Gadfly Bites 10/9/24—Bring on the flex, bring on the heat

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1. This sounds pretty good to me, and folks at the TV news station across the border in West Virginia also seem to like it. See what you think. Bridgeport Exempted Village Schools has revamped their daily high school schedule to create what is termed a “flex” period every day. It’s meant to be used for academic enrichment in any of various ways. The main impetus was to boost math performance, but student activities have included tutoring, homework time, and college and career advising. Sounds great, right? Best of all, everyone seems to be on board with the overall goals of the effort. “It’s teachers sitting at the table with a couple kids, working with them on specifics of whatever that kid’s needs are at that moment,” said high school principal Jack Fisher “This is a really nice thing that we have implemented right now,” he added. “So far, it is going well.” Yay! (WTRF-TV, Wheeling, WV, 10/7/24)
   
   

2. This sounds interesting, too, although quite a bit further out of the box than the foregoing. Clay High School in northwest Ohio conducted a “controlled burn” event on school property this week. Students actually built the “burn pods” under the instructions of the local fire department and were present for the burn on Tuesday. Afterward, they joined fire investigators to examine the remains as a “simulated real-world crime scene and fire scenario” as part of some extremely hands-on science education. (WTOL-TV, Toledo, 10/7/24)
   
   

3. Of course, the good news cannot continue. On Monday, the Ohio Supreme Court denied the Attorney General’s emergency motion aimed to force Columbus City Schools to transport a large number of charter, private, and STEM school students while their “impractical to transport” cases are being mediated. (Columbus Dispatch, 10/7/24) AG Yost says he will press on with his lawsuit against the district regardless of this setback. “It shouldn’t take a lawsuit and an emergency motion to decide to follow the law,” he said in a news release following the Supreme Court’s decision. Supposedly, the district was supposed to start doing so anyway (for a small fraction of those students). “Columbus City Schools admitted the law was to transport the children,” Yost said on this point. “Glad these kids are finally getting the transportation they were entitled.” I mean, yeah. Good for him. But there is, even today, no word on whether that actually occurred or how it’s going. Honestly, though, why did I even bother to hope that there would be? (The Center Square, 10/8/24)
   

4. Continuing the can’t we think of the kids bad news, we learn in this piece that an out-of-state organization is all fired up over state building construction funds being awarded to religious private schools across the state. It’s a silly and pointless aspect of the story, IMO. In fact, the only reason I included this clip today is because we learn the criteria for projects being chosen (creating economic development and improving quality of life in the areas where awardees are located), because we get confirmation that charter schools and a bunch of non-school entities also got money using the same criteria, and because we get a list of the private schools that got funding (including two non-religious ones). So, you know: silver lining. (Cleveland.com, 10/8/24)

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