Getting students excited about upcoming statewide tests had Youngstown City Schools leaders and kids dancing, rapping and reciting poetry on Wednesday.
Cheerleaders helped kick off a pep rally at the Board of Education building.
Select students from every school in the district were invited to learn about ways to go back to their schools and be ambassadors for the upcoming graduation and achievement tests.
"I hope to encourage my peers around me and start a pep rally, hopefully, so we can be prepared for the tests that's coming up," said University Project Learning Center senior Shanay Robinson.
"I feel like our whole staff is there, our principal Mr. Johnson, I feel like he's real inspiring as well as a few other choice people," said UPLC senior Ato Harris. "We have a lot of support at that school."
It will be the first OGT/OAA tests since the district's big restructure.
Superintendent Dr. Connie Hathorn hopes to move from the academic watch to continuous improvement status.
"I'm looking forward to really seeing what we put in place and make sure it's working," he said. "We're using data more and more each day so we can identify kids now who are having difficulties in areas that we can provide intervention, and we're basing our instruction on what the kids need."
