- I don’t know from this piece what they were doing before now, but school districts in Licking County are reportedly “becoming pro-active” these days in addressing chronic absenteeism in the wake of state report card outcomes which were adversely impacted by the quite large amount of it occurring. (Newark Advocate, 10/30/22) Meanwhile, in the “operating as closely to the same way as we have always operated” category, the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland is this week touting its schools’ trend-bucking performance on NAEP assessments. Not perfect, mind you, especially for eighth graders, but far superior to district and charter schools in The Land… If they do say so themselves. (Diocese of Cleveland, 11/1/22)
- Down here in central Ohio, school transportation is apparently so bad that even Columbus City Schools’ own families are being hosed regularly… (10TV News, Columbus, 10/31/22) …and it unfortunately doesn’t seem like the elected school board or district officials are taking it seriously, if this “discussion” at yesterday’s school board meeting is any indication. (ABC6 News, Columbus, 11/1/22) Due to the, shall we say, “elisive” nature of the Columbus school board’s discussion above, it is unclear what’s happening to students who don’t receive their needed busing on any given day. Transportation in suburban Reynoldsburg sounds equally bad, but we get some detailed information on how the problem is being handled. Surprise! It’s the return of widespread remote learning. To wit: The district’s entire high school student body is attending in person just two days per week. The most curious thing (for me, that is, YMMV): Ohio’s schools aren’t even required by law to transport high schoolers! (10TV News, Columbus, 11/1/22)
- Finally today, we told you back in August that Toledo City Schools’ plan to launch a CDL training program for district high schoolers went into the ditch earlier this year (see what I did there?) due to a zoning refusal by the city’s planning department. Turns out that I was being all pessimistic for no reason. This week’s happy, sunny Blade story tells us that everything is now back on track again (translation: starting in August 2023, a year late), thanks to Vice President Kamala Harris (translation: a truckload of federal largesse), and some benevolence by city officials (translation: the district caved and will entirely redo their plan the way the city wants). Kudos! (Toledo Blade, 10/31/22)
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