Gadfly Bites 1/15/21 – The science and the art

1. I won’t call them silver linings—waaaaaay too soon for that (thanks to my cousin for schooling me on that, painful as that conversation might have been)—but it seems like certain adaptations to the pandemic could benefit students far beyond 2020. For example, a wide swath of rural Logan County will have better access to broadband internet service thanks to a state K-12 connectivity grant. The hub will located in Riverside Local School District. Nice! (WDTN-TV, Dayton, 1/13/21) Meanwhile, a grant from Philanthropy Ohio and the Ohio Department of Education will help two small school districts in Morgan County implement what sounds like a mastery model of education. A real one! My longtime Gadfly Bites subscribers (are there really 17 of you now?!) will know how much I loooooove a proper mastery model. (Morgan County Herald, 1/13/21) Staff members in pandemic learning pods (by all of their various names and in all of their copious non-school settings) could soon move to the front of the line for Covid vaccinations in Cuyahoga County due to the importance of their education work. (Cleveland.com, 1/13/21)
    
2. Very swiftly after announcing a return to sports practices, Columbus City Schools announced its plan to return to some semblance of an in-person schooling model starting February 1—with a number of exceptions and caveats. There is no word about arrangements for students whose parents might not want them to come back to school buildings, but since the hybrid model exempts a lot of kids, one assumes there will be options for those folks too. One group of students who might find their options more limited in the new plan: students exercising school choice. There’s quite a bit of discussion here about transportation planning and how it might cramp the style of affect charter and private school students who have had the district’s bus fleet all to themselves for the last 10 months. The gears are clanking into motion, both literally and figuratively. (Columbus Dispatch, 1/13/21) Perhaps folks in Columbus will be heartened by the assessment of Lorain City Schools’ CEO (You Can’t Call Me Superintendent) Jeff Graham, whose district is just completing its first week of a hybrid learning model after being fully remote since March 2020. Says the CEO: “It’s easy to pick up on the science of [teaching kids both in person and virtually at the same time] but the art of it takes a little bit of time.” Dude should know about the art of things, I figure. (The Chronicle, 1/15/21)
    
3. And speaking of districts (still, despite it all) operating under the aegis of an Academic Distress Commission, Youngstown City Schools will soon be launching its parent university to help “strengthen the bond” between district and family. Y’town’s version has its own name—which is so cutesy that it requires an explanation every time it appears—and list of…let’s call them “highly-recommended” activities parents should do. (Youngstown Business Journal, 1/14/21) Meanwhile, Parma City Schools is starting the second year of its parent university. No cutesy name is appended to it, its offerings are noted several times as being free of charge, and the sample listing of activities provides quite a contrast from the Youngstown one. Quite. (Cleveland.com, 1/14/21)
    
4. And finally: Buy your lottery tickets today, folks. It’s for the kids. (WKBN-TV, Youngstown, 1/14/21)

Did you know you can have every edition of Gadfly Bites sent directly to your Inbox? Subscribe by clicking here.