Xenia — A local student is saying she is not learning math at school and she’s worried it could impact her college outlooks.
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“She broke down crying in the kitchen. Just broke down crying, and I don’t know what to do about that,” Desiree Wiedenheft said.
Desiree’s daughter, Madeline, is a sophomore at the Xenia STEM Academy.
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As reported on News Center 7 at 6, the school focuses on nontraditional instruction that does hands-on, real world projects. They say this prepares students for the workforce.
“She is worried that she’s not going to be prepared for college. Like that’s her thing,” Desiree said.
This is Madeline’s second year at Xenia STEM Academy, and she didn’t have any complaints from her first year.
Madeline reached out to News Center 7 through email saying, “months have gone by without a single drop of math instruction.”
The founder of the school, Dr. Jeremy Ervin says that the way they do things is different.
“There are some projects that the math looks different. So it’s not about computation, it’s more about logic and critical thinking and analyzing logic problems,” Ervin said.
Ervin says the school meets state standards, including state testing. Madeline said in her email that she felt unprepared during the tests.
“We haven’t got those scores back yet. But she’s like ‘I don’t think that I answered half of the one because I didn’t even know,’” Desiree said.
Ervin says the school’s style of learning is backed by research and decades of success.
“Our projects are more robust and more comprehensive and so it’s more integrated across all of the state subject areas and the state standards,” Ervin says.
The school has an overall rating of 2.5 stars out of 5 stars on the Ohio School Report Card from the state.
The school received 3 stars for Achievement with the rating stating the school “meets state standards in academic achievement, but just 2 stars on Progress and Gap Closing. The ratings state there is “significant evidence that the school fell short of student growth expectations” and the schools “needs support to meet state standards in closing educational gaps.”
Desiree says, depending on the state test scores, they may be looking at moving schools.
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