Newport’s new education task force believes it has found a middle ground between tradition and reform —a lab school model that would bring university expertise into the classroom without compromising local identity.
The Newport Education Task Force was established in 2019 to support the Newport Independent School District in improving performance.
It created three reports (in 2020, 2022, and 2024) centered on the district’s academic achievement, finances and school working conditions. After four years of the first rendition of the task force with little improvement from Newport Schools, the Education Task Force 2.0 was formed with new faces and ideas.
The idea that has stuck is the launch of a laboratory (lab) school—a K–12 school associated with a university. This vision centers on teacher preparation, curriculum development, and research to address Newport’s education challenges.
To implement a lab school in Newport, the Newport Board of Education would need to lead and approve the initiative, along with a local university. One of the benefits of this model is that Newport would keep its Wildcat pride and community school. The board of education and the superintendent would remain unchanged under the lab school model, unlike in a merger.
“We have an opportunity, if we open our minds and we think about what we can do to really make a radical change in our school system?” Newport Commissioner Ken Rechtin said. “That may be it. So, I would strongly support a three to six-month investigation into the feasibility of a university alignment with one of the great universities in our metro area.”
LINK nky asked Newport Board of Education Chair Ramona Malone for comment on the board’s interest in the lab school model, but she declined.
To develop the lab school model, listening sessions were held over two days with about 22 people to discuss new ideas. Those in the room included Newport residents, members of neighborhood groups, parents, city officials, school board members, and teachers, among others.
“ Unless people are really willing to step out of their comfort zone, I just don’t see things going in a positive direction.”
task force member Paige Wilson
According to the Learning Policy Institute, reported advantages of lab schools include stronger ties to teacher education and professional development, access to university resources, and environments that support instructional innovation. Major challenges include funding, sustainability, equity concerns, and a limited base of rigorous evidence on student outcomes.
Because of the stronger ties to teacher education and professional development, a benefit of a lab school model can be higher teacher retention.
“If you think about it, there’s a whole department of education in a university that’s working on what you’re doing to make you the best teacher, so your kids have the best results,” said Education Task Force member and Newport resident Lynn Schaber. “It kind of makes sense that teachers would feel most supported.”
The Learning Policy Institute report suggests that supportive induction and mentoring processes are available in lab schools. Other structures common in lab schools (residencies and professional development) are also associated with higher teacher retention.
There are also examples of reduced teacher turnover. According to Appalachian Today, Appalachian State University’s Academy at Middle Fork showed that teacher retention is notably higher and that turnover has dropped by 5 percentage points from last year and nearly 11 from the year prior.
Ruth Mitchell, a Newport resident, serves on the education task force and has 46 years of experience in education. During her time in education, Mitchell has worked as a teacher, guidance counselor, principal and director of education and administration.
Mitchell worked for various Ohio school districts, and during that time, one of those districts had a partnership with the University of Cincinnati that she described as a lab school-type collaboration. Mitchell said that UC would send 22 to 25 of their junior-level aspiring teachers to teach in her school. Mitchell’s district hired a liaison to work with those students and meet with university staff.
“There was an articulation between the college and our system in terms of research-based strategies and what is working,” Mitchell said. “There was constant professional development for our teachers, as well as that in classroom experience [for the aspiring teachers], and many of those teachers came to work for us because we were hiring 34 teachers a year.”
Mitchell said the district’s partnership with UC, like in lab schools, focused on academics, small classes, and continuous professional development for staff. The program was volunteer-based for teachers and was K-12. She said the school system still defines its own curriculum, adopts its own teaching methodologies, and defines its own management strategies and techniques.
“You don’t take ownership away, it’s just you have that extra boost of other people working with kids and the continuous professional development,” she said.
In Mitchell’s case, those teachers remained with the district for two years, unlike in a student-teacher model, where a student might come into a district for maybe nine weeks and leave. Aspiring teachers would also take a workshop before coming into the district to learn its system.
Like Rechtin, Mitchell said she would like to see the school district create a team to investigate the possibility of a lab school.
“We [the committee] are just concerned community members who want people who move in here with small children to keep their children in our system and be happy instead of moving,” she said.
A lab school model can be implemented for just a portion of a district. For instance, if Newport Schools were interested, it could start by doing it at just the primary or high school level.
A recent focus of Newport Schools has been its earliest learners, with initiatives such as Read Ready Newport. The task force also kept that in mind, especially task force member Paige Wilson, who works at St. Elizabeth, but spoke with LINK nky only in her capacity as a task force member about the importance of early childhood education.
Early intervention is for children aged 0-3, before they enter a classroom.
“With early intervention, we know through research that about 80% of the child’s brain develops before a certain age, and 90% before they’re 3,” Wilson said. “So, it’s really important that if they have any delays, before they start preschool or kindergarten, that we address those delays. So, we will help them in areas of cognitive motor skills, speech and social emotional skills, which are all really important before you start school.”
Wilson said she thinks a lab school model would be beneficial for early learners.
“They [Newport Schools] have to do something different. They have to,” Wilson said. “The task force has been around quite a long time, and there was no change. Unless people are really willing to step out of their comfort zone, I just don’t see things going in a positive direction.”
One goal of the Read Ready Newport team, which Wilson is knowledgeable about, is administering an ASQ. It is a questionnaire used by St. Elizabeth Hospital for children under 2 to identify potential red flags in speech and language development.
Wilson said she will continue to help the district with early intervention, provide data on how many ASQs are being completed, and monitor whether the district is improving. Wilson said that through research, she knows that kids who receive early intervention show higher grade retention, test scores, and graduation rates, regardless of income status.
According to the task force, the next step is for the Newport Board of Education to decide whether to explore the lab school model further. This could be done by adding the item to the meeting agenda and holding a public discussion.
“I think the biggest thing that will make or break it is the school board,” Schaber said. “The school board and administration have to be willing to look into this, but we can’t force it. So that would be kind of the first step, the school board and the superintendent would have to start, they would have to be interested.”