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- A story that includes the delicious disclaimer “written with the assistance of AI” attempts to cover a couple of points from newly-released survey results on how cellphone limitation is going in public schools across Ohio. The headline is an outright fabrication with no basis in data (and likely not in reality either). How would we even measure “focus” exactly? If you’d like to read the survey results for yourself—which only cover policy implementation efforts so far—it is here. And you might want to do it before the machines rise up and destroy it. (Cleveland.com, 12/5/24)
- The superintendent of Akron City Schools, who is in hot water with everyone these days it seems, has apparently also been using a feature of Gmail to send “confidential” emails to staff and board members. This makes emails impervious to saving, forwarding, copying, and printing and sets a time limit after which they will delete themselves with limited (perhaps no) ability to recover. The screen shot receipts are there, as you might have guessed, and were sent off to local media outlets pronto, prompting electronic howls of outrage. It is my fervent hope someone used old school Microsoft Paint to process their screenshots. Just sayin’. (Akron Beacon Journal, 12/4/24)
- In case you missed it, northeast Ohio was hit with some pretty strong lake effect snow earlier this week. Lakeside High School in the Ashtabula Area City School District collected a ton of snow on its roof while school was out for the weather emergency, and it collapsed yesterday, likely closing the entire building for the rest of the school year. (Building is less than 20 years old, btw, and has experienced roof problems since Day One. They don’t build ‘em like they used to, amiright?) Ashtabula Schools was closed all this week and when classes (hopefully) resume on Monday, high school students will be doing good old Zoom school until Christmas break. Supe says she hates going back to remote classes, but assures folks they will be doing it “the right way” this time. Unclear what that means, but one only wonders what they would have done if they hadn’t had the previous experience of slogging on after a disruption that closed buildings. Come January, high school classes will likely be housed in other district buildings, while existing students are shuffled around to make room. Interestingly enough, I discovered that the district has reported enrollment declines of about 800 students since 2018-19…which happens to be the approximate population of Lakeside High right now. Could it be that the Dragons won’t even need the extra high school space for a good long while? (IdeaStream Public Media, 12/5/24)
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