“We’re really proud that we are turning the culture around,” said Ninth District Elementary School Assistant Principal Jennifer Maines at the Covington Independent Public Schools Board of Education meeting Thursday night.
Maines and the school’s main principal, Rachel Jenkins, gave a presentation on the status of the school during the meeting, where they highlighted new community outreach efforts the school had instituted to develop relationships with student families and the outlying community. Internal data suggested they were working.
Jenkins and Maines have worked in various roles in the district for about 20 years. Maines worked as an instructional coach at Sixth District Elementary School last year and as a fourth-grade teacher at Glenn O. Swing Elementary School the year before. When she started as assistant principal this year, she knew she wanted to make some changes.
“The biggest challenge is reestablishing a conducive culture,” Maines told the board. “The culture for a while was broken.”
In the past, Maines told LINK nky, “There wasn’t a lot of the family engagement and communication between families… Last year there was 30% family engagement for the entire school year. We’re already at over 72% for this entire year.”
Maines based these figures on the number of student families who had attended community events thus far in the school year, including the recent Halloween celebration called A Very Viking Boo Fest.
“We came to Boo Fest a couple of weeks ago,” said Billy Crooker, who has a student at the school. “This place was packed. I mean, everybody was here. It was a good boost.”
Both Crooker and Amber Ennis, another Ninth District parent, said that even though they’ve never had any issues with their kids or the school, she admitted that Ninth District has had a reputation for bad student behavior.
“I went to Covington schools my entire life,” Ennis said.
“The kids love it here,” she also said, adding that she hoped the school wouldn’t be shut down, referencing a possible district consolidation that was on the table last year. The school board eventually put off this decision until after they’d updated their district master plan, which is currently in progress.
The school took other measures to improve teacher and student morale, including the institution of weekly and monthly student recognitions, regular morning meetings, community partnerships — one of which provided free school supplies for all of the school’s students — and rewards for good behavior.
The school’s internal data indicates that student attendance is up this year: Average daily student attendance for the first two months of the school year is up about 8.6% from last year.
The school has also taken measures to retain teachers, including expanded curriculum development support and training opportunities.
Jenkins and Maines said there was still some room for improvement.
Kindergarten readiness scores, although better than last year, are still below the state average. In 2023, 21% of incoming kindergarten students were ready to be in school, which is below the district average of 32% and well below the state average of 46%, according to Kentucky’s School Report card.
Fortunately, third-grade reading scores are improving. There was a 14% increase in students scoring as proficient in reading this year.
“You can tell the community here really loves this place,” said Board of Education Member Hannah Edelen.