WILLARD CITY SCHOOLS
Culture change going 'far better than expected' in Willard City Schools
ZOE GRESZLER • TODAY AT 4:00 AM
WILLARD — Is this a bullying problem or a culture problem? Do students want to come to school? Do they understand pride? Do they know how to treat other people?
Considering these questions has allowed the Willard City Schools district to pinpoint exactly where its problems lie, and to address those issues, producing “great” results.
“Things are going far better than expected,” superintendent Jeff Ritz said.
Since implementing a personal development program called “The Leader in Me” at the beginning of the school year, administrators has seen discipline referrals cut in half.
That didn’t happen by accident or by chance, Ritz said. The district has put up a hard fight to combat what it deemed a “culture issue.”
“About two years ago, we had a group of parents that were angry about the bullying that goes on, or what they interpret to be bullying,” he said. “Whether anyone decides if it is bullying or not, it’s a culture problem. And we have to address that culture problem.”
On April 2, 2017, Caleb Hershiser, 14-year-old Willard student, committed suicide in his family’s home, sparking a loud outcry against bullying in the district.
Police had received a tip that bullying might have played a role in the youth’s death. However, nothing found during the investigation “would indicate the cause of Caleb’s death was related to any sort of criminal act or provocation such as bullying that would have contributed to Caleb’s death,” the Huron County Prosecutor’s Office reported.
His mother, Anna Hershiser, launched an anti-bullying campaign that includes a billboard with a picture of her late son.
Bullying, whether actual or perceived, was still in the district, however. During the past two years, Willard school officials held a number of seminars and community events, altered its curriculum to fit anti-bullying ideas throughout the course work, altered the school’s atmosphere and even the way it’s able to respond to potential emergencies.
“I’m very proud about what this group has done,” Ritz said of the administrators spearheading the schools culture change.
“You try to get kids to make better decisions, but no matter what you do, you’re never going to prevent bullying from happening. It’s an impossibility to prevent. ... How can I stop you from doing it until after you’ve done it? I can’t punish you, so to speak, until you’ve stumbled. But what we’ve really looked at is getting you the intervention needed and then saying, ‘Don’t do it again.’”
Improving culture from the inside out
School board members received a small collection of papers that outlined each of the district’s bullying-related reports submitted during the last six months. The superintendent said each student who has been bullied, is the bully or is recommended for expulsion is required — along with his/her parents or guardians — to go through a two-hour counseling session, the cost of which is covered by the district.
Willard also had inspirational, positive messages painted on the corridors throughout the school, again helping to change the culture even in small ways. The murals share messages such as “Right is right even if nobody is doing it. Wrong is wrong even if everybody is doing it,” “The world is full of good people. If you can’t find one, be one,” and “Do good deeds. Make someone smile.” Ritz said new murals will be painted in January as a way to continue promoting positive messages.
Another method used to change the district’s culture is education — for the students, but also for the school staff and community.
The district has brought in authorities to discuss varying topics oriented around bullying, suicide prevention, treating people right and more. One example includes the recent suicide gatekeeper training with The Ohio State University, which Ritz said offers the “foremost experts in the country.” All counselors, three teachers and two administrators went through the training.
Suicide gatekeeping training will be offered in an evening training session for local parents. Ritz said he intends to make it mandatory for all administrators, and eventually for the entire school staff.
And on Jan. 24, a two-hour community session on school safety and bullying will be offered at the school.
In the students’ curriculum, the anti-bullying sentiments have worked in both obvious and subtle ways.
“One thing that we worked on with the staff is, ‘What can you do to change the culture?’ You can change the culture just by little things like this,” Ritz said. “So our curriculum is embedded with different anti-bullying slogans.”
Ritz also said the school psychologist “is going into the classrooms with teachers and teaching a curriculum on how to be aware if a student is being bullied — what to look for. They use training videos. The middle school kids have created the training videos for all these other kids.”
Creating the training videos served as a computer skills lesson for the students.
“You’re teaching these technical computer skills, teaching what the state tells us we have to,” Ritz said, “But you’re using (anti-)bullying as the vehicle.”
Training other schools
Willard’s many-faceted project to reduce bullying and create a better atmosphere for the students has been noticed because “it works,” Ritz said. In fact, the results have spoken so loudly for themselves that district administrators were asked to teach other schools how to follow suit.
“(Toledo Public Schools) asked us to give a presentation on what we’re doing because there aren’t a lot of schools that go through and do what we’re doing. In fact, I’d venture to say there’s none,” he said.
“Because of the approach (the district) and the staff has taken, we were asked to do a presentation and then they asked, ‘Would you guys be willing to come and train our staff on what you’re doing as well?’”
Ritz said he’s “very proud” both of the district’s accomplishments in this regard, but also in the individual administrators who have made the difference and remained “dedicated” to improving Willard City Schools.
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Willard City School superintendent Jeff Ritz discusses how the district is trying to change the students' culture for the better with positive murals throughout the school at the 2018 Chamber of Commerce banquet. The school hopes to help students grow up to be good leaders and good workers, and to prevent them from being sucked into the negative aspects of the culture around them. The district believes this has helped to decrease the amount of bullying.
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“What’s wrong with improving your culture? No matter what you believe, you have to improve your culture. We have a culture problem here that we are working hard to improve and it’s going to be a long, drawn-out process, but we’re going to succeed in doing this because (the district) won’t have it any other way.”
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