- While students in grades 6-12 in Troy City Schools have indeed moved to fully-remote learning for a couple of weeks—as we talked about on Wednesday—the district has apparently changed its story on how it will deal with rona-related whipsawing in the future. Perhaps there should be a term for this too? Moving from an automatic response to high cases to a “we’ll-take-that-under-advisement” response. (Dayton Daily News, 11/11/20) The idea in Troy and other places where such a switch has occurred, it seems, is to try and minimize the whipsawing back and forth from hybrid learning to all-remote learning again and again due to changes in pandemic severity. But this in itself feels like just another area of whipsawing over which families have no control. While they do not use the term “whipsaw” (TM Jeff Murray 2020), the Enquirer covers the effect of such wild swings in weekly—and sometimes daily—changes in routines on parents and kids. Well, the headline says they’re talking about families, but all of the folks quoted in there are school and health officials. But that’s just it: the piece is entirely about how those insider folks think parents and kids are reacting. No actual parents or kids are given a say at all. Doesn’t seem super helpful to the analysis of this vital topic if you ask me. (Cincinnati Enquirer, 11/12/20)
- Staying on the same topic (see what I did there?), editors at the Toledo Blade have some thoughts on the proposed new school funding plan currently being fitted with rocket powered sneakers down in the Statehouse. (Toledo Blade, 11/12/20) Similarly, (and I use that term deliberately), the education specialist for the League of Women Voters of Ohio has similar thoughts on that funding plan. Like…really similar. (Cleveland.com, 11/13/20)
- I’m sure you’ve all been wondering—in those precious few moments not consumed by thoughts of coronavirus during the past many months—what’s going on in the Ohio school districts currently operating under the aegis of an Academic Distress Commission. You remember which ones I mean, right? The ones whose academic performance was so bad for so long that the state created a new mechanism of oversight to try and right their ships to provide better education for the children attending. Luckily for you, today I can provide you with two-thirds of an answer. Youngstown City Schools’ appointed CEO gave a wide-ranging update on the district he ostensibly leads. There’s a lot in there, so you should definitely read it all yourself. But I will summarize the highlights: The rona is so bad that all buildings are closed for the next two weeks. (Students have been on a fully-remote learning model for the whole semester—and will continue indefinitely—but most teachers had apparently been working from their buildings. Not anymore.) Medical clinics in the two district high schools will remain open for all comers. All food distribution efforts in the district will cease for the next two weeks also—as the rona was also being delivered on those routes. The entire freshman basketball team and Chaney High School has been quarantined and their season halted. All other sports are to continue without interruption at this time. Additionally, Choffin Career Center won some sort of award because the school’s “report card grades” have improved over the past three years (hmmm… interesting timing there). And finally, the district was swimming in money even before passage of a renewal levy earlier this month. Take that, 2020. (Mahoning Matters, 11/13/20) And in Lorain City Schools, a series of legal opinions and the delegation of authority to the elected school board were required to make sure the arrangement of Jeff Graham as boss and his wife as communications honcho was kosher going forward. As weird as all that sounds (including the bits about how the board can only increase her salary and how she can’t be tied in with the district’s lawyers anymore), it is actually progress, I think. The same arrangement in pre-ADC times required none of that fireproofing. (Elyria Chronicle, 11/13/20)
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