We’re back a day early (that’ll teach you!) with a roundup of clips we missed between December 22 and 31, 2021. Back with regular thrice-weekly publication for 2022 starting tomorrow. You have been warned.
- I have never heard of tiny little Dalton Local Schools (in eastern Ohio, halfway between Wooster and Massillon), and as a first-time intro, this piece feels weird to me. In their year-end brag column (a staple of suburban and exurban news outlets in December), they focus on the fact that their brand new dean of students has seemingly accomplished everything he needed to do in that role—“locker organization” is one of only two exemplars provided—in just a few short months. (In the midst of a global pandemic, that’s what you want to cheer about?) Now the district has changed his title to “success coach” and he seems to be focused mostly on athletes. To wit: “We have student council, we have national honor society…but then we also want to look at our extracurricular activities and how do we help develop leaders that are in those programs as well.” I guess it’s a good thing there’s nothing else pressing. But is there nothing else? Really? (The Daily Record, 12/21/21)
- Speaking of year-end stories, the Vindy tried to encapsulate 2021’s ups and downs in Youngstown City Schools. 2021 ended as it began, with rancor and finger-pointing, and sounding like a Muppet parody of the TV show Succession in between. (Vindy.com, 12/23/21) Both the previous piece and this follow-up note that elected school board president Ronald Shadd is out of that role as 2021 ends. But Youngstown being Youngstown, his tenure did not end quietly. In the last week of the year, the chair of the Academic Distress Commission cut whatever ties existed between the commission and the elected board due to information he received regarding several members’ purported damaging communication to the elected board of Akron City Schools. “At best,” said the chair, “some of that communication was uninformed and comments were made out of ignorance. At worst, it was done with malicious intent and deception.” You will recall from these clips that Youngstown CEO Justin Jennings’ was up for an assistant superintendent position in Akron several weeks ago, but that the planned vote was suddenly delayed without explanation. (Vindy.com, 12/23/21)
- Let’s move on to some better news, shall we? School choice is praised extremely highly in this piece. I would tell you that it discusses in detail the difficulties involved in maintaining choice—including families traveling hours each day using their own cars—and that the schools are seen by parents as indispensable future-builders for their children. But you already know about all that, don’t you? I personally am very pleased that one of the state’s largest and most influential news outlets is so positive about school choice. (Columbus Dispatch, 12/23/21)
- Here is a brief but positive look at one of the first Say Yes to Education college scholarship recipients in Cleveland. Given the timing of the program launch and the young man’s entry into college, his getting there is probably not readily attributable to the program (that seems to be all down to him, and he deserves huge kudos for it), but keeping him moving forward to graduation is something that Say Yes can likely hang its hat on. (Spectrum News 1, 12/23/21)
- Finally, to put an appropriate pin in 2021 education news, we learned at the end of the year that operationalizing the new school funding formula required far more nerd work than perhaps its creators had planned on. Instead of phasing in the new formula in October, as hoped, “significant changes to the calculation and payment of state foundation funding” necessitated a bunch of “IT development and quality assurance testing” which, it seems, was still not complete at the end of the year, but is intended for rollout with monthly payments to schools in January. Auld acquaintance, indeed. (Gongwer Ohio, 12/27/21)
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