Bulldog Bulletin
NONPROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE PAID CANTON, OH PERMIT NO. 2083
Canton City Schools 305 McKinley Avenue N.W. Canton, OH 44702
ECRWSS Postal Customer
Black, White and Red All Over VOLUME 1 NUMBER 1
JULY, 2021
Superintendent’s Message
Resiliency is a tenacity that drives success even when the battle wounds are still fresh. So, as you can tell, I’m a sports guy – a former coach who sees the parallels of life and athletics – but when it comes to the resiliency of our students in a year like no other, I can give you other examples. It’s our many seniors who lost their primary caregivers to COVID and other illnesses who are going on to graduate. It’s the senior who works the midnight shift at a chicken processing plant who is graduating. It’s the senior who, as a young child, became paralyzed as a result of a gunshot wound, and was bound and determined to walk across the stage for graduation. He’s going to do it. All around the country, schools stayed closed to their students, while here in Stark County we have worked hard to protect our most vulnerable staff and students while remaining committed to keeping our doors open. The school districts surrounding Canton did a phenomenal job of navigating COVID-19 and getting their schools open in 2020-21. My hat is off to everyone.
Through dedication and cooperation, our teachers
I worked a good part of my career here in Canton before leaving to gain the experience I needed to lead. I knew the kind of people I was getting upon my return, and yet this year, the staff impressed me beyond my words, if not my expectations. In my experience, teachers are dedicated and generous people at heart. That’s in a normal year. Our teachers, during this pandemic, were that, and much, much more. Many of our teachers have gone out and tracked down students who, for whatever reason, didn’t show up online or in school. These teachers brought those kids back and made sure they were caught up on schoolwork.
SOCIAL MEDIA WHERE TO FIND US!
Throughout the district, I hear families praise our teachers for innovative lessons, leadership, and most importantly, empathy and caring for students. I hear teachers say we are all a family and they will do what it takes for our students to succeed. I have seen teachers and staff care for students with social and emotional needs that may be more complex than we will ever know, but those kids own the collective heart of our staff. And all of this while reminding students to keep their masks up, and stay six feet apart. A theme is taking hold in the Canton City School District. It’s “Bulldog Pride is Citywide,” and it is showing from top to bottom in our buildings with students and staff, and throughout Canton among our families, leaders and community partners. This pride is well-earned as we did something this year that was not easy and certainly not expected. I want to publicly thank our entire staff for stepping up to the plate and – at the risk of using another sports analogy – knocking it out of the park. Thank you for living up to the values of the Canton City School District: Excellence, Leadership and Community.
ccsdistrict.org
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How did we do it?
Now, let’s talk about our teachers.
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But our circumstances were somewhat different. While we don’t make excuvses or apologize, we can say that we are a high-poverty district. We have a wide range of economic diversity, and this made opening back up in the fall of 2020 a challenge. We were the only large urban school district in Ohio to return to school face-to-face for the entire year.
Our child nutrition staff made sure students were fed even when our doors were closed for extended breaks. Our transportation team delivered meals to bus stops. Our safety and security team often took schoolwork to the kids who couldn’t be here for whatever reason. Our school community workers, counselors, nurses and support staff did whatever they could to make sure students were safe, both physically and mentally, in a time when uncertainty and fear often ruled our decision-making.
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Resiliency is a word we use often in the Canton City School District. It means different things to different people. To me, it conjures up an image of a shortstop charging everything that’s hit at him, even after he’s face-planted in the dust several times. It’s the tailback who’s just been dug out of a pile of 300-pound linemen and pulled up to his feet by a teammate, and who runs back to the huddle and begs for the chance to run the ball up the middle again.
School Dates and Supply Lists, 3 Child and Adolescent Services, 4 Technology/Curriculum Updates, 4 Awards, 6-7 McKinley, 8 Early College High School, 9 Crenshaw Middle School, 9 AIM Academy, 10 Arts Academy, 10-11 Lehman, 12 STEAMM, 13 Belden, 13 Cedar, 14 Clarendon, 14 Tom Tod Wraps Up, 15 Cedar Summer Enrichment, 16 Deuber, 17 Gibbs, 17 Harter, 17 Mason, 18 McGregor, 18 Patrick, 19 Stone, 19 Schreiber, 19 Worley, 20 Youtz. 20 Early Childhood, 21 BVA, 21 Compton Learning Center, 22 Adult Ed, 22 Athletics, 24-25 Sport Schedules, 26-27
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By Jeffery Talbert, Superintendent Canton City Schools
In This Issue
and administrators learned new and innovative ways to engage students, whether they were online or in person. Our tech-savvy teachers joined our technology staff to lead professional development. We distributed iPads to every student and free Wi-Fi service to those who needed it. We offered in-home tech support.
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How Resiliency and Commitment Kept Us Open in a Year Of Uncertainty
L D TY S O O CH
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