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- Everybody’s got great things to say about Toledo School for the Arts and its recent growth to make room for even more students. Not exactly sure where they think those new kids are going to come from, but that doesn’t even seem to be on their minds in their unabashed exclamations of love for this awesome charter school. (Toledo Blade, 1/13/25) Meanwhile, Summit Academy in Lorain is also poised for growth. The charter school, which primarily serves students on the autism spectrum or with attention deficits, has consolidated two separate buildings into one and is busily renovating and adding onto that building as the current K-8 structure prepares to add high school students in the fall. (Chronicle Telegram, 1/14/25)
- In case you missed it elsewhere, the Indiana bill which aims to dissolve districts where more than 50 percent of resident students choose non-district options is garnering feedback from far and wide. Particularly the bit where those districts’ remaining buildings would be “charterized”. There’s no real Ohio connection to the story yet, except that Fordham’s big boss Mike Petrilli says in this coverage that “If policymakers wanted to force [Indianapolis Public Schools] and similar districts to close some of its under enrolled schools, that I would support.” Which is the more logical first step that Ohio has at least attempted to pursue. (The 74 Million, 1/14/25)
- Beyond our eastern border, here’s a look at Ohio County (WV) Schools’ efforts to improve its bus routing. District leaders are really excited about the contractor they found to do the analysis, including the use of AI in the process and the fact that this enables them to develop multiple routing options for no additional cost. Once again, there’s no real Ohio connection to this story, but I sure wish there was. (The Intelligencer, Wheeling, WV, 1/14/25)
- Back here at home, the editorial board of the Toledo Blade are whining about vouchers and school funding without much data upon which to base their opinions. (Toledo Blade, 1/14/25)
- South Euclid-Lyndhurst City Schools leaders say that they have hard evidence that their all day ban on cellphone use is leading to higher student achievement. Specifically, after just one quarter of implementing the policy, the number of students earning a 3.0 GPA or higher doubled. “We had 41 percent of our kids on merit roll and honor roll, and that’s something we’re really proud of,” said the district supe. “It’s a huge improvement.” There you have it! (WKYC-TV, Cleveland, 1/14/25)
- Cuyahoga Community College not only offers a full ride scholarship for all Cleveland Metropolitan School District graduates who opt to enroll, they also offer extensive counseling and supports to help them make the transition and to persevere. This is all good and the story looking at this year’s efforts is nice. But we also learn in the story that many of these same students are also eligible for the Say Yes scholarship (also limited to CMSD kids), which provides even more money toward tuition (which would already be free for Tri-C) and even more coaching and support. This is starting to feel like overkill to me and the thought occurs once again that maybe these programs should branch out to other schools beyond CMSD. I just feel like the money and the support could be spread around to help students in charter and private and STEM high schools and not just overlap upon the same 2,100 district students every year. (Cleveland.com, 1/14/25)
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