Buckeye looking to pave pathway to success

ASHTABULA TOWNSHIP – Dr. Joe Gerics describes himself as calculated and intentional.
Those traits showed just after Gerics was hired as the principal at Edgewood High School.
“When I got the job, people congratulated me,” Gerics said. “There was one individual who asked if I was going to make changes. I said I would do nothing without research. Those who know me know I’m very calculated. I’m very intentional. I’d rather go an inch wide and a mile deep than a mile wide and an inch deep.”
It was then that Gerics, the Edgewood High School staff and the Buckeye Local School District staff, and even A-Tech Superintendent Scott Wludyga, went to work in an attempt to raise the district’s state report card results.
Gerics, Wludyga, Danyel Ryan, school improvement coordinator for Buckeye Local Schools and Edgewood High School guidance counselors Sarah Izzi and Nicole Kray presented some of the information they found through research and study during a regular Board of Education meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 20.
Gerics said Edgewood was known for being a strong school academically. He noted that he wanted to maintain that reputation, but also expand upon it in what might be seen as an unconventional manner.
“I really believe that Edgewood is known for its academic rigor, its academic excellence, and really (the direction I want to go is) maintaining that, but also expanding that footprint into industrial credentials so that we’re really capturing what’s going to benefit all of our kids, no matter what tier they are,” Gerics said. “I will be the first to tell you that we have kids who will work their tails off and work and work and work, and they maintain that C level. I want (our students) to be able to, when they graduate Edgewood, say, ‘I received a great education, but I also received the industrial credentials. They’re going to help me if I choose to go right into that workforce.’”
One of the areas the group determined it could make improvements is through industry-recognized credential expansion in four areas – construction, information technology, hospitality and tourism and business marketing and finance.
“We looked at our staff, the composition, and how we can leverage the assets that we already have and get the most bang for our buck,” Gerics said. “We have the structure already in place to be able to start to bring some of these to our kids.”
Gerics and the Buckeye Local Schools staff looked at the top performing schools at the local, regional and state levels and tried to find what they all have in common.
“What are things that we can beg, borrow and steal from, that we can work in with our infrastructure and with our staff,” Gerics said.
“One of the things that really kind of stood out to me was the credit hours (required) for graduation,” Gerics continued. “We’re at 24 and one of the things that we are we are starting to see, is that, because we are a premier place for education, people want to come here. Sometimes, our students might get caught, if they’ve not been with us all the way through and come to us in 10th grade, with a credit deficiency. As you can see, we have the highest credit requirements in the area, what they would have to do is take a full load of classes and then also a credit recovery course to get them on par. Sometimes, that’s a heavy lift.”
The State of Ohio requires a minimum of 20 credits for students to graduate and most school districts require a minimum of 21 credits.
“While I love comparing ourselves to our neighbors, I also really love looking at who’s high-performing in the State of Ohio, because that’s where I want us to be,” Izzi said.
Prior to 2004, Buckeye required 22 credits for graduation.
“Then, you start to see a shift once that block scheduling really kicked in,” Izzi said. “Students had had it for four years, I think (the board) saw that (students) were having more credits (when they graduated) and said, ‘Well, then let’s bump up the requirements. They’ve got opportunities to earn way more credits on block schedule.’ It slowly increased from 24 to 25 to 27. There’s definitely more opportunity to earn more credits in that block scheduling.”
The 2014-15 school year was the last year of block scheduling, but the school still maintained an eight-period day. In 2024-25, Edgewood reverted back to a seven-period day.
“We spent a lot of time and research on that and all the benefits, and I can tell you, I think we’re seeing that across the board,” Izzi said. “Teachers are really happy. Students are really happy with that flex period that we have, but that’s also going to pose some challenges back with our credit requirement, and not necessarily for the bulk of our students, but as we’re looking into the future and how we can help all of our students succeed, I think it’s important to look at that bottom tier, too, that might struggle to get to that 24-credit requirement.”
By lessening the credit requirement for graduation, it might seem as if the school’s academic rigor would be lessened. Edgewood does have some safeguards against that, however.
“In our curriculum guide, and in our practice at Edgewood High School, we have a course minimum requirement, so regardless of where you stand with your credits, we would still maintain that so that those top performing students are still required to meet those standards,” Izzi said.
Edgewood students must complete seven credits as freshmen, seven as sophomores, six as juniors and five as seniors.
“For those top kids, we’re still going to require that you take above and beyond, even if you’re on track and blowing your credits out of the water,” Izzi said. “This is more looking at those students that might have challenges to meet 24 credits, and how we can try to help them succeed.”
In looking at the list of students who don’t graduate and trying to figure out the reasons, Izzi has learned some valuable information.
“Unfortunately, a lot of them are dropping out to the yO! (youthOPPORTUNITIES!) program to get their GED, because they don’t see it as a possibility to ever get to 24 credits after starting off on a bad foot,” Izzi said.
Izzi thinks there is a solution to that problem.
“I feel like the system we have in place now, we’ve got a better chance for them to be able to get to the credits if we were to consider lowering it,” Izzi said. “That is certainly something that we’re considering. I don’t want to say lowering, I want to say aligning with the school districts that are top performing in the State of Ohio.”
The lowering of credit requirements would not include the lowering of requirements for classes like English, math and science.
“Those school districts that require 21 (credits to graduate) require the same number of English, the same number of math, the same number of science, the same number of social studies,” Izzi said. “We’re simply talking about elective credits. That’s where the change would come in, and from a funding standpoint, a financial standpoint, right now, having that higher credit limit and potentially working with students that are at-risk, we are in a tricky position when it comes to credit recovery programs.”
Credit recovery programs include summer school, which is only currently available online.
“It’s costly,” Izzi said. “We’re trying to fit it into the kids’ school day, but again, we have some time constraints there, too.”
College, Career, Workforce and Military Readiness (CCWMR) is now measured by the state and factored into the report card.
“The CCWMR component is now being measured on the state report card and that really does affect a lot of our middle students,” Gerics said. “When Mrs. Izzi was talking about electives, if we’re looking at these industrial credentials, there’s going to be a path that they’ll be on that they’ll have to gain 12 in this certain area. When she talks to electives, we want to see where our students can not only get these, but also be able to come out when they graduate with a certification in 10 hours in OSHA or Google Ad certification or Google Analytics or Amazon. These are going to be beneficial as soon as they leave and they graduate.”
The CCWMR component is factored with a denominator, the number of students in the four-year cohort.
“For example, in 2024, we had 141 students total in that cohort,” Ryan said. “They start counting them from when they start as freshmen. One thing I want to note, too, if a student drops out, they’re still counted in that, so it’s really important that we hit all of these.”
The numerator is the number of students that hit at least one item in a list of 11 subject areas that includes: honors diploma; industry-recognized credential; dual enrollment credit; ACT or SAT remediation free; qualifying scores on three or more AP or IB exams; military enlistment; apprenticeship acceptance (18-over); pre-apprenticeship acceptance completion; apprenticeship completion; achieved proficiency on or more technical assessments in a single career pathway; and OhioMeansJobs readiness seal and 250 hours of work-based learning.
Some of the components might be easy enough for the high-level students to reach, but difficult for others, like honors diplomas and CCP credits, and enlistment in the military is not something the district has any control over. There are, however, areas the district can reach a good number of students.
“The last one, obtained an OhioMeansJobs readiness seal, this one right here is where the counselors can kind of determine, sooner rather than later, with some of our students that struggle, or some of our students that have learning disabilities, if they need an alternate pathway for graduation, a lot of our students will start working on this earlier,” Ryan said.
That’s where Wludyga’s assistance comes into play.
“If you can see that middle area where it says earned at least 12 industry-recognized credential points in a single career field, that is where, with a plan, if we add some more of these courses, we can get more of these students a higher number, because right now our percentage (on the CCWMR) is about 56 percent. Moving forward with this, I foresee we could probably get really close to 100 percent of our students, which would take us from a three star on a report card, which is where we’re at right now, to a four or five star in the next couple of years,” Ryan said.
Each district in the state must have a business advisory council (BAC) and all BACs are attempting to help develop professional skills for future careers, build partnerships and coordinate experiences to create more opportunities for students. The state has also begun another initiative, the Career Pathway Support Network, to get more students involved in career tech education in grades 7-10.
Not only in the Lake to River region – Ashtabula, Columbiana, Mahoning and Trumbull counties under the lead of Youngstown State University – but in the state, Ashtabula County is a leader with its programming.
Buckeye Local Schools is among the better districts in the county in regard to career tech education.
“You can see Edgewood is one of the dark green (areas),” Wludyga said. “That’s the best color you can get on this map, and it ties directly into what we’re trying to do with the Business Advisory Council, matching goal number two, build those partnerships by expanding STEM education and those 21st century skills. That ties into those industry-recognized credentials that we’re talking about and what’s happening in Buckeye.”
During the last school year, 373 Buckeye students were enrolled in a career tech program including shop, family and consumer sciences (home economics), multimedia and information technology classes.
“All of those programs have opportunities to earn industry-recognized credentials,” Wludyga said. “The thing about industry-recognized credentials in that pathway is that Dr. Gerics and Mrs. Ryan have been doing a really great job of targeting and finding ways that are a good fit for Buckeye. You don’t have to be in a career tech program to earn an industry-recognized credential. You could do it, really, in any class, as long as you take that exam or that certification test to earn that credential.”
“While career tech is a great setting for that, it doesn’t have to happen within a career tech class, which opens the door to what Mrs. Ryan has been mapping out with that 12-point pathway to earn those credentials, pathway to graduation, increase your report card score,” Wludyga continued.