher, Colleen Snyder. And in that process, there's times where we were able just to sit around around with the teaching staff and, and have conversations and tell stories and remember the way that Colleen rallied around kids and built connections with kids and staff were able to share memories. And so when you see that, it just reminds you that we're all committed to this same goal, right?
To this mission to empower a community of learners who will change the world. But we're also living life together. And so you see a staff come together and and care about one another and care about kids. I was at the funeral of Susan Hilbert's father. Susan is a fourth grade teacher at Evening Street Elementary School. And I watched Mary Rakowski, our principal at Evening St. She's been there since 2008.
And I watched her interact with parent after parent after parent, some of them whose kids have been out of elementary school for 10 years, 15 years. And I just thought, like, what an incredible difference somebody makes when they stay in a community and they invest and really marries it at the point where she's investing in like the second generation of kids to
come through that school. But that's really what I value when I think about, hey, what matters to me in public schools, part of it is just this impact that we can make on a community. And you make an impact by staying somewhere, investing somewhere, caring about people, not one time, but day after day
after day. And so you don't want to be at the funeral of of for something, but to watch Mary interact with people in that space really helped me step back and say, Hey, this is what our people do. They make a difference, friends in this community. That's a great transition to what I want to talk to you about next, and that is you often talk about the why behind our work. How do you personally stay connected to your purpose during the school year?
My why in public education has always been to try to make a positive difference in the lives of kids in the community. I modeled that after a person named Larry Zimmerman. Larry was the Superintendent in Marysville schools, and he was in Marysville schools for 40 years. Wasn't the Superintendent for all 40 years, but when I would talk with Larry, he stayed somewhere. And because he stayed somewhere, he built these long
relationships. You know, I really believe that our job is to, we want to meet our mission. We want every child to feel loved. We want him to feel taken care of. We want adults who believe in children. Children will reflect what we share with them. And if if they know that we believe in them, they'll begin to believe in themselves. And then when they believe in themselves, they can go off and they can accomplish our mission and they can go change the world.
So that's my why it is difficult. Beautiful work. And so there's days where I'm in the muck and I'm not seeing it right. And then there's days where you go to a school and you watch a student just raise their hand and share. Or you talk to a high school student and you're like, wow, this student has matured because I've seen them since kindergarten. And it's amazing to see where they are. And so that's what we're trying to do. You know, we're getting ready
for graduation. We're right around the corner from commencement. 830 students will graduate graduate this year from Worthington schools. I have a daughter who is a senior this year. And so I've seen a lot of these kids since kindergarten. And it's just amazing to watch kids come in, in kindergarten and they go through elementary school and they're doing their thing and they're doing music
performances and super games. And then they go off to middle school and they're crazy awkward and they're causing trouble with the Dairy Queen and all the middle school things. But but by the time they hit the end of high school, you're having these conversations with them and they're like adults because they've matured and they can understand what's going on.
And you see the investment of really hundreds of Worthington educators, support staff members, teachers, administrators that pour into every one of these children. And that's the beauty of public education. So change is constant in education, we know that. So whether it's new buildings, programs or people, what what are some some things that are happening in Worthington schools? And then what advice would you give teachers and staff as they they transition into the summer?
There's three things that I want to think about here. The first is we are under construction at our high schools, right? And so Thomas Worthington High School, the first phase, our new classroom wing opened. You see it from 161. It's amazing. We're building behind the building. The student comments, the library will all open in October. The auditorium, the music rooms will open in February of next year. Then we'll tear down the old building.
So we've got about another year of construction at Thomas Worthington, Worthington Kilborn's, a total renovation of the upstairs classrooms are 95% complete, but we're now doing construction downstairs and in the auditorium and the student Commons and in the gymnasium and out front of the building. And so our high school students, our high school staff are living through a lot of change and they've been amazing. I'm really proud of how they've adapted.
But this is the period of that time where it's hard, the excitement kind of wears off and you're like, like, is this ever we're going to get done? And if you've been through a renovation or a replacement of a, of something, you, you understand that my message there would be it's going to get
better. By December, January ish, we're going to be almost complete at Worthington Kilbourne High School. By this time next year will be almost complete at Thomas Worthington High School and we will have renovated and replaced facilities that are going to create not only great learning spaces and great workspaces, but great community spaces for the next couple generations of people in Worthington. So super excited about that. But we are, you know, living through that challenge.
So that's the first one. The second one is we're going through the state budget process. And the state budget process is a challenge in public schools. It always is. So the governor makes a proposal, and that proposal for Worthington wasn't great. We were going to lose $2.2 million. And that then goes to the Ohio House and the Ohio House creates their proposal. And frankly, that proposal was even much worse. They created this artificial cap on carryover balances and they said 30%.
If that were to pass, that creates significant instability for Worthington. It would force us to be back on the ballot in 2026 versus our plan of 2028. And more importantly, it just overrides the will of the local voters. And we think the school district is a local enterprise. So that's really concerning.
That'll go to the Ohio Senate. And so I would just say to our teachers, while I want you to relax this summer and enjoy, I also want you to pay attention to this budget process and, and really advocate for Worthington schools and make sure that, you know, hopefully we can create the kind of stability that that we have today. And then the third thing is I do want our teachers to step back and recharge, right? So education is an intense profession.
And so that when our teachers, when our educators are in schools, it takes a lot. It takes a lot of emotional energy. It takes a lot of physical energy. You know, as the Superintendent, I can drink coffee at my desk and I can use the restroom when I want to use the restroom. And I have some challenges, but I don't have challenges like a teacher in a classroom. And so our teachers really do need to recharge so that when they come back in August, they're ready to say, OK, what
does love require of me? How can I do this again? Right? And so I hope they get to get away, whatever that means, whether that's go to a beach garden in your backyard, read some fiction books, whatever their thing is. I really do hope they take time and do that because we want them to be ready to come back and continue with this difficult beautiful. Work Was there a moment this year where you walked into a building and you just thought This is why we.
Do this. So I don't know if there's a specific moment. I, there's so many things that I could highlight. I, I think about this year, I think about a kindergarten teacher at Wilson Hill Elementary, Erin Kasanovich. It was difficult work to start this school year. And yet Erin poured into kids and poured into kids and poured into kids and really created a positive environment and a positive experience for those
students. And I think that's just the example of the difficult, beautiful work. I was having a conversation just the other day with a parent who has a student at Linworth, and that parent sent their student on walkabout and this student's walkabout was to Germany and all of their stuff was stolen, Everything, passport, bags, wasn't sure how to navigate, how were they going to get to where
they need to go? And I thought, what an experience, you know, not necessarily a positive experience, but how do we learn life experience? By doing. And so I just have so much gratitude and respect for both our Linworth team, but also the parents that have the courage. I don't know if I could do it as
a parent. The parents that have the courage to send their high school students on something called Walkabout. I think about one of our students at the high school this year who had an apprenticeship through the electrician group and walks away today with not only a high school graduation coming up in a high school diploma, but also a job and an apprenticeship and a pathway to be an electrician. Work that's never going away,
work that AI can't replace. And really just listening to thinking about the people that this student worked with who just spoke so positively about them. And I thought, what a great example of Worthington schools. And so it all takes me back to this portrait of a learner, right? And we want to make sure that our students have these life skills to go off and do whatever they want to do. We, we frame that in Worthington as we want our students to go off and change the world.
But I always think they're going to change the world in big and small ways, but they're going to change it. But we have to equip them with the skills that they need. And we see that happening all the time. As we think about the 2526 school year, we highlighted a lot of great things that have happened this year, but as we think about next school year, is there one thing or you know, maybe a couple things that you're most hopeful for? Well, first of all, I love school, right?
So when, so when we start school, like I'm always excited that is my New Year's Day. Every year is like the first, the first day of school. That's how my, my mind works. It's so fun to see kids going back to school next year. We start universal all day kindergarten in Worthington. And so something we've wanted to do, frankly, for 20 years. And the board voted this fall to make next year kindergarten free all day kindergarten for everybody in Worthington.
And so it's super fun to see that come to fruition, something we've been working hard on and wanting to be able to do. And we feel like now's the right time continuing to implement reading practices and the science of reading. I'm so proud of our teachers and the adoption of CKLA and the
work and their investment. And frankly, the way they talk positively about this change, which tells you this is really good for kids because our teachers are on board and they're investing in it. And it's been really affirming to watch our teachers kind of work through that process. And. As we think about do we move that also to our middle school and think about the pilot that'll happen there, I'm excited to begin to see the benefits of our special education changes, right?
So we're making these shifts in special education and we'll continue to make more shifts, but we believe we're going to create better results for students and better working conditions for our staff. And so working through that change process every day that we see that implemented excites me. And just finally, we're a community organization. And so Nathan Kellenberger's work, Toya Spencer's work, really just partnering with our community. And how do we provide resources to our community?
How do we make sure that everybody in Worthington knows, hey, you belong here. Like we want to be a school district where everybody says I'm valued here, I'm seeing here, people care about me here. One of the things that I think is, is most special about public education is everyone is welcome here. And that's who we want to be in Worthington. I don't want anyone to ever
question that. I don't want anyone to ever doubt that this is a school district where no matter where you come from, what you believe, no matter what you do, I want you to be loved. Well, and I think we have 14130 staff members who embrace that. Thanks for tuning in to today's Worth the Journey podcast. You can find us on Apple, Spotify, Google, our Worthington school's website, or wherever
you get your podcast. A big thanks to Cory Carter and our communications team for making this podcast a reality. And of course, to our students at The Ohio State University and the communications department. The journey may not always be easy, but it'll definitely be worth it. Thanks for taking care of each other and have a great day out there.