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- Channel 4 News in Columbus has heard that Dublin City Schools is highly recommended by local parents of students with special needs, and that families are moving there specifically for the quality of services offered. District personnel are happy to explain at length how and why they are so awesome. If it were me telling the tale, I might have added the note that it ain’t cheap to live within the Dublin City Schools borders and that they do not allow interdistrict open enrollment, but I am probably alone in wanting to include a follow-up question of this nature and bring dim reality into an otherwise sunny story. (NBC 4 News, Columbus, 10/31/24)
- Dayton City Schools, too, is touting a sliver of its awesomeness today. Specifically, the “success” of its International School. The handful of Gadfly Bites subscribers with long-enough memories (howdy, you four; you rock, despite some questionable judgment in thrice-weekly reading material) will recall that this effort—to cram all non-English-speaking students from K-12 into one building along with the handful of local neighborhood students who wanted to attend—raised some questions with your humble clips compiler when proposed in 2022. One of my biggest concerns was a small student population at the start (even smaller than the gen ed school had when it was supposed to be closed due to chronic underenrollment). That has clearly been eliminated as a problem, given the student numbers touted here—one assumes by families having fewer options since all the English Learner resources of the district are now concentrated in this one building. Most or all of the 60 or so English-speaker students from the neighborhood seem to attend a separate Montessori program in the building. yay. And while district leaders say that students are learning English, growing in ability, and performing academically (although the school got one star on its report card, the least possible, but it’s “overall score” was higher than four other district buildings—by which I think they mean Performance Index), there are a lot more references to and focus on behavior management (as in, “how to behave in an American school”) than to test scores or reading prowess. So yeah. Feels like today’s theme is “tout awesomeness wherever you can”. But do so in the hope you don’t have to answer any follow-up questions. (Dayton Daily News, 11/1/24)
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